Think Different. Be Different - Justin Devonshire

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and the health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level Five Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, Certified Course Creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to level5mentors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone. And once again, welcome to the future of fitness. Boom, we're live. Justin, welcome to the show, man.

Hey, Eric. Great to be here. I'm really excited for this.

Yeah, I am too. I mean, I love talking to obviously other leaders in the fitness profession, but this is my first interview with someone from the island of Cyprus. So, and I I don't think I'll be doing any other soon besides you. So it's pretty, it's pretty exciting, man. I'm happy to have you. And you have some very, I think you and I share a lot of similar viewpoints on the fitness industry and the state of it and the future of it and how to go about with business. And so I really admire, you know, what you do, and I'm excited to have you here. So, you know, as always, if if you don't mind, just you know, start off by by giving us some of your backstory.

No problem. So yeah, I'm from the UK originally, and I moved over to the island of Cyprus, which is not the city in Texas, but it's the island east, very eastern Europe, and uh it's in the Mediterranean, so very nice climate here. Moved here 10 years ago, and I was a personal trainer back in the UK over 10 years ago, working out of a small private gym where I got my footing in the industry. I learned some of the ropes. And I mean, to get a very long story over 10 years, to condense it down, I was very fortunate to get into this industry back then. I never had plans to be a business owner. I was just very grateful to be working with fitness clients and helping people in a gym and happy not to be in some office job or anything that wouldn't fulfill me. And I remember 12, 13 years ago, I would be driving back and forth to the gym every day, and I would be listening to podcasts. Well, back then they were just called audio interviews. Um from guys like Mike Boyle, Eric Cressy, Chris McCombs, a lot of the guys in in the business and marketing industry back then. I learned a lot from those guys. And because that was all from the West over in the States, where you guys are always a good five, 10 years ahead of us with things, I was applying them in my gym in the UK that I worked at and seeing tremendous results. I was only on part-time hours. I was probably earning about $600 a month. So I was still in college doing my certifications as well. And I was contracted for about 20 hours a week, but I'd be the first one there, the last one to leave. And before three, four months, the owner basically just gave me the keys and said, Look, you seem to like this place more than I do. Do what you want with it, basically. So I was able to test these concepts. We we abolished one-on-one training and moved to groups and things like this, and drove up a lot of revenue and profits for the company. However, the issue was for me that I wasn't really being acknowledged for that necessarily. I didn't realize this at the time, it was more retrospectively realizing this. But doing all this work, and I'm sure a lot of trainers can relate, I was just happy and eager and fulfilled to be doing all this stuff. But then when you're not sharing in any of the revenues, you're not getting much acknowledgement, and I didn't see a career uh pathway for growth. And so eventually I thought I can just go do this myself. And that's when friends of my family who had an apartment out here in Cyprus as a holiday home, they they said it's there's a huge British community, everybody speaks English in Cyprus. It is like the UK, but with really good weather. And they said you could go out there and try something on your own. And that's what I did about 10 years ago. I decided to leave, came over here thinking that I'm a great trainer, I've done all these concepts, I can easily make it work for myself, right? And came over here, opened a fitness boot camp, and four months later, after putting all my savings into it, I was weeks away from being evicted for not having paid my rent because I was struggling very hard. That's then when I had to go back and really start learning about real marketing concepts, running a business, and really learning that being a great professional or being a great coach does not equate to being a great owner of a coaching business. And so that was the transition I made from being an employee to then being self-employed, and then after learning many lessons and things I'm sure we'll we'll talk about throughout this call, and I then figured things out and I was able then to open a successful studio, row it, sell it onto a partner, replicate that with another facility in Europe. And to this day, pretty much now I still own and co-own and invest in different gyms and transformation centers around the UK. So I've made that made that transition from employee to self-employed to business owner to investor. And I think that's why me and you have so much in common. We've seen the business from all aspects, made all the mistakes along the way, and now just want to continue growing our own businesses and also share with other fitness professionals who might be coming along that same journey.

Yeah, that's a great story, man. I mean, it sounds like all of us you've experienced the struggle firsthand and you had to figure it out. As painful as those moments are and stressful and lack of sleep, it's ultimately what defines us and how we overcome and get the confidence to go out and help other people. And, you know, I have so many questions for you about your journey. I I think the first one was when you decided on Cyprus, was it a decision based on the lifestyle where you want to live, or was it because you felt the business opportunity there was greater, or is it a little bit of both or neither? What drove that decision to go to Cyprus?

With Cyprus specifically, it was a bit of both, but I was a weird kid. Yeah, 10 years old. I had I had dreams of living in the sun, in the Mediterranean somewhere. Maybe it's because I've got Italian blood in my family, but I always just knew I was gonna leave the UK and live somewhere. And for me, I wanted somewhere that was warm climate, English speaking. That was pretty much my criteria. I almost moved to Florida years ago before I'd got really into fitness, but that didn't work out. So I already knew I was gonna go somewhere. And then the Cyprus opportunity, like I mentioned, it was a friend of the family. We're over here already, so it just seemed it was it was not too far from the UK, only four hours away, versus Florida being a good eight, nine hours away. And also because because of the the expat British population, but really it was about the lifestyle first. It was about my father had retired in his 60s and he always wanted to go and live on the island of uh Corfu in Greece. And he saved and worked for many years. He bought a property out there in Corfu. And then when he retired, he moved out there. And about five months later, he just told me he was so bored and he kind of regretted, he loved being there, but he regretted waiting until he retired because his best years were gone. And he said to me, If if you can, if it if it's a lifestyle you want, go and find the place to be and then build your career or business once you're there. So that was the advice I took, and I think it was for the best.

Yeah, that's really solid advice, right? I mean, oftentimes we we work so hard for retirement, and then we get there and we realize that just like you're talking about, like all the best years when when we're active, when we're energetic, when we, you know, have a whole different outlook on things, it's it's gone, you know. And you know, we always do things for for the purpose of, well, someday I'll get this, but someday never comes for for a lot of people. And that's a big realization to have at an early age, and and what a powerful gift your dad gave you with that. That's that's really cool. So let's dive into the the story, Justin, of like, so you're you're struggling in Cyprus, right? What tell me about like what was the gym facility that you had? Tell me about those days.

Yeah, so I had zero money, zero capital, zero connections. I put all my the money I had. That's like I said, when I was in the UK in the gym, I wasn't earning much money anyway. It was like 600 bucks a month, which pretty much paid my petrol money to get there every day. But I was just happy for the experience. So when I came, I scraped some money together to come to Cyprus. My parents thought it was just a fad and I'd be back soon. So to kind of stick it to them, I I paid all the cash I had for three months of my apartment rental up front just to make myself accountable to it, to making it work. And I always knew if I really got strapped for cash, they could just buy me a flight and for 50 quid and get me back over there. But so it wasn't like I was you know in poverty and all this kind of thing, but I was proud and had ego and I and I wanted to make it work. So I started off training people on a patch of grass that I found, like a playground area, and I would do my sessions there early mornings because after after 8, 9 a.m. it would be too hot anyway over here. It's a really hot country. So I would just go there early without the permission of I think it was uh the land that belonged to a resort or a spa, and just started knocking on doors, training people, you know, not using any proper advertising methods, undercharging. I was just asking, you know, 50 bucks a month. And and I I didn't really know what I was doing in the beginning. I just thought that because I had my idea and I was a good coach that that that would be enough. And so yeah, it just got to a point not getting help that after a couple of months, really, I was behind on my rent payments. My landlord said, you know, you can have to do something or get out. And I think it's more when we're when we're really pushed, when our back is really pushed against the wall, we come to that point, for me at least, where it was that realization time where you're you're pushed this down as you as far as you can go, and suddenly the fear and procrastination disappears because there's now no alternative. It's it's turn this around and make it work and do something different, uh, or or it's just game over. And it just got to that breaking point for me where I then went and figured out. I started really researching, looking at products, information, things online, and started to learn the marketing and sales side of business, which really then started to help me and started getting the clients coming in at that point.

Yeah, interesting, man. And I agree. It's oftentimes when your back is against the ball, is it's you just you're more motivated to do things that you wouldn't have done yesterday. Most of the time that's a good thing. Scary, but it's it's a good thing. So, what were some of the biggest changes that you made in order to make this thing successful? Do you think?

So, I mean, I was still only looking at the marketing side of things, which I didn't consider the business side of things like systems, finances. I was at this point still that solopreneur, really trying to replace a job for myself, just trying to replace a job and pay myself a salary, not thinking about actually growing a company yet. We can come to that later. But the things I did in regards to marketing was just learning about positioning myself as being unique and different, knowing the value of what I'm offering, really the power of having front-end offers or low barrier offers as a way of letting people come in and try what you do, give them a test drive, and then let this. And I think a lot of Fit Pros should be doing this to let the service sell itself. We're a lot of us are really good coaches and we're we're really sucky salespeople. So rather than try to learn all the NLP skills and write card own people in divine from us, it you know, I just found it easier to let people come in, try my programs at at free or very low cost, show them the value they could get, actually demonstrate the value and make it so good that they didn't want to leave. And they would start asking me, what happens after this trial is over? How can I carry on? How can I invite my friends? And I really started doing that. And then coming up, you know, a lot of organic marketing, making use of social media, which was really just Facebook and YouTube back then. There wasn't even Instagram. Yeah, what year was this, Justin? Well, this was about nine years ago, nine, ten years ago. So it was starting to learn to post on social media and and tapping into the customer's psychology and making everything about them, knowing who my specific target prospect was, talking about their struggles and their problems and not what I thought. I I used to think I see this a lot in trainers, where we become very attached, our identity becomes wrapped up in our expertise. And so we think that if we make posts talking about epoch or protein synthesis or calories in, calories out, or why why, you know, how how many types of protein or an apple or whatever, we can do all that, but that we can't get someone to actually eat the apple. And I I dropped all that stuff from my content. I started relating to my prospects, showing my vulnerabilities more, and and that just started really engaging a lot more people on Facebook. Yeah, using that social media, also making use of YouTube and the SE, the keyword function of making videos that ranked for the major keyword search terms. That was very easy back then as as as virtually nobody else was doing it. And then later on came paid advertising on Facebook and things like that when it was very new and very, very cheap. So all those things played a part eventually.

Yeah, I remember when Facebook ads were dirt cheap. It was amazing.

So looking at like 20 cent 20 cent leads, you know.

Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. It was awesome when I started to figure a little bit of that out. I thought I was a genius, you know. And then everybody caught up. So, you know, I I guess looking forward now, Justin, into the current market. And I know like why I'm in the United States, it's especially where my gyms were in in California Central Coast, possibly one of the more congested and competitive markets. But you know, there's a fight to differentiate now. And I think it's anywhere. I don't think it's just California, United States, or even North America or, you know, Western Europe. I think it's around. There's certain emerging markets like uh, you know, India or Asian markets and things like that, which are are still doing all the general right things and seeing success. But when you look at like the the market now, because I know you travel to the states a lot, you work with a lot of you know companies here, boutiques, health clubs, boxes, all these different franchises, the the HIT training, the functional training, the CrossFit, like all there's a lot. There's a lot of options. And I think people struggle to differentiate in the market. What's your take on the current status of things, especially here in North America? And how how do you think people are gonna be able to differentiate now?

So, I mean, yeah, it's gonna depend if you're classifying yourself as more of a smaller boutique or if you are like a mid to large size gym chain and we insult different levels of that. And really, it's I think it's a mix of learn both sides learning from each other. When I'm talking to some of the larger gyms with thousands of members, what we're telling them, I spoke at a conference about this, the biggest gym owners on the island actually just a few weeks ago. And the the main summary of my talk was if you continue simply selling access to equipment, you're not gonna last the next 10 years. You know, the 1980s want their business model back. So it's simply not enough. What people want is transformation, and that's what the boutiques have been doing really well over the last seven, 10 years. And I told these guys, like that's what my companies have been doing and chipping away at you guys. And so they need to incorporate, and many are. I've seen Goals, Jim, and many others now starting to run their own transformation challenges. When I say transformation, I don't I don't just mean run a six-week copy-paste challenge. I mean people really want results. Whether that result is going to be a community-based result or they want physical result or just to feel like the best part is the best part of their day with an experience. The larger chains have to start offering that now because it can't be enough just to say we got all this shiny equipment, pay us a fee to come and use it. Because we've already seen if you only offer that alone, there's no core values differentiating you. They'll end up competing on price. And then because they're competing on price, and now you have these 24-hour, $10 a month chains, because they're competing on price, that means they can't afford to hire any staff or employees. That then, by nature, takes the community aspect away. So what I say is look at what the bigger competitors are doing and then fight on the grounds that they aren't fighting on or aren't willing to. So for most of the bigger chains, they're letting go of all their staff just to reduce costs. So I see that as a big opportunity. Be the one that does give jobs, that does hire staff, and then fosters more of a community where you are. The people you employ will be worth the money if you hit your business model right. And so I think bigger chains need to start doing more of that and the big some of the big names already are. And then the smaller boutiques, that's a more interesting one because I think they need to start finding a bit of a hybrid somewhere in the middle. You can charge, you know, 150 to 250 dollars a month for a large group, a boot camp or whatever. But before long, the bigger chains offering that kind of thing too, if they take our advice, then they're gonna be able to outspend, out-advertise, and out-exposure all the smaller chains. So the guys right now that maybe have 200 members in a facility, each paying 200 bucks, they've got a nice mid-six bigger business, that's great. But if a bigger chain just sets up next door to you and they have all the plush equipment at a spa and they start offering transformation programs for half the price you do, because they have you know bigger, deeper pockets and bigger reach, a lot of the boutiques are gonna struggle without having some kind of lower barrier level product. And so it's a very interesting time. I think we're gonna see a big shakeup over the next few years. And I think if you're in the boutique market right now, what we're advising is you wanna have an element to your business where people can make you maybe you have a bigger space and you can offer some kind of open access where people could come on a $50, $60, $70 a month membership, do some equipment or do some classes, and then upgrade into your semi-private or large group programs, because otherwise you might be struck off by the bigger gyms who can do that at half the price. And I think one of the what we're gonna start seeing more of is rather than you being a boutique owner and trying to build a 10,000 square foot place, instead, I think we're gonna see a lot more boutiques if they're smart, try and incorporate that their model. If you've got a proven model with one or two locations, or at least just the group training model, you want to start trying to incorporate that into the bigger places. So go and find a larger gym chain that knows they need to take some of the boutique market and say, hey, give us this space over on this side of your facility and we'll plug in our model for you. You guys get to do what you do, we'll do what we do best, we'll run this entire group training boutique division for you, and we can collaborate and share some other costs. And we've we've seen a lot of deals which are being very, very interesting. It's just kind of like how how gas stations realize they need to start stopping coffee when the coffee craze was growing. But instead of them coming up with their own coffee, Starbucks just comes along and says, hey, put our Starbucks coffee and vending machines into your gas station. Problem solved.

Yeah.

And I think I think we're gonna see a lot of boutiques in the next 10 to 20 years start doing this model. We've seen this happen with boutiques putting their plugging their model into a bigger chain. We've also done this ourselves by moving our model into corporate offices. We did a deal with uh Reynolds in Europe, the car manufacturer, where we were working out a corporate program for their 3,000 employees. They were a 10-minute walk from our facility, but that was still too inconvenient for the employees to come to our gym. So we said, look, why don't we just build a fitness room, a small version of what we do onto your premises, into the Reynoldt headquarters. We'll staff it with a person full-time, and your employees exclusively can come and use it. And they get a few hundred of the 3,000 employees now come and use that, which we've just plugged into their headquarters. We are seeing success with incorporating programs into schools. I think before long it'll be hotels. So I see the boutique a good opportunity is taking the model. If you have a group training model or a boot camp model that works, can you plug it into a school? Can you plug it into a corporate location? Can you plug it into a bigger gym chain and be like that Starbucks putting your vending machine into the gas stations? I have a hunch that this is where I think is going to be a good idea to be adapting to over the next 10 years.

That's really interesting, Justin. You know, I talked to a lot of people, and that's that first time that concept has actually come up in conversation, and I'm I'm fascinated by it. I mean, essentially what you're saying is you go to where the people are.

Another quick example, we've just secured a deal in the UK. We have three locations in uh Preston, a city in the UK near Manchester, and we've just done a deal with the local college because they have a few hundred sports studies students and they also certify adults after hours into personal training programs. But what colleges and universities are severely lacking is a pipeline to send their students into real work experience. Because the gym, big gyms aren't hiring anymore. And so we know there's a I also predict there's gonna be a big uptake in the number of people getting into a trade like fitness, because as the biggest employers like McDonald's and Bird King, now it's bots and AI that do all the work. They're letting people go and having screens do the work. I think we're gonna see a big upswing in people now, youngsters getting into health, beauty, fitness, and want to get real trades. But there's not gonna be any jobs for them from the big chains because they're they're stacking off people and doing live stream sessions on their on their bikes and things. So the college, fortunately, see the same vision as us, and they know that over the next 10 years, they might double the number of enrollments of sports students, but they can't double their facility size. They can't double their auditoriums, they can't, you know, double their costs. So they wanted to number one, send a pipeline of students to us to get to get work experience, which gives them more value as a college. But also, they've also said to us um they also have a gym on site. They have a whole functional training area, about $20,000 worth of equipment, rigs, you know, everything, even the inspirational quotes on the wall. And they just said we don't even use it. So they said to us if if you wanna you wanna come and use this as your you know the the training center, by all means. And that's what we're doing now. We've we've just been given an entire new facility at zero cost. Amazing that we're gonna use and you know. Difference is that we'll have one of our lead coaches there, and we'll have one or two of their students assisting every session to get their work experience. And we make all the money and profit on that by plugging in. We can even put our name on the wall. So that's another venue is colleges. And I think that's where like I think F45 are looking into doing that kind of thing as well. So colleges, schools, we're doing so you know it's not even a prediction. This is what we're doing right now. And I think so. I'm not an Ostradamist. I'm just seeing what we're doing, what deals tend to be more attractive for the short term and the long term. Uh and so yeah, that's that's what not a lot of people are doing it, but but it's it's working well for us right now.

Yeah, yeah. It's awesome, Justin. I think you know, I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of the uh executive team at at F 45 and some of the projects they're working on, and then they're thinking in a very similar line. And it's why they're growing. You know, they're innovating, they're thinking of things differently, they're looking at the opportunities in a market differently and you know, similar to the way that you are too. And it's it's a way of thinking, right? I look at most fitness professionals, gym owners who maybe get so, so stuck in the day-to-day of well, I just don't know where I'm gonna get my next three clients, that they're they're either not seeing the opportunity or not taking the steps figuratively back to look at the whole landscape and say, like, ah, okay, maybe there's a better way. Maybe there's a way with less friction, maybe there's a way where I can get there faster if I just change my whole approach to things. And there's a ton of opportunity. And I like the way that you're looking at the market as a whole, especially, you know, education, because you know, over here, education is really expensive. And I can tell you, you know, using F 45 as an example is like they need great trainers, general managers, marketing people because they're growing. And there's a huge need for qualified people and getting into a trade like fitness because it's an exciting industry. I mean, we really we look at the, I talk about all the time. The industry is only about 50, maybe 60 years old. No one really knows the exact day of when it started, but it's young and we're evolving. And there's a lot of money being poured into the tech now. There's a lot of access to people that we didn't have before. And obviously, you know, obesity and health and long-term health care costs are dictating that we need to take a better look at how we're hitting people during their prime years and how we're taking care of them. And I I think that you know, I don't know what everything looks like. I think you have a clear vision of one vertical that could happen, but there's a lot of opportunity there. And I hope people who are listening to this, because traditionally people got into fitness because they just want to help people, right? They weren't thinking it as like decidingly a career or something that could be lucrative down the road financially. They just want to help people and they didn't care about money and you know, they say all these things, right? That's a lot of the mindset too, is like, well, I'm not doing it for the money. So I don't I don't, you know, I do because I like to help people. And uh, well, you don't have to be a martyr, right? You can actually help people and make a living that you're proud of. So there I think there's a ton of opportunity. I mean, I love the way you're looking at it.

Yeah, I think I heard about F-45 approaching colleges from your podcast, actually. I think it was from a podcast somewhere anyway. Um yeah, just I'm touching on that, on the talent of the people, it's like we're seeing what's gonna cause another trigger change in the industry is that the the kind of looking for a fully certified personal trainer between the age of 25 and 35 years, which is where you typically usually go to first, is the least successful for us because we have the majority of not all of them, but a majority of trainers at this level are they have that self-employed mindset. They're not looking to be part of your culture and gross at what you're doing. They're just looking to get paid per hour and do their thing. And we're getting much, much better success. I think about 80% of our employed coaches are either under 25 and have come straight from a college or and this is like their first job. And so they're just humble and they want to learn our way of doing things. They're not coming in thinking they have the recipe, they're coming in to learn from us. And the rest of our coaches are actually former clients who are 35, 40 years plus, who have achieved great success. They've been trained and indoctrinated in our system for the last two to three years. And we say that, you know, most of the fully, you know, ABC, XYZ certified trainers with all the letters after their name who command the really high amount per hour. The reality is we tell them that our clients could turn around and coach a session probably better than they could. They already know how we do things, they know our system. And we're we're recruiting and employing clients to become coaches right now. So it's it's it's very strange that that middle, that that talent pool in the middle of being a certified trainer is kind of going out of fashion, at least the way we see it. And if that is a trend that carries on, then a lot of trainers in that middle area need to really start reflecting and start asking, you know, if we're moving into this model, we've got this new century business model of group training. But a lot of these coaches and PTs are still demanding payroll or they're demanding pay, the pay structure from one-to-one training from the 80s and 90s. And it's just not economically sustainable for us to pay a coach what he wants for a one-to-one PT session, we can't pay him that to run one of our groups because we brought the cost down for the clients. And so I think we're gonna see a lot more trainers at that level, the self-employed trainer, if they don't re-evaluate and adjust and realize that c our clients are becoming coaches and taking their jobs, that young kids out of college are walking straight into $20,000 plus a year salaries with us. And unless they then finally get that business education and start turning things around fast for themselves, there might not be a place for them in the next five, 10 years.

Yeah. I mean, ultimately you either embrace the change or you just get run over by it. You know, it's always the with the way it's always been. And you know, so let's talk about your company a little bit, Justin. You you talk about us. Who is us on your team?

So, you know, I'm invested and work with different business partners, people that have been clients or or long-term friends of mine, and they're typically entrepreneurs that have great entrepreneurial potential. One of the key factors we look at in in team building is the distinction between visionary and integrator. Apparently, it's from the book Rocket Fuel, which I haven't read, but apparently it's a very similar concept. I go more on Rob Kiyosaki's model of entrepreneur investor. One is the emotional, impulsive ideas person that never gets anything done. And the other is the integrator, which is that less emotional person that can put the structure in place and focus the energy of the entrepreneur. And so I do best as an integrator, and I then work well with fitness pros who are entrepreneurial, have a great idea, a great passion, great energy, but they need that operational structure and that balanced mindset to help them. So on our team, like one of my business partners is Stewart. We have we have two locations in Wales in the UK, and we're fast expanding there. And um, another of my business partners is James, and that's where we're up in Preston with our women's only and men's only fitness centers. And then on our consulting team is pretty much like my operational team. I can't run all the operations on my own. So I have my own operations manager, executive assistant, and a few implementers who then basically work on the overall long-term strategy, putting systems in place, tracking the finances, setting the financial forecasts and budgets, and helping the entrepreneurs to learn that it's not growing a business isn't about doing things, taking big actions and implementing strategies and then counting up the numbers to see if it worked or not. That works in the early stages, maybe, to kind of get you from zero to a low six-figure business. But after you start actually growing up a company at that point, what we try and teach the entrepreneurs is that instead of doing things and then tracking the numbers, you actually have to switch that around. And it becomes looking at the numbers to tell you what you can and can't do, what you should and shouldn't do. And then helping them see that side of things that you have an impulsive idea, but you have to then back that against logic, reason, and strategy. And if the two things meet well in the middle, that's probably what we should do next. So that's the team. We have individual teams and coaches and in in those gyms. We also run an online business as well. I have a partner in India where we run online fitness business there throughout Dubai and India and the Middle East. Yeah, a lot of teams we're working with. It's very dynamic over here, but I just love it. I love the day-to-day and pushing everything forward every day.

Yeah, that's awesome, man. I'm curious, what's your criteria for things that you invest in? And I presume when you invest, it's not necessarily monetary, but it's your your expertise is kind of your value token, right? What's the criteria you look at for what you take on? Well, like I think like most investors will tell you, you we invest in people.

I've made mistakes in my earlier days of doing this where I've seen a really good business model, a good potential business, but it's but it's not run by the right person, or the person hasn't got that factor. And with all when you have all the systems and gross knowledge and experience, sometimes the mistake I would make is thinking that I could overcompensate for that lack of a leader and I could, you know, plug everything in and you have a great, great business, but it's a cold business if there's no heart and soul infused into it. So those kind of deals never end up, never end up working out. The entrepreneur has to be the ultimate leader, and if they don't charge forward with with their vision, nothing is gonna happen. So what I know to look for now is it's all about the person, they can have a rubbish idea, but or their current might be a lot of crap. But if they're the right person, I'll say, look, you know, I want to invest in you. You're ambitious, you're hungry. Uh, and and so the common traits that I can see between all the guys I've invested in and work with right now is that they are all hungry for success. Like they'll get up and they just want to get up and start building the company. They want to start creating something every single day. It's like a long-term project to them. They're not thinking about, they're not thinking about building a job for themselves, about getting paid this month. It's about the profit dividends that we get shade out. We just happily reinvest back into the company. So it's the people that are not building a business to take the money out, they're building a company to put more money and reinvest into it. And they're not out there, you know, buying sports cars and flash houses and things that look good on social media, but in fact, they don't care about the image. They just want to build something over the next 20 years and they have that long-term vision. That's number one. The second thing is they take action and they're coachable. That's the biggest thing. When I worked, when I invested in some companies and it didn't work out, is because I would, they'd ask me my advice, I would give it to them, they'd resist it or fight it or just not do it. And then we'd end up in the same situation with things getting worse month after month, just like it, just like a regular client relationship. So, but the guys I work with now we're we're growing massively, you know, uh sustainable, profitable businesses because they say, Justin, how do I how can I do this? How do we do this better? And I tell them or give advice or ideas, and the next day they've gone and done it. And so it's just simply taking action. And the third thing I see in the guys that I'm so uh blessed to work with right now is that first and foremost, they are obsessed. Haresh is my partner in our online coaching business. We just released an app. Uh, we hired a full-time team of developers over three months, building an app for our hundreds of online clients. And basically, Haresh was there in the room with the developers, getting this ready for launch. He didn't sleep for four nights one time because he wanted to be there to make sure the app had all the features. He pulled hundreds of clients, seeing what they wanted in the app, and made sure that if he stayed up awake for three nights in a row to make sure the app had those functionalities and that its supplements have the right ingredients and the best quality ingredients, uh and the guys at the transformation centers every day. They're they're focused on marketing, of course, but it's like 20% of their time is focused on new prospects coming in. 80%, though, is on the clients in front of us who've got us where we are. What can we do better for these guys today and what can we do for them tomorrow? And they're just obsessed with the clients, and ironically, that that's what builds the company. Awesome.

I love that, man. Justin, great messaging. Where do people get a hold of you if people are resonating with all this? Where do they reach you?

So I'm easy to find on on social media. You can go to justindevonshire.com. If you want to find more content of mine, you can go to justindevonshire.com forward slash biolinks. Bio links. And that just takes you to a page with all of our different YouTube podcasts, hundreds of hours of content. Or just search me on social media, Facebook, Instagram. If anyone wants to WhatsApp me, send me a message. My sell on WhatsApp is 00357 9680 6626. Shoot me a message. I'll reply to every message uh as soon as I can. But I just love chatting, engaging with the pros and just seeing WhatsApp and sharing stories and advice. I love it, man.

Well, Justin, thank you so much. I think you you've dropped so much value today. And like I said, I really appreciate the way you think. I think it's important that people look at the way that they think and and change it. So yeah, man, I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. It was great. Thanks so much. Ladies and gentlemen, Justin Devonshire. Hey, it's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is futurofitness.do. Again, that's futurofitness.co. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again. Signing off