Systems are Saviors - Travis Barnes

There is something that works better than social media. There's something that works better than social media. Yes. Can you believe it? Everybody's like hiding behind computers and cell phones out of it. Oh yeah, I just gotta find the right Facebook ad. Yeah. Oh no, no, no. You don't have to find the right Facebook ad. You have to become the right leader.

What's up, Fitness fans? Welcome back to the future Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Malzone. This is episode number 151. Talk to Travis Barnes. So this guy's got a story. A really good one. Very compelling. The guy is uh very open, uh not scared of being vulnerable, and he speaks a whole lot of truth. And he knows his way around the fitness industry for sure. And um, you know, his journey from incarceration to building systems that literally saved his life into multi, you know, a multi-franchise owner. He's actually the franchisee, um, and the plans he has for growth. Uh it's just really cool. It's inspiring. There's a ton of super valuable information, uh, whether you're a fitness professional or an entrepreneur or a business owner or someone who is alive, really. Anybody is the one I'm getting at. So uh it's very powerful stuff and uh really excited to have him on the show. I'm really grateful that he did come on. Um before we get into it, I want to read a review. So let's find it. So it's on Stitcher here. Um it comes from E D G E S T Ed Guest. So Central Listening for Fit Bros. Uh he says, or she. I don't know, could be she, right? I absolutely love this show. Eric is extremely likable. I thank you. And the guests are always full of incredibly valuable information. Topics are wide-ranging, so it's not always your typical fitness content. It will often open your mind to much greater possibilities. Awesome. I'm I'm so glad that uh you wrote that review, and I really appreciate it. And you guys haven't yet, please go and leave a nice review. Um, subscribe to this podcast, it goes a long way, and uh, I'll just keep doing what I do. So uh this episode is also brought to you by Level Five Mentors, my newest endeavor. Um I love it. I love what I do. Uh I love helping uh entrepreneurs uh get to what we call the five levels of freedom of uh time, money, relationships, purpose, and health. Uh really, really important. I think it's the core of what entrepreneurs want. You know, if you try to get out of whack, um, out of balance in any one of those and and not respect the others, uh it comes back and bites you. So ultimately that's what we want, in my opinion, right? As entrepreneurs, we want freedom. We want to create impact. And uh that's what we help people do. So go check out the website level five mentors. That is L-E-V-E-L, the number five mentors.com. You can check out more um websites still honestly being built out. Uh some of the copy isn't quite where we want it yet. And uh, but it doesn't mean you can't go there and you can't take the assessment. So those five freedoms I talked about, um, you can go in and see how you're doing by taking a simple assessment and uh love to chat with you about it afterwards too. So go check out levelfive mentors.com if you're an entrepreneur in the fitness, health, and wellness space or any entrepreneur in general, um, we'd love to talk to you and see if we can be an asset to you. And it's not just one-on-one business coaching and mentoring, uh, but it's also um, you know, eventually gonna be a workshop model. Uh, do a couple workshops every year, have a one-on-one mentor, and have a very, very powerful networking group um that'll really catapult your business to the next level. So if you need to get unstuck, if you're feeling stuck, we all feel stuck as entrepreneurs, uh, hit us out. Um more than happy to get on a free call and just chat it up with you. So go check it out. Now, without further ado, episode number 151 with Travis Barnes. Enjoy the ride. All right, and we're live. Travis, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show. Yeah, man. Uh, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I mean, number one, the inspiration that people gather from you and your story and and uh, you know, how far you've come and and your overall perspective on life and business is is amazing. And there's a lot of great nuggets. I mean, you you get to coach people, and we just, you know, previous to recording, we talked about some some major topics I'm excited to get into. So um, you know, always as always, the best place to start is is with you. Um give us a little about your your story and kind of how you got to where you are now.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I'll tell you, uh, I like to share my story because I know that we all struggle in some way. You know, we all have adversity to overcome. And that's what my place of business is about. You know, it started by overcomers and we attract overcomers. And I think that today I'm sure I'm talking to some overcomers. So uh what I had to overcome is I had to overcome a decade of incarceration to get to where I'm at. And where I'm at today, uh international speaker, franchise, or a lot of people have limiting beliefs. You know, we start to label ourselves in life, and labeling is disabling. I could have labeled myself as I got out and said, okay, you know, I'm an ex-con. I got no hope, nobody's gonna hire me. Uh, but instead, I believed in something different that got me to where I'm at today. Uh, to give a little history on that, I first fell in love with systems. Systems actually saved my life. I don't think anybody would ever say that, you know, oh processes and procedures and things like that. And they're not like, oh yeah, that's gonna save my life. But it's funny, I was in prison and I was trying to figure out how to take care of myself. I had a wife and daughter at home that were struggling, and I was like, you know, what can I do? And you know, I don't know if you know anything about, but you get paid a uh a few cents an hour to clean up something. But there was this furniture factory. And this furniture factory, if you could get in it, you could make a dollar an hour. Now that doesn't sound like much to probably the listeners, but that was pretty good in prison. And if you work 15 hours a day on the second half day, you can make two dollars an hour. Now, if you do that all day long, seven days a week, you can not only take care of yourself, but you can send some money home. So I got on this waiting list and I got in this furniture factory, and how you get that dollar an hour is you become the lead man in the uh in the business. You know, you got to be like in one of those departments where you become the lead man. And so I was looking around and I'm like, who's going home? Who's going home? And they were really concerned about this guy, Ryan. This guy, Ryan, had been there 20 years, 20 years. That's right. You know, I was doing a decade of incarceration, so I was surrounded by people that were doing some pretty lengthy times. And this guy had been there 20 years, and it made all the correctional officers that supervised that area nervous. They're like, what are we gonna do without Ryan? So I came up with this profound idea, pretty simple and pretty profound. I said, uh, has anybody ever sat beside Ryan and wrote it down? What it is that he does? Like, oh, do you want to do that, Barnes? And I'm like, yeah, I guess like that would mean I would have this job, right? You know, yes, you know, I'll do it. And so I started writing step-by-step instructions for his position that eventually became an operations manual for that factory. And in prison, I wrote my first operations manual. Well, you know, obviously I got that P grade position, that top grade position, and then I was able to take care of myself. I was able to send a couple hundred dollars home a month, and that was great for a wife and daughter that were struggling, which thank God I still have that wife today. She was like an angel with an assignment, you know, waiting and visiting. You know, it was just great. And uh I come home, and lucky me, my first fitness job is in a very chaotic business. Nobody's opening the same way, nobody's closing the same way, nobody does a sales tour the same way. You know, people come in and they feel like they got to get cleaned, uh get trained by certain clients, uh, you know, a certain way in order to have some consistency. And uh, you know, I said, why don't we write down our best practices? Why don't we write down our best practices and agree what they are and then all stick to them? And when we did that, pretty amazing things happened. The business started to grow. I got a promotion. They said, make this guy the manager. Then they said, make this guy the chief operations officer. You know, let's open up multiple locations with him. Because it's amazing what you can do for your business or someone else's if you'll just take time to systemize. Yes, systems or save yourself some time, energy, and money. Or the other day I heard it say, save yourself stress, time, energy, and money, right? Because systems should run the business and people should run the systems. So interesting story of overcoming adversity and believing something different for yourself, but most importantly, using systems along the way to accomplish what I have in business.

Yeah, yeah, awesome. I um what which prison were you in, if you don't mind me asking?

Uh, multiple. I was actually shipped around like a lost package. Uh so I was originally from upstate New York, um, just kind of a small town guy, and I went to Las Vegas. And Las Vegas, uh, my first job in the Gold's gym around a bunch of people that looked healthy but weren't so healthy. Uh, you know, uh in the bodybuilding world back then, you know, drugs could be pretty prevalent. And so I was introduced to drugs and it took me on a wayward journey. And I started off in Las Vegas. That was where I became incarcerated. But when you're in the federal system, uh they ship you to Oklahoma. I wound up in uh Lewisburg, I wound up in Allenwood, I wound up in McKean. So I got to visit a lot of places and uh then finally come home. It was uh pretty, pretty uh interesting adventure. Even flew on Conair.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it wasn't quite like Nicolas Cage, but I never thought that I would go to Vegas in a U-Haul and then come home Conair. So that was interesting.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. And 10 years, I mean, did it um, you know, do you look back into now? I mean, I I was just I actually have a friend visiting old friend right now who we've known each other since we were six, and we were having a beer last night, and we're like, we're 42, dude. Like you would like college was over 20 years ago. Like that, you know, we were just contemplating on how fast time goes. Was when you're in it, did it did it go slowly for you? Was it going quickly? Like what what was that, what was time like for you in that in that environment?

Yeah, that that's a that's an interesting question because I think I have a different perspective on time today than most people have. Uh of course, initially, you know, it was slow, you know, you're locked down 23 and a half hours a day. But I have to say that once I got reconnected with my purpose in life, uh, you and I were talking not too long ago, and I said, you know, I heard a great quote, and let me share it with the listeners and the listeners. Um, it goes like this the meaning of life is to discover your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away. So when I got caught up in drugs, you know, that clearly wasn't my purpose, right? And so as I started reconnecting with who I was as a person, the passions that were born in my heart, of course I got reconnected with fitness. Then I started taking these courses, and eventually I was teaching adult continuing education on how to become a certified coach and and you know what you need to know about nutrition and just different things. I'd have guys come to me, hey, I'm I'm going home in a few months. Can you help me lose 30 pounds? I want to look better. Yeah, of course. You know, that's what I do. And a little something you learn along the way. When you're willing to do something for nothing, you'll earn the right to do it for a lot more later on. You know, it's like you got to be willing to be so passionate about something that you just do it for free and then you'll get paid for it later on. You got to be able to put in like that time first. I feel like a lot of people nowadays don't want to put in the time. But my point is to your question, once I got reconnected with that, I started feeling like I was running out of time to do everything I wanted to do because prison became my fitness center. It became my gym. I was like the trainer on the compound. You know, I'm training people left and right for tunas and stamps. That was prison currency. You know, oh, I'll give you a few tunas and stamps. People kind of help me eat and help me write letters home and I help them lose weight. And then I was taking college courses and I was taking additional certifications and things like that. And I was like, man, I have some goals that I guess I'm just not gonna hit before I get out of here. And so that was interesting. And then even more, you know, like because I'm like, I'm almost nervous about leaving, right? Oh, I won't accomplish everything. But I was like, it's okay, you're going home, right? You know, this is Yeah.

That's fascinating. Yeah, you're worried about you're worried about running out of time.

Right, right, right, right. You know, doing all this time, and then I worry about running out of time. And then uh and then I come home and and and it's it's a blessing and a curse. I I will always feel this way, like I'm making up for lost time. You know, I was passionate about fitness from age five, 12 years old. I'm working out, taking other people to the gym. I got my first fitness job at 19 in the Gold's gym in Las Vegas, Nevada. You know, fitness was supposed to be my career, and then I wound up on that wayward path. And so when I came home, granted, I'd still been doing fitness and still stayed pretty much connected with that kind of thing, but I felt like I was making up for lost time. Like, you know, what could I have been if I had stayed on track and you know, my family that was struggling without me, I needed to give them so many things that they hadn't had. And so I feel like I always look at time differently than people do because I've lost so much of it. And I think a lot of times people take it for granted how much they have. Like they look at things and they say, Oh, I got all this time. You know, you might have the opportunity of a lifetime right now, but you have to realize that your opportunity has a lifetime. Right? There are some things that if I had been home, if I had been free, I would have been able to do them better back then than I can do them now. Like, for example, I train a lot of coaches nowadays, you know, just to become great coaches for our franchise organization. But I'm not gonna lie, they can do things in their 20s that I can't do in my 40s, right? You know, I mean, it's just a little bit different. So uh, you know, you try to make up for that lost time as much as you can with family, with uh progress, success, and different things. And I think that that's been it's been a driver for me, and sometimes to a fault to where I wanted to make sure that I made up for that time that I lost.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you didn't lose time, you just went into a deep period of development, right? Yes. That's uh I don't know. I mean, I I didn't I didn't I haven't walked a single day in your shoes, but that's you know, from our short conversation, it sounds like you uh you made the most of the time. Yeah, you really did. Um, and that's that's crazy. I I uh I really appreciate it. And so tell me now, like, you know, from that point, and then you you know you got into uh was it the Gold's Gym you said and start working on systems? Um did I get that?

The Gold's Gym was the first job when I came home the uh physical therapy and fitness center. Uh that company was called ProCare Physical Therapy and Fitness.

Okay. Yeah, so walk me from there to where you are now, because now you're you're building franchises of your own. Yeah, that was that's that's a that's that's a lot of that's a lot of steps in between.

Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of steps. And uh just to kind of give you the short story on that, there was more to overcome. You know, it was interesting coming home too because I have to go to a halfway house for six months and I'm putting my application and and I'm getting calls at the halfway house, which is like a payphone that hangs there. Sometimes I'm not there to answer, so somebody else answers. And when this fitness company finally got a hold of me, they said, Yeah, we've been calling for you. And sometimes it sounds like a fax machine, and then one time your roommate answered, and I was like, Yeah, I'm going through a transition right now, you know. But I got the job, and and just like I told you, you know, I was able to systemize their business and get promoted and things. And so, right when you think everything's going well, you know, I get my family into their own home because my family prior to was staying with my mother, God bless her. You know, she opened up her home to my wife and daughter while I was away. But now they got a home of their own. And now I'm the chief operations officer of this guy's business. And I even write a book with results fitness. I had been part of their mastermind, and so Rachel and Alan Cosgrove, they are writing a book and looking for other fitness people to co-author. And so I get the honor of co-authoring with them this book. And that's pretty good, you know, because now people want you to talk about the book and everything else. And something happened with the owner of that company. The owner of that company got a little bit jealous. He got a little jealous, and he said, you know what? I don't want this guy to be the face of my business anymore. I want to be the face of my business. And so an interesting thing happened over the course of about a year. He was becoming jealous. There was a flood of 2011 that came right through Pennsylvania in the New York area and flooded our house to the second floor. We got moved into a FEMA trailer. It's uh a few days after Thanksgiving, and I get let go. So now I'm living in a FEMA trailer. Yeah, right. FEMA trailer, house, right? I'm like, man, haven't I had it tough enough in my life? You know, right when I think things are, you know, going well, something happens. And isn't that life? You know, it's peaks and valleys, you know. You're on a peak, you're you're gonna see a valley and you're gonna have to go through it to get back to the next peak. It's like a a success cycle. And so there I am on an unemployment check, living in a FEMA trailer at the holidays. I start, I start becoming a traveling trainer because I don't know what to do. I got a Nissan Center, I got kettlebells busting out the trunk, you know. I'm just uh I'm trying to make it, trying to make it. And uh, it was an interesting thing that began our business. My father was going to church with a lady that had a commercial space for rent, and the lady said, you know, have your son come check out my space. And my father's so persistent. It wasn't a good idea. I mean, it well, let me correct that. Turned out to be a fabulous idea. But at the time, it didn't look like a good idea logistically. It didn't look like a good idea because he was inviting me to come someplace that was a half hour away from my nearest client in a city where I wasn't known to a woman who was running a commercial space and I had no money. I'm uh in a FEMA trailer, on an unemployment check. Like, this is not a good scenario. But he was so persistent. I'm like, okay, here's my plan. I'll go there, I'll look around the space, I'll tell the lady, hey, I'm living in a FEMA trailer, I'm on an unemployment check, and uh, that'll be it, right? So I go in there, and adjoining that space that she had for rent was her salon. And so she meets us in her salon, and her salon is like uh a little over the top, to be honest with you. She's got all these Christian quotes on the wall and this music playing and stuff, and I'm like, okay, this, I didn't even know you could do this with a public business, you know. I mean, because she's very, you know, overt in her beliefs. And so she loses me in her space, and then you know, we get all done with the tour, and so I give her the line that I've rehearsed. You know, ma'am, you have a very nice face here. Just let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm living in a FEMA trailer, I'm on an unemployment check, and I don't have any money. So uh if I ever get things together, I'll let you know, and maybe I can come back and talk to you more about your space. And she looks at me and she says, Oh, I don't care about any of that. All I know is God told me that you're supposed to be here. I was like, What? So I look at my wife, you know. I'm like, whoa, this lady's a little crazy here, you know, like she thinks she's talking to God about us and that we're supposed to move in. And so we drive away and we knew that that traveling trainer thing was not sustainable. And I'm like, this lady's gonna give us a shot, you know, like what if we could get a loan for a little bit of equipment? And you know, what if we could get the newspaper, do a little advertising, we could get started. Yeah. And so we decided to go for it based on that opportunity. And we began in 1,300 square feet with 14 members, to what quickly grew to five locations in less than four years and 1,200 members because of our focus on systems, because of our focus on customers. You see, if you focus on customers, you realize profits, but if you focus on profits, you lose your customers. And we were just so focused on giving people the proper care that they deserve when you call it coaching, that it really grew. It spread like wildfire. And you know, it seemed like a calling for me to be so passionate about systems to eventually franchise. So uh another interesting story of overcoming, not only overcoming a decade of incarceration, but overcoming a flood, overcoming the uh being on an unemployment, you know, starting a business. You want to talk about starting a business from nothing. We were at less than zero, you know. So it was pretty crazy. Pretty crazy.

Wow, man. Well such great stories. So systems. Let's let's talk about that for a bit. Um I know it's not the sexiest topic out there, right? But uh it's it's huge. I mean, I every time I've built systems, uh, it's freed up my life. It's freed up me to do other things, do higher level things within my business. And it's really important. And when you start looking, like if you're consulting somebody, and I know you work with uh a lot of fitness business professionals and entrepreneurs too. You know, when you start looking at development of systems, where where do you start? Like, how do you how do you start identifying what needs to be systematized? How do you start building that? How do you start coaching people through that?

Yeah, you know, a lot of times people think of systems and and that's what they feel. They're like, well, systems aren't sexy because, like, you know, I gotta think about processes and human resources and maybe like accounting stuff comes to mind. But you know, the thing is, you are the most important system that you have. And to all the listeners, you are sexy, right? I mean, right? You know, you're a sexy beast, you've built this business that's growing and you're juggling too much. And here's the problem people keep coming to you and you keep having to do everything because you've never written down what it is that you do so well and taught it to other people. You haven't looked at all the functions that actually make up what runs your business and started dividing those functions into specific. Areas of responsibility where you said, okay, this person will now be accountable for that, and this person will now be accountable for this other thing, and then I can just do these things, right? And so that's the first thing that we need to realize is that you are actually the most important system that you have. We created an extraordinary trainer checklist, and this is how it was born. At first it was Cindy and I. We're opening, we're closing. We even slept it, we slept at the business because we're like, okay, there's a couch in the upstairs, and it's gonna snow tonight. Some of our clients will still show up, and we need to be able to make it here to open. So let's just sleep here. So, like, that's a kind of commitment that we had, and we would sleep at the business, we would open, we'd close, but eventually we grew and we're like, hey, we don't have to open and close anymore. But then there was a problem. There's a problem because we would turn these sessions over to people and we did it without a lot of training. We would give them a polo and we would say, Here you go, you know, help us out. And then we'd ask the customers, we'd ask our clients, we'd say, you know, hey, how did it go? When Patrick or whoever, you know, trained you. And they'd be like, Oh, well, it was okay, but it wasn't like when you do it. So then we're like, oh no. The first thing your ego wants to tell you is that you're so amazing, nobody can do what you can do, right? Exactly. Yeah, right. Don't listen to your ego, it's poison, right? Because really what happened is I never taught Patrick or anybody else that I was giving a polo to back then. You know, I was just giving them a shirt that said journey on it, and you know, go ahead. And that's not training. I created an extraordinary trainer checklist from that based on what we do. Like, how do we prepare for the session? What's the environment like that we're welcoming them into? What things happen during the workout? Like, are we making contact with each station, you know, every set? Um, you know, are we giving like a coaching cue, a compliment, or a correction to each person? You know, like what is it that we do that makes them feel so connected to us when we end our sessions? We pull a freezing cold towel from the freezer and hand it out. And if we do that, and Patrick doesn't do that, well, people are gonna want to train with us just because of the cold towel, you know? So like it gets right down to systems and realizing make sure that what that thing is that you do so well, that grew your business, that you teach it to other people. Because that's your first step and getting off the floor and instead of working in the business, working on the business and starting to do things that really move the needle. So systems can be sexy, especially when you start with yourself, right? You know, right? Hopefully you feel that you're sexy.

Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's such an excellent point in how the ego oftentimes holds us back from freedom or growth because of that exact factor, right? Um you know, that it's interesting. I mean, this this podcast, right? Well, actually, let me back up. So one of the first business coaches I had uh in the gym days was was Andy Patronic. And uh one of the first exercises he had me and my business partner do was write down every single thing that that takes place that the business needs to go on. From like, okay, coaching classes is obvious, making payroll obvious, but then like, okay, well, what happens when the toilet paper runs out, right? Who gets it? Where do they go? What type of toilet paper, right? Like these little things, right? You can do single ply. I remember getting a complaint from my clients, be like, hey, I love you guys, but for the money you charge, you need to be getting double play, right? If not triple ply. I was like, okay, point taken, right? Because that was a breakdown of a system. Someone went out and bought toilet paper that bought the wrong toilet paper. And uh, you know, the point is he every little thing that needs to take place, right? And then we're like, oh wow, there's actually a lot to it. So what can we start taking out? And you put a dollar amount to it. How much would you pay someone to do that? Right. Um, and then you start taking those things in blocks and you start, you know, creating an admin position, creating, you know, something for the cleaning staff, right? Because a lot of times people complain like my cleaning staff's awful. I don't do this, this, and this. Well, did you give them a checklist? Did you give them items that they need to do? And it comes, it falls back on us. It's like, well, if that stuff's not getting done, then you're not communicating something clearly. And this podcast alone, I mean, if people out there who do podcasts, do you do a podcast? Do you have one? I don't have a podcast. It's a lot of work. Yeah, right? It's a lot of work. And uh I remember for a long time when I was first starting my podcast, and this is 500 interviews I've done uh between two of them. You know, if I do all the work from the editing to the, you know, uploading to the to Libsyn to doing the artwork to doing all that, I won't have time to do anything else. Right. And but you you get to that point too of like, well, I think this is a big part for people. Well, it's just faster if I do it. Right. Yeah. Which is it's not true. Yeah. I mean, maybe it took me, so I wrote my SOP out for this podcast in about an hour and a half, two hours, right? Very detailed with videos describing exactly what to do at each point. And all I do now is I hit record, I talk to people like you, and then I put it in a dropbox folder and everything else happens, right? Because I train people. That has freed up so much time. My podcast only takes me, what are we gonna? We're gonna record for an hour today, right? If I do two weeks, it takes me two hours. That's it. And I record some intros. And that, like, to me, is like if people are like, well, you should start a podcast. Oh, geez, podcasting takes so much time. It must be, you must be busy all the time. Like, not really. Right. Uh see, because you systemize it. You systemize it. Yeah, and it's it's huge. And I've learned that so much of how to do that. And it's you're you're so spot on. And there is um, you you run a program, I want to get this right. Um creating rapid change to get out of the red in three steps, right? That's intriguing to me because I mean, you and I know the reality of many gym owners out there, or you know, fitness business owners, is you get into it because there's passion and there's love. You want to help people, right? You love the coaching, you love doing those things, and then all of a sudden you start a business. Yeah. What happens is the business overwhelms you, right? And maybe you're not, you know, uh, what is the what is the quote that everyone grossly overestimates what they can get done in a year, but underestimates what they could do in 10. And everyone thinks that they want it, like if I'm not at this amount, you know, in one year, I'm I'm failing. And um to put a lot of pressure on themselves, but then they find themselves in the red, they're not profits, they lose a couple clients, right? So what is that process that you run people through to get from red to black?

Well, the first thing that we do is we do a little assessment. You know, we do assessments on our clients as uh training clients to discover dysfunction so that we can correct the dysfunction and build upon the strengths. So I do give out a three R assessment, and the three R assessment starts out with recruitment. How are you doing with recruiting members and recruiting staff, and then retention? Do you have retention systems built in where you're nurturing those people so then that way you can keep them there a long time so that you don't have attrition rates that are higher than your new member rates? You know, that's certainly a dying business, right?

Right.

So, you know, we have our recruitment, we have our retention, and then we look at our revenue streams. We say, you know, how are you doing with you know building multiple revenue streams and what are you doing to bring in revenue? And so once they've assessed their business, they can see, okay, well, here's some areas of dysfunction that I need to correct. So step one in this three-step process is let's correct the dysfunction, let's identify some missing systems and put those systems in. And then if you are in the red, which many people are, like you said, you alluded to this. You're like, okay, I started this because I'm passionate about it, but now I found out I'm in a real business and I'm in over my head. And so then when you find out that you're in over your head, you start thinking about things like do I have to close my doors? Do I need to get another job and do this part-time? Do I need to get a loan? Do I need to get a partner? You know, what do I need to do? And we forget about our raving fans. We forget about the people that are already in our business that support us. What you're saying is you need a cash infusion. You need a cash infusion so you can create a little cushion that hopefully, while you're fixing these systems, it's going to take you through the hard times and then on to a more systemized business. So we teach them to run a founding member program. Uh founding member program can be a tax sale, it can be an anniversary sale. I call it a founding member program, it's because it's how we open up locations. We look for people that want to pay for a year up front, and we will give them a bonus month. They'll get 13 for the price of 12, 13 months for the price of 12. They'll get a bonus month for a loved one non-member. But that is something that they can go and give away because they're about to become a paid and full member. Now, we all know what that means. That means no more recurring revenue on the part of that member. Well, what we need is a trial in there that we can convert to replace that recurring revenue while we're building up our cash cushion. And that's why we also give away that bonus month for somebody else. So then that way we can get in that trial member. And then sometimes there's some other swag gifts like a founding member t-shirt or whatever. Now, if you're not just starting your business, rename it. Don't call it a founding member, call it an anniversary sale or call it an update sale. We're doing facility updates, whatever it is you want to do, you know, something that your members can get behind and say, Yeah, we want to support you. We're a fan of you, we want to see you stay in business. And so get that cash infusion. That's step two. So, step one, we identify you know missing or broken systems and we fix them. Step two, we get a cash infusion. And step three, there is something that works better than social media. There's something that works better than social media. Oh, yes, can you believe it? Everybody's like hiding behind computers and cell phone side. You're like, oh yeah, I just gotta find the right Facebook ad. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, no. You don't have to find the right Facebook ad. You have to become the right leader. You have to become the right person to be in charge of your business. The right person to be in charge of your business is somebody that gets out there and connects with the connectors in your community. Thank you, Malcolm Gladwell, for writing the tipping point and teaching all of us that what we need to do is connect with connectors if we want to tip our business over the tipping point to where everybody wants a piece of our business. And why I'm suggesting that you connect with connectors is so that you can run corporate challenges. Corporate challenges where you can bring in, we brought in 150 people from a hospital for a corporate challenge and we converted 70%. So let me ask the listeners how would having a hundred new members in your club change your business? I know a hundred new members for us, they pay $167 per month. That's an extra almost $17,000 in monthly revenue, right? So if you're in the red right now, you know you're teetering, you got a few thousand, consider a corporate challenge. So that's step one, two, and three. Step one, fix the systems. Step two, cash infusion. Step three, aggressively pursue new members with something like a corporate challenge. That's done even better for us than Facebook has. And what I also do with people, in addition to our three R assessment, is I teach them to build their business, right? Like let's systemize this thing. There's six components, and I use a teaching map and I call it Fitbiz. Here it is. F is for figure out your organizational structure. We don't care who what the hierarchy is, it's not a hierarchical type of system. What it should be is an accountability chart. Identify those functions, like what you were talking about earlier, to systemize your podcast. Identify those functions that make your business run. Tony Shea said in the book Delivering Happiness, the most important thing in your company is not the people. Now I was like, whoa, what do you mean by that? The most important thing in your company is the pipeline. You know, the pipeline that advances people to help out more and more behind the scenes to help make that company run, right? So there should be a pipeline of people that are supporting the business. So figure out your organizational structure as the F in fitness. I stands for invest in your talent. Invest in your talent. What are your hiring systems? Turnover is expensive. If you keep winding up back on the floor, because you have to go out there and make up for a trainer that's leaving, you know, you're probably not hiring the right coaches or you're not investing in them well enough to make sure that they stay. So you need to have good hiring systems. That's super important. The team in Fit Business retailer marketing. There's 18 different forms of marketing. We're just scratching the surface when we're talking about corporate challenges. There's many more. BS or boost your sales. If you get nervous when somebody else answers your phone, if you get nervous because somebody else is doing a sales tour and you're like, oh no, what are they gonna say? Again, that's your fault, right? That's your fault because you haven't created a phone script, you haven't created a sales tour that they're gonna do. And then the I is initiate operations. We talked about this one earlier, too. We said, you are the most sexy system that you have, right? So you got to write down what it is that you do. And then finally, the Z is for zip up your financials. We don't want to be throwing money out the back door faster than we're bringing it in the front door. So we should actually run our numbers, run our business based on numbers that work. Like, for example, don't just hire somebody because you want to have some help. Hire somebody with an allowable number of hours that you figured out. My compensation budget for a group training facility has got to stay at 40% or less. So, what do I need to do? What are my allowable number of hours? You might find out that you have to work a little bit more than you thought you did right at the moment, you know. So run it off of that kind of thing and organizational structure, and that's your playbook of systems. That essentially is your operations manual. That's the thing that we build in uh the Fitbiz Mastery course that I work with people on.

Yeah, right on, man. Yeah, the numbers are a scary thing for a lot of people, misunderstood or just not even known, right? That's uh that's a big that's a big thing. Uh tell me a little bit more about the corporate challenge. What does that entail?

What does that look like from uh, you know, yeah, we like to bring people in for a 21-day challenge, and we like to communicate to different corporations that it's also team building. Many times they're looking for wellness points, and some of their wellness points that they get with their insurance companies come from organizing challenges just like the one that we're going to organize for them. So, depending on the size of the company, we'll put together teams of two to four or three to five, and then we give away um different advantages on the scale. Maybe for the listeners that have watched Biggest Loser, like you know, they got an advantage because they won like the contest or whatever. For us, the advantage comes from you named your team, you got a 1% advantage on the scale for your team. You created a team t-shirt, you got a 1% advantage because we want to have camaraderie, we want to have Facebook posts going on with these t-shirts and things like that. But ultimately, it's pretty simple to run because the team with the greatest percentage of body weight loss at the end wins the challenge. We like to make it a low barrier to entry, something 25, 30, depending on your area, maybe 50 bucks is a low barrier to entry. Whatever you set of that. So then that way, what you can do is create a grand prize out of the registrations. Ultimately, for us, it's pretty much a free 21-day challenge because we're using those registrations to create something like a $500 or $1,000 grand prize. And then there's a big carrot. Many people come through the door saying, I'm just here to win the money. And then they find out that they were actually there for something different. They were there because it feels so much better to be healthy now. It feels better to have more energy, to feel stronger again, uh, the connections that they develop along the way. And so, yeah, uh, it's always a nice thing to think, oh, I'm gonna get paid to lose weight. So I'll go in and I'll lose some weight. And then we find that with our nurture systems that we have throughout those 21 days of getting a couple emails a week, getting a couple texts per week, realizing what it's like to have a coach in your life, standing beside you while you're weighing in, high fiving you because you made a good, uh, had a good week, you know, another step towards your goals, or helping you find out the reason why you didn't make another step becomes a valuable thing in their life. And then we convert them within those 21 days and we shoot for uh 60% conversions. We've had as high as 70%. I think industry average is around 50%.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. So, you know, let's let's talk a little bit about your franchise and and the systems you're putting in. And um, you know, what what makes you guys different? Is it the model, right? What is it that makes you guys different?

Well, you know, earlier I was talking about what made us grow so quickly. And I think that we have to stay focused on the thing that made us successful in the beginning. Many times people grow and they lose that focus. They're like, oh no, you know, like I don't know what happens, but but we do that. We get distracted. So for us, we're on a race to the top, and we're gonna let other people have a race to the bottom. You're gonna see certain things are kind of peaking, you know, whether it be CrossFit or group training. And many people are going towards different models, like 45-minute models or 30-minute models, and and they're trying to herd people in and hurt them out. And and I don't think that they know their names. I I think it's just kind of like a class, but we called it group coaching, but it's no longer coaching. So, what makes us different is we are gonna win the carrying game. That's what we want to have. We want to be the most systemized business for caring that there is. So we are really good at learning names. Many people, if you ask them, you know, hey, uh, what's one word that you'd use to describe your business? They would say community. But my challenge to you is what system do you have that creates that community? Like what system do you have that when somebody walks through your door that they feel like norm from cheers, where it's like, you know, you know that's norm, right? So what we have is a know your clients report that comes out weekly. And what that know your clients report does is it shows pictures with name, goal, limitation. People are required to study it. We do 25 for 25. That means if you can name 25 of the pictures that we're gonna put up on the screen, that you're gonna get 25 bucks at one of our team meetings, you know, different things to really make sure that we're learning names, and that's just the beginning. You know, I mean, we're celebrating birthdays, anniversaries. You hit 20 pounds with us, we're hanging a metal around your neck, you know, 50-pound weight loss, just different things that we do to really celebrate people. And I think that that's just so important in an industry that I think is really having a race to faster and faster sessions where it's impossible for people to be known. So, you know, we're going a little bit opposite, right? You know, we got 90-minute sessions, but it's only 54-minute workouts, but we got a half hour before. Just because you're in a group training session, I think if we're going to call it coaching, there should be an opportunity to get weighed in. There should be an opportunity to turn in a food journal, there should be an opportunity to have your results tracked every six weeks. In our group training sessions, that are sometimes as many as 50 people, and we just have a higher number of coaches on the floor to make sure they're getting trained well. With 50 people coming into a session, we still do performance testing, we're still able to track how they're getting stronger and give them reports on it. Because that's the idea, right? We said we want to do group training, and people are supposed to be able to pay less but still get the same advantages. But I feel that there's a lot of companies that just aren't giving out those advantages. They're not giving out the advantages of one-on-one training, but trying to talk people into it, saying, Oh, yeah, yeah, you're still gonna get what you got one-on-one. We're just gonna do it in a group, but then you know, you just gotta get in here and get out, right? You know, so uh that's what makes our company different. We want to keep that heart-centered focus that we had in the beginning that was all about caring for the customers and letting it grow from there. And that's how we'll continue to franchise.

Yeah, that's great, man. That's great messaging. I've been working with a franchise uh multiple locations that, you know, they do 30-minute workouts. You show up whenever you want.

Whenever you want.

Whenever you want. You show up whenever you want, right? There's always a trainer there, right? And you just, it's 30 minutes, you start and you go through the stations, and then you're out. And uh, you know, you would think that that's that's an advantage in the market because people are like, well, I can show up whenever I want. But starting to look at and actually serving people within who are the clients, it's not that big a deal. And you what you look, here's a funny thing. You look at when people show up, they show up at the same time every day. So you might as well have a class, like 759, 801, right? Like we're like, oh my God, this is this is so telling. And there's no community. There's just no community. How can you, how can you build community behind that? And I think that's the thing that if you want to have a business that lasts that has those long-term, high value clients that stay with you forever, those little things, right, go such a long way. My gym ownership days, I would, as soon as that stuff started to slip a little bit, you know, maybe like, you know, maybe we didn't do the athlete of the month, you know, this month, and we didn't highlight somebody. My members who have been with me for a long time let me know right away. They're like, hey man, you're slipping. Yeah, the community doesn't feel the same. I'm like, ah, crap.

Right?

Like it's easy, it's easy to get lazy if you don't have the systems, right? It's really easy to get lazy and complacent on that stuff if you don't have the systems. And I think you're right, you know, and there's people out there, you know, we don't have to name names, um, but we will if we want, uh, who are saying like the group training model is dead, right? Uh it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. You can just do it better. I mean, some people like to learn in groups, some people like one-on-one, some people like a mixture of both, right? Um ultimately what people want is they they do want a sense of community, like you're providing, and they want you to solve their problems, right? You just have to listen. Like, what are their problems and why is that important to them? Can you help them? Then help them. That's it. You know? Yeah.

I would I would say what is dead is those times where like it's so new that you can do it anywhere. You can do it in the basement, you can do it in your garage, you know, you can you can do it without learning anybody's name. There's always room, like you just said, uh, whether, you know, there's books about it raving fans, zombie loyalists, uh, customer service books. You know, what was it like, you know, 50 years ago when people pulled up to the gas station and somebody was in a white suit and was checking their oil and cleaning their windshield and you know, just doing all the things that you know a good gas station. Would do like what would that be like today? You know, I mean, if somebody was just doing those kind of things, right?

I I went, there's a there's a gas station in Bend, Oregon, okay, where they still wear uh white shirts with a bow tie, right? They pump your gas. Um, they ask you how you're doing, if there's a dog, they in your car, they give the dog a treat. Uh, they always wash your windows, no matter what, right? And the service is outstanding. And I'm like, okay, gas stations. What is more commodized? Come, what is more of a commodity than than gas? Right, you're right, right. I did like a Facebook live and I interviewed, like, immediately drop. I'm like, I gotta grab my phone, I gotta talk to these people. And I did a Facebook live and I started talking. I'm like, how are you guys doing this? It's so amazing. Like, I will never forget this gas station for the rest of my life. Yeah, and it's a gas station, right?

And I think the point is that nobody would want that to go away. Like right now, I want to travel to Ben, Oregon because I want to see this gas station, right? Yeah, exactly. I have no doubt that people are much more local than I are traveling, they're going out of their way to go to this gas station. Yes. So it's not that like, you know, group training is going to disappear. The kind of group training where you're not caring about people and you're not, you know, providing that high level of customer service that people are craving will disappear. And some will be on a race to the bottom because they're thinking that it's their price point that people don't want to pay for it no more. No, people always pay for value. I would pay extra money for the gas at that gas station. I would, you know, absolutely. You know, you're gonna pump my gas and do all these things and give my dog a treat. I mean, you know, all right, I'm coming over, you know. And there's a lot of people that feel the same way. People are not buying services anymore. Like, let's think about this. Let's think about where we started. We started as an agricultural society, you know. I I got some eggs and you got some meat or whatever, you know, we're trading things, right? And then we go into an industrial society, okay? And now from the industrial society, we create products and then we need services for the products. So at first there's only a few services, so it's pretty simple, right? But now there's so many services that you have to stand out by providing an experience. People don't buy a service nowadays, they buy an experience. And here's the deal: if you feel like something's dying, it's because your experience sucks, right? I mean, let's just be playing about it, right? Like that's when people, there, there are people that are all in that little group. Oh, yeah, it's dying, you know, it's no good anymore. No, when your show's great, people are coming. People are coming for sure. You know, when you take good care of people, there's always room for that.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's um, there's so many different ways to stand out, you know, in in that client experience. And there's a great um a book that I've read a couple of times and recommend all the time Never Lose a Client Again. Uh excellent. They talk about the whole client experience and where those possible impact points are and why it's so important. And I think, you know, when you start looking at, here's here's a big deal is people look at business owners look at client experience from acquisition, right? And then retention. Like that's the only two points, right? No, there's a there's a lot of different phases that a client goes through, right? And at each different point, there's different opportunities to create a better experience or a unique experience, but it's it's a different approach for everyone. So you have to start looking at not just the point of acquiring a client and then you know, just retaining them for years and years and years, but like at what points, right? That first day, because that's going to be different, right? Are they comfortable? Do they know where to put their shoes? Do they know where to put their bags? They know where the bathroom is, do they know where to sign in? Do they know who the coach is? Like that first day is so critical. And then 30 days later, they've they've they've accustomed to it. Maybe they get into a routine. So now you really have to boost like, well, how often are you getting here? And and what are the needs for them at that point? And then at 90 days, it's so critical too, right? Because 90 days is really when you're gonna find out if they're gonna be there for a lifetime client. So are you hitting them at that point? You know, and then a year from now and two years from now, you're still paying attention to their goals, are their goals changing? If they hit the goals, you know, uh, when do you when do you when is the best time to hit them up for referrals, right? All these different points, if we start looking at it differently from hey, it's an actual journey. It's not just starting and an endpoint, right? There's so many different factors that go in there in between. And I, you know, when you I hear you talk about your gym, like ice cold towels, right? Are very unique, right? Um, you know, I'd be curious to see, you know, as a client, I would imagine your retention is pretty good.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, the point that you're bringing up, I have a bookkeeper, he's fantastic, you know, he's specific to the fitness industry. Uh, give him a little shout out, Financial Fitness Solutions, Mike Waldron. But he did a little uh little study on us, and he said, you know, I found out that if you can keep people past six months, those that stay past six months with you will stay for two years. Now that's you know, industry average is about 14 months, I think. You know, but if you're losing people three to six months, you know, you really need to look at your systems, right? Because you know, you're not really keeping people very long. Um, but you know, what are you doing? Just like what you just said, what are you doing at these different points to make sure that you keep people that long, you know? Do they know the journey? Do they do they feel oriented? Do they feel cared for? You know, making sure that, for instance, in our business, we not only celebrate weight loss milestones, when you hit your long-term goal, you become on the wall of fame, you become a wall of fame poster. We say you're somebody else's Fitspiration, right? And uh they also get a pay it forward month to give away because they they've made it into the wall of fame. And so now it's their turn to pay it forward, you know, different things like that to just make sure that we know where this journey is heading, you know. Like I said, people that are doing group training, of course, are gonna leave. You haven't weighed them in, they don't know where they're at any closer to their goal than when they started, right? You know, if they're if the group training is just a class, I don't think that we can expect good retention from that. But you know, you start providing coaching, you know, when it really becomes group coaching again, you know, there's room for it, you know. Yeah.

I'm curious too, because you know, but I've noticed, but behind every scalable franchise, right, out there, there's there's two things amazing systems, right? There's gotta be, right? Yeah, it's fundamentally impossible to not have that and and be multi-location franchise. The other thing is there's always a bit of technology nowadays. There's some kind of technology they're leaning on either for the client experience or something that they can, you know, automate within it. What for your particular franchises, what do you, what tech are you using? I know you're a fan of it as well.

Yeah, definitely. Um, so for texting, I think that 98% of texts are open. Uh, that's a statistic. And so, you know, we do use Scipio. Uh, that's something that we've used. We've also used Off Day Trainer in the past because I think that you need a simple messaging software. So you can send out those nurturing texts. Uh, make sure you're doing it Gary B style. Don't just send them out when you got like an offer. Oh, I got something to sell. So I send them a text. You know, make sure you're sending them, you know, quotes of the week or things to make them feel inspired or checking up on their nutritional program. So, one, have a simple messaging software. Heart rate technology. When you look at things that have grown over the years, like uh Orange Siri, first thing that comes in mind when people talk about Orange Siri is oh, well, you know, you get to see your heart rate on a screen and things like that. So, you know, we use MyZone for that. Uh for our body composition tracking software. We use Body Evolver. Uh, that's a really good one with Mike. D'Angelo. Uh yeah. Fun guy. Um, but yeah, he created a great software there. In fact, he was the one that helped us to customize his software to create our know your clients report. Prior to meeting Mike, I was trying to do it with like Excel, and everybody knows you can't store photos on Excel, that would crash all the time and things such as that. So, you know, Mike was a real lifesaver with that. And as well, you know, just making sure that we had a system where we could quickly weigh clients in, you know. In the old days, we'd pull out their paper file. Oh, hold on a second, Dolores, let me look through here and pull out your, you know, it's much easier to just click and click on the next weigh-in button and see the weigh-in and see the goal that you set last time. So, you know, if you're gonna care for people and care for the results, you need a results tracking software. I think that we need that heart rate technology incorporated into our business. We have MIA reports, and that is a missing and action report that is done, and we do that through ASF. We have a fingerprint scanner, nobody ever has to worry about forgetting their uh check-in card, just don't forget your finger. Uh, so you check in with your finger. And then um, you know, that that helps us generate our MIA reports. So we do have a few technologies that are working for us to help us pull it all together.

Yeah, yeah. Awesome, man. Well, um kind of running short on time. Where where do people find you, man? What what's what's the name of your your business, by the way? It's an interview franchise. I don't know if we ever said that.

Yeah, so we've gone from journey fitness to journey 333. Uh about the fact that we have three different things that we're doing here, which is fitness coaching and nutrition, uh, mind, body, spirit, and also we serve three different clients. It's uh we're very proud of our diversity. So we train the working professional, we train those that want to grow bolder and not older. We like to call those our retirees. You know, they're not their golden years, they're just getting bolder instead of older. And then we train the adventure obstacle course racer. So uh that's kind of our 333 insignia. But yes, we're journey, uh, we're a franchise. Uh people can find us at uh journey333 fitness.com. They can uh find me at Travis Barnes.com. You can email me at uh travisforfitness at gmail.com. Uh that's probably the easiest one to get a hold of me. And uh yeah, that's the best way to do it. Right on, man.

Well, Travis, I uh this is a real treat. Really enjoy it. And uh what a what a way to spend. This is a Friday morning for us. Uh it's always fun to learn from people like you on Fridays and uh get energized. So it was it was awesome. And your story, uh, thank you for sharing it. It seems like you're pretty comfortable sharing it nowadays. Um and then are you accepting new franchisees right now?

Absolutely. Absolutely. We uh we have interest uh all around the country. You know, our goal is to franchise across the globe. So uh always uh honored to work with somebody that's interested in one of our franchises or just wants to write their own operations manual through the fitness mastery that we have going on. So right on, man.

Well, Travis, thank you so much. And uh maybe we'll get you back on soon.

Okay, well, thank you. It was great. I'm gonna go uh download never lose a client again.

Yeah, it's awesome. You'll love it. Love it. Ladies and gentlemen, Travis Barnes. All right, thank you. 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 asked 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 we're 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 Marketing Alliance dot com.