The Evolution of Strength Matters - James Breese

I was becoming everything that what we're teaching people how not to do, I was becoming that myself. And that was the change, that was a big changing point for me. But besides anything else, it's like, yep, this needs to change. We need to change direction business model. And I need to focus on my health first so I can give back to my business and the people around me.

Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 127. And I talked to James Brees. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview for a lot of reasons. Number one, well, James is the one of the founders, if not the founder, of Strength Matters. I met him years ago when I attended one of their summits in San Diego, California. And I got a lot out of it. It was actually one of my first like fitness summits that I went to. And I went back, brought my coaches the next year and made it kind of a thing every year. It was a lot of fun. Now, the thing I really liked about this story is that James and I have kind of walked similar paths, right? We got down into things, we got deep into entrepreneurship, faced some burnout, faced some physical issues, and we are kind of forced to step back and really evaluate like, what do we want out of life? And I think in today's day and age, with the hustle, hustle, hustle of entrepreneurship, um, the glorification of entrepreneurship, really, uh, it's it's a trap at times. Like depending on what you want, what your values are, right? Um pursue a business. If you're going to build a business, you might as well build a business that serves you in all aspects of what you want. James is currently at the at the point of this recording now in Austria. I'm in Montana. We're both skiing or riding our butts off because that's what fills us up. And then we make time for the work within that model. So it's it's kind of life's lifestyle first, life first. Um, and then business is what supports that. And the messaging is amazing. We had a lot of great laughs. Uh, I really like James, and I'm excited for what he's doing now, um, how he's morphed um Strength Matters into what it was from you know, more of a publication to now a service, an online service. And I have no doubt that he's gonna be wildly successful. I think he already is. Uh, but depends on your definition of success, right? So, yeah, let's let's get right into it. Uh before that, this episode is brought to you by certifiedcoursecreation.com. So I am now part of that team. I'm really excited to be part of it because we're literally making dreams come true. So uh, you know, we get if you've if you've done the time in the trenches, right, within the fitness, health, wellness space, uh, perhaps it's it's a good option for you to start pursuing. But you need to have a very specific knowledge set. You need to have something that solves a very specific problem and then proven it over and over again. So now you can teach others how to do it and make a great living on it. This could be your next big step. So go to certifycoursecreation.com. We we help our clients essentially take the idea, the concept, and then we do everything else, right? Um help build the curriculum, we take the raw content, we edit it, scientific annotations, build out exams, uh, build out the marketing funnel, um, all of the coursework on the side, you name it, we do it all. Uh, so that all you have to focus on is getting the knowledge out to the world. And uh, we're looking for a few good partners, not a lot, um, just a selective uh group of really, really solid partners to push this forward and make some amazing things happen. So if you think that could be you, reach out to certifiedcoursecreation.com or just reach out to me personally. I'm happy to jump on a call and just identify the opportunity and see if it's something worth pursuing for everybody. And uh I would I would very much welcome that. So certifiedcoursecreation.com. Now, without further ado, let's get into this interview with James Brees. It's awesome. Uh, I'll probably listen to it again and again. Uh number 127. Enjoy. All right. And we are live. James Brees, welcome, man. Thanks, man. Great to see you again. It's been it's been a while. Yeah, it has been a while. Um, I was just racking my brain. I think it's been um 2016, maybe, is when we we last met, maybe 2015. Uh at the instinct.

I can't remember. We've done so many summits now, like it in the in the past. It must have been 2015, 2016 in San Diego, wasn't it?

So yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's a great summit. And uh, you know, we'll we'll get into that. But I think you and I are pretty giddy to talk about something uh that we share uh passion about. So but explain where you are right now physically. What's what's going on?

I'm I I'm currently living in Ostria uh in a little village called Kapel, K-A-L-P-L. Uh it's in between the famous resorts of Ishkull and St. Anton, uh, for those who are into the skiing and snowboarding world. Um, I moved out here in November this year, and it's been one of the best life decisions I've made in a long, long time. Um, because like like I said, you asked you you asked me before if I just come up the mountain and go, yeah, I literally did. So we've had a big snowstorm the last like couple of days. So the last two days I've been riding powder and like it was bluebird again today. It was all tracked out, but it's like it's now snowing again outside, and uh more powder again tomorrow. So yeah, that's that's where I am at the moment.

Yeah, it's so awesome, man. It's funny. I was uh I I I interviewed Max Shank yesterday, who actually I believe I met first at one of your summits. And we were talking, he's like, Well, what are you doing for the rest of the day? After this was after recording. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I'm gonna go to the gym or if I'm gonna go hit the mountain. And uh he's like, I know what I would do. I'm like, you're right. And so I I went to the I went to the mountain and I got, you know, a good hour and a half in and came back. So I'm for people listening, I'm also I'm in Whitefish, Montana, um, about you know, 10 minutes, five to 10 minutes from uh a ski resort as well. And uh I think James and I have made some pretty similar lifestyle choices uh when it comes to our business over the last uh year or two. And it's it's hopefully some people will get some ideas that maybe they can do things uh a little bit differently in their lives. And um I man, I I could talk to you, we could do a full episode on resorts in skiing, I know all that because I have so many questions about European skiing. I've been looking at um uh I mean keep telling my wife, I'm like, we're going to Chamonix next year. You know, we're we're going, but maybe there's there's better spots.

Uh so I I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll call I'll cut it brief, but Chamonix is amazing, it's pretty cool, but like um nobody really ventures to Austria, and Austria is like a hidden gem of places. There's a there's a the resort Saint Anton am Auberg is renowned for its off-piece free ride skiing. Like the whole Auburgh region. It had it's had more, it's this it's the second place in the whole world where it's had more snow than anywhere else this world. It's it happens every year. Like it's unbelievable. I I highly recommend checking it out because it's it's a beauty of a place. It really is. Yeah, yeah.

Ah, that's incredible. Uh okay, I will. I will, you have my word. I will check it out. I'll spend a good hour tonight uh researching it uh down to the bone. Uh James, let's because I think this is part will you know we'll evolve into what what you've done with your lifestyle and how you're shaped your business around it, because it's it's extremely powerful. And I think you and I both hold similar values when it comes to that. Um but give us your story, man. Give us a little bit of your background um and your bio.

Yeah, sure. No, I was I'll I'll try and keep it short. Cut me off if if I uh if I over overshoot in any way possible. Let it run, man. Let it run. I just in in a nutshell, I I grew up in Wales, um, which is on the west part of the UK. Um I'm in a little town called Mahunteth, if anyone can pronounce that. It's uh Welsh is my first language. Um, so that's uh one of one of the key things people don't really know about me is that English is actually my second language, um believe it or not. But grew up in front of how many people know that Welsh is in language, man. Uh it's it's one of the oldest languages in the world. It's it's it's a really old Germanic style language. It's it's it's it's sounds very similar to Arabic. If you speak Arabic, I I'll always give this as an example. If you can say excuse me in Arabic, which is La Muacha, like uh eskisodukvi is how you say it in Welsh. It's the same pronunciations. Uh it's not the prettiest languages in any way, shape, or form, but uh but anyway, but that's that's that's kind of like where I grew up on a farm in Wales. Um sports were my thing: football, soccer, uh, rugby, cricket, they were my two passions. I was all geared towards trying to become an elite professional cricket player. That's what I wanted to do, that's what my dreams were. Sadly, injuries, life, lack of talent, I think, um were you know got in the way slightly along the way. But I kind of fell into university, did French and German, which is kind of why I live in Austria now. I discovered Austria when I was learning German uh back in my early days here. But um it wasn't really kind of I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, other than I enjoy speaking languages and love just talking, going out and doing active and sporty things. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So somehow, somehow I fell into the police. So I was in the police in London working there for 10 years, uh, ended up working drugs and firearms, and ended up working um you know, within Brixton within Southeast London. Absolutely had a blast, fantastic time working there for six to eight years, and then things into 2008-2009 crash came, uh which hit the world over, and things started to change, which meant I started to question what I was doing. But when I was there, I was doing more training. I've always been passionate about training, health and fitness, but when I was working in the police, I was doing more training within the police. Uh, and that's kind of how my my love and of that passion for the health and fitness and coaching industry kind of started. It was coaching and working within the police, and then just quickly transpired out of the police into the world of health and fitness. Uh, first company was kettlebell fever. We we quickly became the biggest uh distributor of cast iron kettlebells in Europe, uh more of an e-commerce e-commerce store. You know, we started off uh promoting this and selling dragon doll kettlebells, then yeah, we did our own The Black series, and then as that was growing, we decided that or we saw that there was more of an opportunity in in education basically and helping people. And it's kind of that was that kind of my passion of why I left the police in the first place, was we wanted to do more, you know, helping people rather than the e-commerce side of things, and plus other businesses were catching on to us quickly that we were the only people selling kettlebells, and they started you know low you know cutting all their prices on kettlebells, selling them at a lead loss, basically. And we were like, yeah, we don't want to we don't need to compete in this, there's only one route to the bottom here. Let's focus on our education and courses. So from kettlebell fever, strength matters was born. This is what obviously we're here talking about today, is like strength matters came out of kettlebell fever with the need for education, and the name started on a t-shirt, and uh more people bought that t-shirt than any other kettlebell fever t-shirt we bought. And uh here we are today, basically, uh living in Austria, uh running Strength Matters from here.

Yeah, yeah, and you um, you know, when we were talking beforehand, you you had mentioned that well, we both talked about it. It was very similar in some ways. How you know you you worked hard, right? Building a great company, a great brand, um, but something in your life was missing, right? And you shifted your business around your lifestyle um to optimize what what you you felt was empty, you know, uh or something that's not empty, that's a bad word, that's a very downtrodden word, but something that was missing, right? Tell tell us about that transition and that thought panel.

Absolut absolutely. So when I when I felt when I left the police and I was and I fell into like coaching, and I was you know a personal trainer, going to people's homes, coaching people, that was kind of my thing as well as teaching large groups within within the police. You know, I was I was loving that, I was really enjoying that. And then somehow along the line, I was approached by other trainers and staff to come and hey, can you help me show me what you're doing, particularly around the kettlebell side of things, and started building this and I started growing going on this and somehow when I left the place to go into coaching and working with people, but somehow I'd fallen into this educational pathway of helping other trainers and coaches, which was fun and I kind of enjoyed it, but it led me into a very different business model when I first started doing things, and it was great and I learned a lot from it, but it wasn't true becoming true to who I was and what I was doing, which was helping people over 30, which is my passion here, living an athletic lifestyle. But as we were growing and trying to scale this in the way that most traditional businesses do, it was like, well, suddenly my health was going downhill, as well as my uh stress levels were increasing significantly, and I wasn't doing the things that that make me who I am, such as like watching some sports on TV, going snowboarding as much as and as often as I possibly can do, you know, going running. I uh that's it sounds crazy, but like I love lifting heavy things, strength does matter, you know, the you you know per se, but but like I was I was missing a big part. I'd I'd I was falling away into this clique in this group of say professionals that wasn't conducive to why I was. I kind of got washed away with it. It was like, whoa, hang on, what's going on here? And it was only until the the business had a couple of major setbacks where we had um we had a big legal case which we had to deal with, which was which is phenomenal. Uh never experienced it before, do not want that to ever go through that again. We won it, right? Um which is which is the main thing. But then the second thing was Brexit. Um if those who are in the US who are watching, don't know what Brexit is when we left the European Union, the pound plummeted against the dollar. And uh man, I tell you what, that teaches you more about business than anything is managing finances and understanding like cash flows and whatever. And it was just it just those those moments happened in my life and it started questioning who I am and what I was doing. And I realized, yeah, do you know what this needs to change? And we needed to go from what we were doing predominantly with coaching education to go now. Actually, this needs to be more about who I am and be you know a representative of who I am as a person as well, to more to coaching to everyday people, basically. And that was it. It was like, yeah, no, I need to focus on myself. And because if not, if not focusing on myself first, I'm not gonna be able to give the boast to my family, my business, my friends, my hobbies, or anything like that at all. And that was the the starting point to go, yeah, and something needs to change in the business to allow me to lead the life that I want to live. Um, and it's been one of the best decisions I ever make, absolutely hands down.

And if you can, what what exactly changed? Like what was the change and how and how was it making that change? And I'm asking these questions because I I think I've had similar experiences, right? And uh, you know, a lot of times when you're very entangled in a business, um, you're entrenched in your business, um, and you have that, you know, entrepreneur mindset of you just you're like, I'm on a path, I'm grinding it out, right? Like you get into your your daily or weekly habits that are part of your business that you that you think pushes it forward. How was it um like what kind of changes did you make and how is that shift um how did you how did you handle that?

The the first major realization, you know, takeaway the business to the you know for the side for the moment, the first realization was this was I was living in Australia, I was living in Melbourne in Australia, a beautiful place, love the city. Sure. Going back to Australia next month and I can't wait. Um but it the biggest thing was I went trail running, I went for a run for the first time in about five or six years. Five or six years. It sounds crazy. If people knew who I was and what I did beforehand, they'd like, what you haven't been running in six years? No, I haven't. And I went for a run and I couldn't run more than two minutes. Like it was absolutely, it was like a light bulb moment. I was with a with my ex-girlfriend at the time, and she she did a bit of running. She's not a professional, and she's with her friends, and they're looking at me, going, Well, you're a fitness professional, what's wrong with you? And it was like that embarrassing moment of realization that hang on a second, there's something not right. My business is that I should be able to do this. Why aren't can't I do this? So it set me on a path of going, rediscovering my own health and realizing actually, I need to fix what I'm doing wrong with my own training. I'd essentially become, like I laugh and joke about it, I'd become like a fat powerlifter. That's essentially what no offense to any power lifters out there. I do apologize, not trying to offend anybody. Yeah. But I'd fall into this mindset of like, you know, five by five or like no more than three to five reps and like rest five minutes in between sets, and like cardio is the devil. And I was like, I'd fall into it, and it helped me, and I've learned so much from it. But I've but my overall health was was gone. Like it wasn't making me healthy, it wasn't doing the things that I love doing. So that was the first major shift is realizing, well, I actually need to change my training. So when I changed my training, I then looked at the education of what we're doing at Strength Matters, and I looked at it going, hang on a second, there's this this isn't right, this isn't conducive now to what I believe in anymore. And so that was the first shift. It was like this this tank of the oil tank over strength matters, a machine that was going around the world. I had to look at the education platform and go, right, this needs to change. And when I started to look at the education platform, and I was getting so obviously in the changes I was making that was representative of who I was now, I was getting people you know fighting back a little bit, going, they're not weren't happy with the changes, as in people who have been with us for years, and it's totally okay, just a difference of opinion now. And I realized no, I need to change the business model as well because I'm busting my gut in the old model, and something's not quite right. It's just adding to my stress levels conducive for. So the first one was health. That was the first thing. My health was going downhill, my stress levels were going up, and I wasn't doing the things I needed to do. And then I looked at the business and went, actually, this isn't doing what I wanted to do. Like it's it looks glamorous on social media, Instagram, Facebook, me going from country to country, yeah, but my overall health is was was shot to pieces. Like when you're living off two to three hours of sleep a night, and you're having to manage all these different time zones, uh, you're eating crappy food because you're always eating out. Like the the the other thing, this is this is quite funny. I was I was looking at my food bill, like doing all my accounting and stuff each month. I was looking at my food bill, eating out. It's like close to two grand a month, and I was like, this is this this has got to stop. This has got to stop just because of the travel, eating out the you know, you go for the burgers and fries, where everyone else is there with you because they can do it on a weekend, but when you're doing it every weekend, it becomes a grind. It just I was becoming everything that what we're teaching people how not to do, I was becoming that myself. And that was the change, that was the big changing point for me. About besides anything else, it's like, yep, this needs to change. We need to change direction, business model, and I need to focus on my health first so I can give back to my business and the people around me.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, man. And you know, if you look back then, right, and you fast forward to now, what what is your what is your daily routine look like? How does your lifestyle look different?

Completely different. Like awesome. Like it's like chalk and cheese. So like if if I look back to let's let's take that that that that day in question of went trailer, it was a Sunday afternoon, let's look at the week around that time. I'd be up at 6 a.m. managing emails, doing phone calls, like 6 a.m., which was normally I'd work through to 10, 11, I'd have client calls here. This is when I was living in Australia, it's all the different time zones and everything. I'd work through to about 2, 3 p.m. I'd maybe have an hour or two off between 3 and 5 to like, you know, get out of the office, uh, because we had like a makeshift office there, get some food, get some shopping, no time to train, right? And then between 5 p.m. and like 10 p.m., I was then working with my UK team, working with them. So I was this was continuous, like Monday through Sunday. Like on the I was on like a hamster, we were going round and round and round and round, and it was just like this, it wasn't productive for me, it wasn't productive for my friends, family, girlfriends. It wasn't productive for the business itself or the people or the clients we were serving. Um fast forward to today, and I'll give you an example of today, which is just a very typical day. I'm up at 6 a.m. Uh, I get I get the uh the bus into the into the into the resort first lift to 8:30 a.m. Uh I'm in the coffee shop by 7:30 a.m. Uh I have a coffee, uh, I'll have a bit of breakfast sometimes. Uh like today I had some smashed avocado and toast, just it's which has finally come to Austria somehow. Uh it's it's quite amusing. Uh but good Austrian coffee, some yeah, I'd smashed avocado and toast this morning. Uh and I'm there checking my emails just for half an hour while I'm waiting for first lifts. I'll get first lifts on the mountain by 8:30. Um I came down today at 1.32 p.m. shower change, 3 p.m. I'm doing my doing the rest of my emails, writing blogs, doing more vlogs, like creating more content and like being there for my team. So even though I take the mornings off per se, it also gives me time to think about what I'm doing, how I'm doing the ideas for blogs, for vlogs, for podcasts that we want to do. And then in the afternoon I come down and action it in a much cleaner state of mind, so to so to speak, with a lot more perspective on things. And like I'll work through to like 9 p.m. That's the lifestyle that I choose. Like it's not, you know, I'm not saying everyone should work through to 9 p.m. But I I prefer taking my time in the morning, giving me clarity, giving me my exercise, basically. Like it's like as as you probably as you know, like you know, riding four, four and a half hours of powder constantly nonstop is brutal. Yeah, it's absolutely brutal. Yeah, yeah, absolutely brutal. I mean it's it's fantastic.

So man, that's a lifestyle now. I'm I'm so happy for you. I I I think it's so amazing. And I think uh, you know, if there's something that I hope people get from this is, you know, especially because in the fitness and and health industry, it's you know, kind of by nature entrepreneurial, you know, I talk about it all the time. Um, there's not like there's very few of those jobs you can get into on a corporate track, spend your 30 years, get your 401k or pension and and move on, right? It just doesn't really work that way in our industry, and probably because it's so young. But uh you know, when people hear that and you know, I've I've been at so times obsessed with the thing, the numbers, right? The the business, the uh the brand. And um meanwhile completely just been absorbed by that and forgetting of of what you know, what I really enjoy. And when I When I sold uh my facility in 2017 after you know eight or nine years of running it, um I realized I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. You know, my my wife and I every weekend, we're in Santa Barbara, California, which by all standards, probably like Melbourne, beautiful place, right? Absolutely gorgeous place with great community and and all those things. You name it, like Santa Barbara checks a lot of the boxes, right? And uh, but every every weekend we're like, God, I just want to get to the mountains, right? So we'd go like take our little trailer and we go to these little foothills and we just sit out there and and then eventually just came this revelation, like, what are we doing? Like, really, like what are we doing? You know, um, why aren't we pursuing what what we want to do in life? Because, you know, I was nearing the age, I think I was 39. Um, now I'm 42. I was 40, I guess. You know, when 40 hits, I don't know how old you are, James, but when 40 hits, you're like, oh, wow, I'm statistically halfway through. What is going on with my life? And we made the move, you know, it was a bold, and and that change for me was, you know, much more maybe more significant, maybe not, but I had to sell a business, I had to rent our home, I had to do all these things. Um, but when people, if I guess when people are listening to this, what I want them to get out of is like you, if you feel in your gut, right, that you're not living a lifestyle that that's true to you, right? Not true to everybody else, right? But true to you and what you truly desire and what makes you happy, you can make the change. Um, it doesn't have to happen overnight, but you just kind of select, like, okay, what's the very first thing I need to do? Right. For me was I just had to write a list of people that I thought would be great buyers of my gym. That was it. That was step one, right? The next day I took step two. I'm like, okay, well, you know, let's think about this. You know, how would I price it? Right. Called a couple people. Step three, right? You know what I mean? It's like it doesn't people get so um intimidated by the the size of the change that they don't do anything. And then nothing happens, and then five, ten years go by and their health is decreasing, right? They keep they have this wish list of things that they want to do and they never do them. And uh I applaud you, man.

I think it's that's no, it's exactly the same, exactly the same. And like I said, for any any fitness professional out there listening to this or hearing this, like the conversations I've had with so many former gym owners, and and I mean it, former gym owners, right? Who because because the dream is you you get it's it's like the American dream, and you know, with work and like getting 2.2 kids or 2.4 kids, you know, like working nine to five. It's the same kind of dream we get sold to at PT school. Like, okay, you need to work here, work in corporate a couple of years, open up your own facility, and then you've made it. As soon as you open up your facility, you've made it. However, there's so many people I know who've gone bankrupt for it. Uh so many people I know who, like, after eight, like like yourself, after eight, nine years realize, hang on a second, I'm working seven days a week, working my arse off for this. Like, what am I doing? Like, and we do it to help people. You know, we all get into the fitness world because we love fitness selves, we're passionate about it, and we want to go in and help people. And I get that, I applaud it. I'm exactly the same way with you guys, I totally understand it. But then reality kind of bites, and it's it's you're not doing the things you it's just you're not going on a vacation, you're not going on all these different things, and it's it's a constant theme I'm hearing and seeing all the time. But like you said, you have to take the first step. It's just that 1%, that one thing. And for you, it was like writing a list of buyers. For me, it was realizing my health. I need to fix my health. That's the first thing I need to put myself first there. And then suddenly it starts to build. And once you start doing something that's true to you, you start to attract more like-minded people. And it's it's tough, you know, it's tough at the beginning because you always hear, oh, yeah, we don't like the direction you go, you don't like what you're doing anymore. It's like you get through that, and then there's billions of people on this planet, and you start the more you are happy of yourself, the more you can share what you're passionate about, the more like-minded people you attract, and it starts to resonate and build from there. That's just what I've experienced in a lot, particularly in the last six months, uh, more than anything. Yeah.

It's it's funny that you and I are talking, right? I mean, I don't know what exactly why I reached out to you, really. Uh, I think it was just a Facebook messenger, and I was like, hey man, yeah, I saw something you posted. I'm like, hey, I forgot. I know, God, yeah, I really want to interview James. I forgot. And here we are talking about, you know, your experience in Austria and my experience in in Whitefish, Montana, and uh very similar, different journeys. And it's just weird. The universe has an interesting way. And, you know, one of my um new uh joint venture partners is is someone I met while I happen to be in Golden British Columbia, right? Uh he's a facility owner, but he's much more. He's you know a very successful business person. But we just happen to be in the same town at the same time. He invited me over to his place, you know, had a couple drinks of whiskey. Uh next morning we we cruised up the mountain and we talked about business and life. And there we are, right? And very similar values. And that's uh, you know, that's a big part of it, is understanding really being true to your values and what it is that um, you know, before I mean James Fitzgerald, who's been a presenter at your guys' summits, he always talks about someone's understanding someone's values, not only your own, but you know, your clients, your, your coaches, or the people you work with, and how drastically important that is.

It's honestly it's it's it's funny because it's it's James. Like again, it's funny how things, certain things bring us together. Like it's James and Jim, like I saw I've been speaking to a lot during a lot of the fitness, uh bit the business side of things and like do health and stuff for that. It's funny I actually got I'm actually doing the um I've watched James for a long time, but I'm actually going back into coaching myself and I was like, hang on a second. I've been out of the coaching game for a long time. I've been in the education game. So like I've I've missed this big step. So like even though I was building my business development, my skills, the business, business, you know, uh guy entrepreneur were going up, my coaching skills were coming down. And like I started to go, hang on a second, I need to sort this out. And the first person I reached out to was James Fitchell, right man, I'm doing I'm doing your search, I'm doing your course. Oh, it's like I've been saying, I've been saying I wanted to do it for a long time, and it's one of the best things I ever did. Like it's one of the best. It's I love their approach to how fitness, it's very true to how we do things, and it's how we do things and their values and mindset. But it's it's like I said, small worlds, different things, like speaking, going to an event, seeing things coming together. It's it's it's phenomenal.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, man. Uh yeah, you if have you done the uh the OPEX uh CCP, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, been been through it.

So it's it's like again for any coach out there, it's it's one of the best things you can do. It's it's highly, highly recommended, particularly for development and I think their work on energy systems and building the you know from A-Lactic Power into lactic endurance, um, is some of the the finest work out there, I think, on that, on that type of stuff. So as you can probably see, I'm a big, big fan of him.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, James, um, he was my coach for about two and a half, three years um when I was, you know, doing more CrossFit training, uh, like it was part of my job. And uh I also went through all the CCP stuff back when it was all in person and um you know when he was at his first location in Arizona and when he was still called OPT and stuff. And uh, you know, it's it it it really developed um, it really it pushed forward my personal and professional development significantly. And you know, I'm not neither of us are getting paid for this, but open education is really good. Uh I think it's right up there with any of the best. So what what do you do now? What is strength matters now? Or you get because I know you've shifted in more flake. And today is, let's see, today's recording is uh March 6th, 2019, just so people have a marker.

Yeah, so absolutely no. So, like, so again, I'll I wasn't almost said a German word then. Like I was I almost said Damaus. Like that's like it's it's fine, just quick sign out. One of the main reasons to come back to Allshow, I'm doing more business and work in in Germany at the moment. So I wanted to improve my German. So like it's it's it's very rare for me to speak English on a day-to-day basis. So like every if you hear an old German word every now and then, like I do apologize, everybody. Like it's me thinking in German as it goes. Um, but no, like so like it Strength Matters was, and I mean it's now it was a coaching education platform. We had a meeting, we had a magazine, we had all this media, and it was all geared towards uh coaching education. However, our message wasn't clear. If someone asked me what the Strength Matters do, I'd say, well, we do a magazine, we do education, we do certs, we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this, and we do a summit. And like I couldn't articulate what we did. It was just big jumble of kind of cool stuff. You know, you've been to one of the events, it's kind of bringing everyone together, but I couldn't articulate who we are or what we did. Like it was here. And during this transition now, so we we stopped all the certs, we stopped all the courses. Um doesn't mean I won't do any again, maybe later down the line, but as of today, like I can always say, if someone asks us what is strength matters, I can honestly say that we help people over 30 live a pain-free athletic lifestyle. Well, that's what we're about, that's what we try and do. It's the over 30s market, and we predominantly do it with online fitness remote coaching and adopting our model for everyday people into this realm because you know personal training is great, like but it also has a shelf life with a lot of personal trainers. Um, I'm a big believer in individualized fitness coaching, like as as you as you're aware as well through the OPT and like well, OPEX and that type of money. I'm a big believer in that. I think it's a huge thing. And putting ownership back on the individual to take responsibility for their own health. If you're doing personal training, it becomes just kind of dictating you do this, you do this, you do this. They walk away, they kind of forget what they're doing. However, providing an individualized coaching approach, you're actually getting them to get in ownership of their thing, and we're extending the two, three sessions per week into seven days, multiple times a day, working on habits. And it's been one of the best things we've ever done, you know, driving on here. So we're trying to, we want to kind of gear towards and pioneer toward the over fitness, over 30s fitness, pain-free athletic market, the people who used to be athletic but are no longer athletic because life, family, kids, work, all this has hit. Those are the people we're trying to work with now, and that's kind of our niche in our market. So it's very much changed from not knowing who we were to being very specific, going, no, this is our target market now, this is what we do. Yeah, yeah.

And it's a great market. I mean, that Jeep, that, you know, that general population market uh that you're talking about, they're they're very fun to work with, very rewarding, um, depending on where they so you guys, let me give you more clips. So you guys do online remote coaching for people? Yep, plus education. Okay.

Well, we do we we do online remote coaching. We stopped the education um for coaches um at the moment because because we've had to reflect on everything that we do as as trainers as well. Our system, how we're how we're pushing out education, it's no, it's not saying it's not valid anymore. It is, but we've moved so far ahead of it that we're struggling to keep up ourselves, and there's no way we can teach teach trainers what we're doing, how we're doing, because we're still developing and improvising. Because the world of individualized fitness coaching and remote coaching is brand new. There's a lot of online training, and a lot of online training. If you can you can become a certified online trainer anywhere at the moment, and they'll tell you the same thing: make videos, give customized, you know, give random PDFs and downloads, let them do it on their own. Well, that's not our model. It is very bespoke. It is like down to the T who the individual is, and it's human-to-human coaching records. Whereas we get an in-depth into you know, how much are they sleeping, how much are they walking, how much water are they drinking. Those are the first three stats we now we now build up. And it goes into basic health screens, you know, and then it goes into strength assessments, movement, et cetera, et cetera. Like we're not giving them a template or cookie cutter with watch these videos, try this out. No, no, it's it's it's down on the personalized, individualized um route. Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, I love it. So um if I'm walking through this, you know, from a client experience. I'm I if I come to you guys and like, hey, I need help, right? I'm a potential client. What does that whole experience look like?

So yes, just again, so again from for professionals who want to know how we do and how what our kind of funnel is and how we do things. Um so this is actually this is actually brand new. We've actually introduced this two weeks ago, and it seems to be converting better. You heard it here first, people. Exactly. But yeah, I haven't taught this anywhere yet. This is this is like um what we do. So if you go into strengthmanners.com, you'll see our tagline at the top, and you'll see our call to action multiple times through here. And it's called our tagline now is start your seven, you start your free seven-day experience. Okay? So what we're doing now is take taking from the world of technology and a lot of like um one of the objections people have is credit card details, handing over credit card details from not knowing what they're paying for yet or anything. Yes. So what we've done is we've looked at the technology world, we've looked at like SaaS companies, all these different companies, and how they've done it. And they they all do it, start your free trial, no credit card required. And we're like, hmm, that's interesting. These are billionaire companies. Like, what how can we apply this to fitness? So the first thing happens if people want to start working with us. We go, okay, right, well, you want to start your seven-day experience, great. Apply to do what we're doing. So start your seven day experience, they fill out an application form where we fill out basic information about them, and then we ask them two questions. One, are you prepared to invest in your health and fitness? Um, a hundred percent of people say yes, right? And the second one, right at the end, is if you enjoy your seven-day experience and would like to work with strength manners, prices start at two, four, nine dollars per month. Is this within your budget? Do you think would you is this would you be able to afford this if you can work with us? Close to 70% of people say no. So uh 70% of people don't go through the application. Uh they don't go past the application phase because we're here. But if you pass the application phase, we put them into our assessment program, we get them onto the online onto the online system and we take them through the seven days of assessments. Our assessment system basically takes up to two weeks, depending on who we're working with, the ability of the athlete or the individual. Most people, it's three to four days, um, you know, for the everyday person, but we say a week. So we give them three to four days, we get them to do the assessments, we have a coaching call with them, we get them to try a couple of workouts out. If they like it, then we'll get on the phone and go, hey, what do you think? Do you like it? You've tried it out with us. What do you what's your impression? Great, yeah, let's let's get working together. So far, we've converted 100% of people doing this and this new model. Uh it's before we'd say, hey, do a six-week challenge, pay for six-week challenge, and then it was it was good, it worked. Um, but we do it, we'd sell a one-off payment of two, four, nine dollars for six weeks, including the assessments, and then we'd say, hey, then we do an upsell. Now, we had like an 80% up you know, upsell conversion rate from that, which is pretty good. But I wanted to try this other style out here now. So, like, you know, again, it's two weeks old, so you've had less than 20 people, you know, uh convert this uh on this model, but it's been a hundred percent success rate because it's try before you buy, they speak to your coach and it's an easy conversation. Hey, did you enjoy this? Would you like some help putting a plan together? This is what you need to work on, we can help you. It's that easy conversation stage.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes total sense, man. I think it's great. It's uh simple, you know, which I really I'm a big fan. I tend to overcomplicate things and I like things that are simple. Uh I do it all the time. Um drives my wife crazy.

Uh yeah.

Uh interesting. So so you guys are doing online coaching. Is that kind of the the primary, like I guess, revenue streams for you, or you know, is that really what you're focusing on now? Or is there anything else you guys want to do on the tertiary?

Yeah, no, it it is now. Like before like I said, before we had the magazine, we had a bunch of media, and the magazine used to be our main drive of revenue. Yeah. But we stopped the magazine because it wasn't representative of who we were anymore. Like we it was like, well, we've got this expensive but great producing magazine. It looks great, but it isn't really about who we are and what we do. So um we kind of rebranded the podcast from the Strength Matters podcast to a fit over 30 by Strength Matters, which, by the way, just by changing the name in two weeks and not releasing any any downloads, we our number of downloads per day doubled. Like absolutely doubled. Like we had we were on like 20 to 25,000 downloads a month anyway, and it literally went to 40,000 downloads by changing the name within two weeks. And I was like, okay, there's something in this. We need to it's fit over 30 by strength matters now. That's the key thing. And then we realized, well, actually, we need to need to do the same with a magazine. So we you know, it's we are gonna bring a magazine back, but it's gonna be aimed at fit over 30, because I think it's a something that's need, you know, print media is a dying breed these days. I think it's good quality, needs to be needs to be pulled out, so we will be going back to it. Uh, however, the main focus at the moment is like we want to get, you know, we we want to hit some targets within our online coaching platform and make sure we build a robust system that is like systematized from start to finish. Like, what are the protocols for this? And that's what we're building at the moment. So everything else is pushed to the side until we firmly develop this and make it run like clockwork is what we're doing at London.

Oh, awesome, man. Yeah. So it sounds like maybe you let some things go as well. A lot of things.

Scary as I was gonna swear then, but scary as it's all right, yeah. Like, because like if I'm if I'm being honest, like we pretty much wiped off three quarters of a million to a million pounds, not dollars, pounds, of a revenue a year from the company. Um and it was like, okay, this is this is this is scary. However, we made the changes behind the scenes to Canra, because here's here's the thing in fitness and and in business. Like, if you if you make a million dollars and only make 10% profit, you know, you still it's like it's it's not that good. Really, you know, like it's it's like you've got that much market, the cash flow is all over the place. You make a hundred thousand and you make ten percent profit, it's a completely different volume altogether. It's it's like the costs, everything going here. So like it was hard for the first two, three months as we were changing everything, but it was again like focusing on one thing, as in having multiple different things going all over the place, like a like a crazy, like a squirrel on crack. Like it's like it was just like I say that, I say that I should I should quantify that actually because I actually have seen squirrels on crack terrorising people in the high street in Brixton in uh in southeast London. Uh is that's a true story. Like they look they used to steal the drug dealers like like um bong to crack, like high as anything, let they be all over the street. But it was I realized like a squirrel on crack, like going, okay, is this what you do? No, no, no, it's laser focused, one thing, do it well. Well, you've done it well, and you have a system twice and you can pull yourself out of it, then build the next thing, and slowly build up and build up. So that's what we're in a we're in a massive rebuilding phase. Um, but it's it's but creating foundations for for much better growth long term and to better serve the customers and clients that we work with and the people who just read our stuff and want to learn more about uh the everyday athlete lifestyle, as we call it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great, man. It is scary. It's scary to letting go of things, especially some people built, you know, work so hard to build, right? And then you realize, and there's that's you know, it's the vanity numbers too, right? Like people look at top top line revenue and they're like, wow, this company is worth, you know, 10 million, right? And then meanwhile, A, the people are working are miserable, B, the profits uh are actually very thin, uh margins are thin, they're unpredictable, and the costs are so high that you don't sleep at night, right? Because what happens if you take that big drop, right? Which happens every once in a while, you take a big hit and a lawsuit comes across, right? And then you're not sleeping. I mean, you're sleeping two to three hours a night.

That lawsuit, you're probably sleeping zero, right? Oh man, it was the it was the worst. I'd say if there's one lesson that I can give to anybody out there, is that if you uh if you're doing big contracts and with certain companies and certain institutions, I can't really say too much because of because of the court proceedings, but yeah, um, but like um it came down to employment contract law within us, within strength matters. That's that's what it was within the UK. It's very complex, it was a very complex thing with a outside contract. Uh it was it was a nightmare. Like, and we were in the right, and you know, to to say quite easily that it was the uh the person who was put putting us through it was on his last legs. He was uh it was a one-ditch effort to try and save his company, he's trying to take us down with him. So it was like a it was an interesting, but have watertight contracts, get a pay for a lawyer. You may think, oh man, I don't want to pay this three, four grand for this now, but if it's something with significant, get it done, good and right, because it'll save you a lot of money, a lot of heartache, and a lot of stress. Because I I'll be honest, there was there was a good six-month period where I didn't think that strength manager was going to survive. Um, so so much so that I had to sell my house to try and invest back into the company to try and cut try and cover it. That was that was I've I've never shared that anywhere. That's that's first online. That's yeah. Yeah, one of the it was it was one of those things. It was um like one of the best decisions I made was in 2005 when I bought a house through the police, um, the police network, the police scheme. They were helping key workers or like first responders buy property in London. I bought it in the end at the bottom of the crash in 2007. Unfortunately, it over doubled in price, and I was able to get a fair bit of money back for that. And that's what helped me to take it into the company to s to say. guard it up and make sure the strength matters is still alive today. But it's all these different things happened like in different things. And I'm not going to regret any of them. Like it was one of those things where do you know what that happened for a reason. I've learned from that now and I'm a better individual from it. Um I've learned so much from it and it's yeah it's it's I'm not going to make that same mistake again. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. So as you guys build or rebuild. Yep. Um if I'm listening to this and I'm I'm a trainer, right? Who does remote coaching or maybe wants to get into that, is there are you guys building a team for that?

Yeah. So we're we're we're building a team. Uh we got we got we got four coaches uh working with us. Um and that's kind of what we want to keep at the moment. Our our our client to coach ratio is one to 30. Okay. So we want to keep this as like high quality as opposed to you know mass market type type thing because this is what I'm seeing a lot of like I kind of felt again we fell into online coaching because I saw this thing online coaching just pop up a few years ago and I was looking at going this is it this is a new trend. You know it's one of those things like all the all the fitness marketing gurus going hey become an instant online trainer earn six figures in a month type thing. I was like okay well something in you so let's let's have a look let's have a look at this and then I looked at it and I was like hang on that they're just doing generic stuff for generic people. It's just like a let like a Les Mills no offense lesmills people lesmills class for people like cookie cutter approach go. I think there's an opportunity to develop this and see see it as a system to work beyond here because I think the technology here like the using the scope of practice we can extend this way beyond people's expectations like you know the thing we hear the most is that hey hang on a second I used to go to a personal trainer and work two to three two to three sessions a week. Now I'm working seven days a week sometimes twice a day and doing habit tracking and doing this and like it's less time it's less intrusive for them and it's less like it's more time effective for them and but they're doing more and they're achieving more because of it. And it's also time effective for us as coaches for us to help better serve them, put more effort into it. And the key thing to this is is it doesn't happen overnight. Like I I forget it's the team almost killed me one night I said hey guys we're going to do this we're going to do this I'm going to email my list and we're going to do it. Now this is by no means um like normal so like unless you have a big email list like this ain't going to happen. So don't think I'm trying to sell you you can do this instantly but I put an email out one night going hey guys we're trialing out some new online coaching who wants to take part here's a deal here's the offer like as a like a startup offer yeah we got 60 clients overnight. Yeah and like it was like uh uh oh crap it worked yeah it worked and the team would like almost killed me because of it but yeah it was it was hell on earth it was it was so bad like it was like we had no idea what we'd be doing yeah because we like we thought we could do we actually went into thing we can do mass market we can do cookie cutter stuff and we realized no this is not us this is not working so we had to develop a system so for those who want to get into online coaching on remote online remote coaching if you're going to be another generic just cookie cutter go out there and charge a lot of crack on you've you're fighting it with amongst bottom feeders around here yeah there's a new category and that's individualized fitness coaching which the big boys are starting to play with now and that's where you want to be in but to do that you need to have a robust system of education you need to have a robust system of assessments and you need to know exactly what you're doing as a coach. Now I'm not saying you don't know what you're doing as a coach now. What I'm saying is that if it's not written down in a manual, if it's not written down with like procedures, policies, how we do things, then you're always going to struggle because it's inside your head and it's not relatable to coaches to allow you to scale. And that's the thing we're learning the biggest is like what is the operating procedure for this? How what is our system for this? Not using templates but using systems to help create the program based for what their individual assessments are I kind of waffled on a little bit there but no that's great.

It's really valuable man. So where do people find out more man? Maybe people want to work with you or they want to find out more about you and what you guys are doing. Where where is that information?

Sure if well if if anyone's to a couple of places like if you want to learn more about strength matters and how we do what we do we do a podcast we do a vlog we do a blog every week go to strengthmatters.com you'll see everything on the website there quick and easy links you'll see our system if you want to learn how we do and how our sales funnels are you can easily see and just like a lot of coaches do it. They want to see what we're doing so feel free to jump on and see what we're doing on there. That's the first thing Instagram at strength matters is the uh kind of where we're posting a lot of content and getting a lot of media out and for those who just want to see my adventures on the mountain and boarding most days at James Breeze is the uh is my my own personal Instagram where you can see me like just cruise around the mountains and uh um like play around in the snow basically yeah yeah that's awesome that's my favorite part for sure well James man this has been great uh thank you for sharing your story being so authentic and and honest with all of it um I think it's really powerful and I'm excited for you guys man I think you're you're gonna do some really really cool things in in the future. Thanks man I'm really appreciate thanks for having me on I really appreciate it. So anytime you need me back on more than happy to help out. Awesome. Yeah we'll do that for sure.

Yeah ladies and gentlemen James Brees hey fitness fans don't leave yet it's your host Eric Malzone and I have a quick favor to ask actually three favors. So number one if you're a fan of our show I ask you to do something it 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 tell you how much it means and helps us out. So it 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 gonna 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 fitnessmarketingalliance