Most Gym Operations Suck, We Show You How To Do It Right

[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the Built to Last Gym podcast. The only podcast helping you build an MBA, a master's in business for gym ownership. Hosted by two coaches who have become gym owners and have done it successfully for 45 years combined and still doing it to the highest level. Giving you the real world insights of how to build a gym that you love, impact clients in the community and makes you the money that you deserve. Let's go. [MUSIC] We are back, Built to Last Gym podcast, myself, Annie McClure, and today. Since we're covering like our compass, we said, hey, why don't we one of our kind of guiding, I would say, values on that compass and built to last gym is, educate the marketplace and proof. I think this is extremely important. It's kind of like one of those things where how do you build a reputation locally and become 3 mile famous? This is like a big part of it. I think there's two, even before we turned on the record button, we're saying there's kind of like two parts of it. The first part that I really like to think about is what if there was some type of, what's it called? EMT or EMP that lasts out the electricity and there's no more internet, there's no more phones, and we kind of go back to the stone ages, and if that happened, how would your gym still be legendary and thrive and have a reputation? And that comes from things like boredom, out from referrals, because there's a part of, listen, to this day, I think this is the most powerful thing. Let's say Andy's got 80 pounds to lose, obviously he doesn't, because he's slim and sexy, but he does, and I haven't seen a guy for a while, and then I'm like, damn bro, holy shit. Man, you look amazing. What have you been doing, right? And you'd go like, "Whoa, actually, I joined this gym called for Grandfathers Performance." Right? That is one of those things that in any business, man, this past week, no shit. My girl, you know, to her friend, your skin looks amazing, right? Oh, I'm using these products, you know what I mean? Guess what happens next? Those products get bought, damn it. So to me, that's like part of the proof right there is that. Now like, what are some of the things that like, you know, BCI has been around for a long time and has that legendary kind of three mile famous, probably more than three mile famous in Huntsville now, status, but the kind of non-digital aspects to it, right? And of course, we talked about coaching first, so that is a prerequisite because you got to know how to do the damn thing and be great at your skill and your craft. But what are some like internal things that have helped kind of show the proof? And beyond, you know, beyond, let's not go too digital now, because we'll still touch the digital part of it significantly. But what are some simple things that like, done extraordinarily well over time, just work? Yeah, I think in the last night, I was at basketball practice for my youngest daughter. And buddy of mine is the head coach of the team. And then another one of our adult members, her husband is the guy that actually like runs the whole organization. And we were sitting around talking about what my focus was going to be this year to get more middle school athletes involved in our program. And this is where my focus is right now is on the athletes side of our business more than the adult side. So I'll speak to that. And I was sharing with them that we've spent the past couple of years as I've kind of moved up on the org chart and focused on developing leaders where I've been focused on things that quite frankly, I didn't have a lot of proof that worked. I was running a lot of ads. I was doing things that people told me I needed to do and it certainly had value. We've grown our program with those methods, but what I was sharing with them last night is now that I've got more things all floated off my plate. We're going to go back to like what built our program. And that was being present in the community. And I think these days people believe that they have to do everything from behind a computer. They have to be so content driven and advertising focused that they forget the best way to like really make an impact in a community is to be in the community. So for people that are running their sports performance programs, I think that is the burden, right? You could get out and get to know AAU coaches, athletic directors, youth performance programs that are like skill based. You should be the center of those things. And like you said with coaching first, kind of being the prerequisite, if you're good, you can differentiate yourself from the other options in the community. And one of the things I used to talk about was a guiding principle of how we grew our athlete program was serve first, sell later. And that wasn't like a strategy of acquisition, but what we used to do is go in and really serve like hey coach, can we install the warm up for your team? Hey coach, can we give you an arm care program? Hey coach, what do you think your team needs? Oh, we need more speed. What if we gave you like a speed program you could bolt on to the end of your warm up before practice every day? And we would go out and we would run those sessions for free. And I'll be honest back then our follow up game was not strong. It just wasn't. Now we know how to follow up. We know how to like strategically take those opportunities and convert them into sales. But I tell you what, we used to get a lot of sales just by actually caring. And I think when everybody is so tactically driven, they're missing out on the stuff that really matters. And I think that is the intentional effort of serving a community. And I know that's not like a bullet point like strategy somebody can take from this podcast and go execute. But the reality is everybody that I know that built the foundation of their business, built it around this. And once they had that foundation, all the other things like paid advertising and strategic referral asks and reactivation campaigns, all these things that you should be doing, they were built on top of that. And what I think people are making the mistake of is like they try to jump to that stuff too early before they've built that foundation. So and I think the same applies just it's contextually different when you're talking about building an adult fitness program. You know what's okay. So you make so many good points here, but let's start here, proof and educate the marketplace. So like Frank Kern, one of the things that he said, it's like what's the three ways to show and tell people that like you're great, right? And like number one is that you tell them, like, hey, I'm Andy, like I'm the best sports performance blah, blah, blah, right? It doesn't carry a lot of weight, okay? Because you say it. Number two is when others say it about you, right? So your clients coaches the community like very powerful, right? You get Google reviews, testimonials, success stories, all that stuff. But number three, right, is to show people, meaning it like that you basically, you know, help them, like show you can help them by actually helping them. And that creates an internal decision trigger. And what you're saying is exactly that, dude, I used to do this back in the day where you would go to high schools and do our speed training stuff for free, right? Like you show up and you take them through the session and the coach is like, damn, we've never, man, the guys are feeling good. Like, man, this is awesome. Like this would help us. And then the booster pays you for like three months. But it's exactly what you're saying. Like you're, you're showing them, you can help them by helping them. You're showing them that you know, you're shit, right? Because they're going through it and it's like, damn, right? Like knee rehab program, you know, on field team speed. Like you said, arm care program for any, any kind of throwing sports, right? Like you're already delivering the value and educating in the marketplace before you sell. Now, you make a great point. Like we always talk about how sales is so important. But before you were great at sales, it still worked because you did the right thing and like served first and gave so much value. And by the way, one of the, I would say books that is under appreciated, maybe a lot of people don't even know about them. I don't know if you know, but it's from the series of the go giver, but it's called the go givers sell more. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Excellent. Excellent book. But it really is about like what you're saying. And you know, and then you get better at things like the follow-up part, right? Like maybe you're doing all the right things on the front end, but you don't follow up on the back end and you lose sales there. But like I agree that also the value of in person gets enhanced when digital, it gets bigger, right? We talk about this all the time, right? Where it's like, now so much stuff has become online. And again, we're not saying online that it's not great. It's like you got to do it. But now if you do charity boot camps, you do workshops for athletes. You do, I don't know, like a live high rocks event as a front front end offer, which you could definitely do. And set like we have a seminar coming up on the 24th, educational stuff, you know, BCI Olympics, like all these things now become actually more valuable because there's connection, there's community. And people get to experience what it's like to be part of your gym, right? So I like, I will quadrupe, why don't I flip flop and because it's like, I actually look at Andy when I look at the screen. And then when I look at the camera directly, he looks like I'm looking at Andy, but I'm actually looking at the camera. I got a flip flop eye, but my point being is, I truly believe what you're saying is that like you could just do that and not have a massive online presence and crush it. And actually we've seen this, we both experienced this where those were the things we're doing in a business drew, you know, where we get people that like are really working on their online social media content and not getting the conversion they think they will, you know, by increasing their, you know, followers and subscribers and whatever else maybe. Which has its own, like, we will talk about this 'cause I think there's obviously a benefit to it. But I think the most powerful stuff is that if you can show somebody, you know, what you do. Like, we were literally just talking about it. Like, I had three actual athletes that came through this past week, you know, they were referrals. And it was like, one of those things were like, let's do a session, you know, this happened, this happens a lot. After the session, they're like, man, wow. I feel great, like, man, you taught me a lot of stuff. I didn't know like, man, my shoulder was bugging me. It feels so good. My ankle, like, I was feeling it, but like the drills you showed me, I'm in, right? So that was it. It was like, there was a demonstration that I know my stuff. Now, there was absolutely some kind of a, I would say positioning before that. But the experience made the person go like, I'm in, right? It wasn't like I watched 45 of your online videos, right? It was like, somebody said you're good. Then I experienced it, I'll train with you, right? And by the way, pro athletes too, high level, right? And a high school that's going to Juco. So it works no matter where you go. That's what proof, I think, it means in one sense it'll work, right? Like you just mentioned it, like this is the stuff that like you can do and you should be doing, you know, regardless if you have a good website, you have your IG, you have your Facebook, you have, you know, Pock, whatever you have, like you can't not do that. And that would be the question for everybody listening. When is the last time that you did that? - Yeah. - I'll wait. - You just reminded me of something too that, I think one of the ways to prove to the market that you deserve their business is creating opportunities to show them what you know, right? And you've talked a lot about having live events and the importance of that. And you've hosted a ton of live events. And if you can get people from the community to show up and then listen to you talk about nutrition, fat loss, sport performance, whatever your expertise is, that's a way to differentiate yourself. Because quite frankly, the average gym owner in your community is probably not skilled enough to do that. And listen, even if you don't have a gym right now, like I remember there were times where I would make a relationship with a youth football organization. And I would bring like my own little mini whiteboard and like stand. And I would literally stand in front of the bleachers of a football field where mom and dads had their kids practicing football. We're talking like 12-year-olds practicing football. And I've got a whiteboard. And I'm whiteboarding out our training system and what's different about us and trying to impress upon them that like we don't just trade money for like ladder drills and stuff. Like there's real principles behind what we do, right? And you know, nowadays, I mean, look, you could bring your own cameraman and film that and put it on social media. And you can, you know, you could do, you know, spread that across, you know, digital land as well. And, you know, as I'm talking through this, what we're currently doing to differentiate and educate and prove to the market that our adult program is really unique. And listen, I'm biased, probably strongly believe it's the best product in our market is I'm writing an article on our training principles and our training rules. And it's going to be widely distributed to our membership base first. And then we're going to continue to use that with like some of the AEO strategies for AI that you've talked about. So people know why our program is different. Like it's, I have, I don't care what you do or why you do it. From Zoom, but to Orange Theory to CrossFit. Like if you're getting people to move, like I respect you, but I do strongly believe that our program has some big differentiators against those products for a specific avatar. And we can create content around that and then distribute it and we're hitting two things. Like we're proving to the market that we know what the heck we're talking about and we have strong beliefs and we're educating them along the way. And that can be spread into multiple different mediums as well. - There's so many good points you make. And I wanted to kind of put from what you were saying, I wanted to plug in a couple of like strategic things. You mentioned AEO and like how you would get in front of basically like the parents with a whiteboard. I think that's the thing that can now, by the way, I don't think stopping doing that is a good idea. Like you should continue to do that. But what you can do is kind of digitally do that as well. So let me kind of explain. And by the way, when we say AEO is answer engine optimization, it just means that like, you know, when I go to my phone and I go, hey Chad GPT, you know, best sports performance gym in my area, you know, of pricing for personal training, yada yada yada, right? Like it's gonna give you answers based on how it finds the answers. And so your website has to be not just SEO friendly but now AEO friendly. And what Andy was saying, you know, you can use these articles also with what, like I would call assignment selling. So it's content that sells before the console. So we're doing this now with Pat where I write articles about pricing, right? And very in detail, like what are the prices? By the way, if you go to my YouTube right now, you'll see a 30 minute video about like prices of personal training in Renton and South Seattle. And obviously it's not my usual content that you know people come for, but it's there for a reason because AEO finds it and it's gonna go on a bigger website so that people see what are the factors that influence personal training prices? Like what makes them go up? What makes them go down, right? And we send that article to a client beforehand. You know why? Because now for a person that's like looking for a cheap thing, they're gonna realize like what cheap gets them and why we are where we are. Like what does one-on-one cost? Why we do semi-private personal training in small group? Because it's more affordable. So very high value, but it's like this is what gets results. So it's really, it's a very thoroughly smart structured piece of content that now like Andy, some, you know, when we used to do this and still do this, get in front of people, now people are seeing this all the time 24/7 when we sleep, right? And for example, some of the articles that make a lot of sense, what to expect video and article? Like what imagine, by the way, this is a question for everybody here, that's a gym. Do you have a thorough what to expect article plus videos on your site? - What do you actually experience of your gym, right? Like that's what you refer to. - Exactly, exactly. Like what is gonna happen, right? Like hey, you're gonna come in and you're gonna sit down with coach Pat. Pat's gonna take you through the gym tour and exactly what we do and how we do it. You're gonna sit down and figure out what is your point A or what is your point B? And then from there, you're gonna figure out like what is the best thing for you based on your lifestyle, your goals, what you can afford, your budget. If you sign up and if you go into a trial, like the whole thing broken down, 'cause remember, people have no idea what we do. We think, you know, we think they're like, oh my God, people are gonna come in and know what happens. No, most people don't know what personal training is to my private personal training looks like. Or maybe, by the way, maybe they have a really bad example of what it was like, okay? And then they're coming in going like, y'all last time, I bought these sessions, coach was shit, didn't follow up with me. I never used the sessions, I lost $1,000. So now they're coming with a wall up, right? I heard good things about you guys, but I have a bad experience with personal training. Consignment selling literally sends them the article. And then, you know, Pat will be like, hey, just send me a text done when you read the article, 'cause they're going through it and going like, oh wow, like, these guys have really thoroughly explained what they do. And you might have some people that go like, you know what, I just can't afford this. Sounds awesome, but like, my budget is XYZ. Now, Pat can still address the objection and work on it, but we're already educating this, now, you know, this person on this stuff. So again, work to expect article and/or video. Pricing explainer, two case studies, right? Send them like a article with case studies of two different members. Like, how many gyms do this? Like, I'll tell you, like, zero point whatever fucking 5% if that, right? So you've already differentiated yourself where they're like, holy crap. But what am I doing? I'm educating the marketplace. I'm giving them proof. You see what I mean? So I think actually that where we're going, Andy, is like, it's gonna go back to a lot of article writing. Yep, I'm telling you, I've seen it. Like, there's a, you know, some reason substack is crushing it, but I think, you know, blog/articles are gonna come back because it's, now, less people will consume it, but the people that will, it'll be extremely valuable for them, right? And so I think that like, things that we didn't put into, you know, everything that's really good about BCI, everything that's really good about Vigor, we have to operationalize it in content, video, articles, PDFs, because what we're doing is, is like, people end up going through this stuff and then they go, that's why these folks are right for me, right? Where the old school stuff is like mystery, you know what I mean? Like, our system is mysterious. You know what I mean? And it's like, - One thing you're talking about that I think is unique is, like I think most people listen to this if they've had a gym, they were always told to kind of keep their prices close to their chest. Like don't really talk about your prices. Wait till you get the person on the phone, see if they're fit, pre-qualify them, which I'm not even saying that's wrong, but it seems like from what I'm learning, AI in the future that is really built on trust and transparency. So by creating that pricing video that you're talking about, it'll be more in your favor, the direction that everything is going from an AEO perspective is you by-- actually being transparent about what your prices are the way they are. It's not even like in your favor or not. It's AI will literally deem you a threat. Like that's how-- So this is how AI works, right? Lack of information equals untrustworthy, right? So your website, Andy, I go there and I can't find out anything about pricing. It's flagged. Well, currently you can ask for it and then we'll send you an email and try to sell you, so we might ought to fix that. No, like listen, I did the same thing. The only thing that we disclosed was our trial price, right? But no other prices. And my hope, there's a perfect pricing page structure that we give all our bill to last people, our mentorship clients. There's a whole basically ecosystem. I did almost two-hour presentation in Nashville on the 14 things that you have to do for AEO to make your site extremely trustworthy. And if not just trustworthy, so they'll recommend it. And it's a very different rules than what Google SEO and just SEO is built around, right? And it doesn't mean that like the SEO doesn't matter anymore. It means that both matters. And here's the thing. Here's one way to try it out. For your gym, go to Gemini, Grock, and Chad GPT, and you could go to perplexity, whatever else, right? But like the main one's kind of. And just go, hey, I am someone looking to lose 40 pounds, get healthy and sustainably. And I'm looking for the best personal training or I'm looking for the best gym in Renton, Washington, Huntsville, put your area in and see what it pops up. Now, because it's still worked, like you'll have different platforms, like we have some platforms recommend Vigor's number one. Some I'm not even on the top three, right? So obviously there's different ways that they're finding it. And we even gave a tool in Nashville for built-to-last folks where they can put their website in. And it gives them a trust score and gives you a whole list of things of which you need to fix on your site. And by the way, most of our people like ranked low, okay? Like we're talking about 25, 30 out of 100. Vigor was 64, which I personally think, I mean, it's very good, but personally, I'm like, fuck that, I want it to be 90 out of 100. So I'm working on all these things to get it up there. But what it means is that like currently at least 20% of all search comes from basically search from AI, right? And they're saying within a couple of years that's going to be at like 50% 'cause it's grown dramatically. So imagine that if you don't care about that and you're not doing anything about it, half of the time where people search for gym near me, best personal trainer, best group training, personal training gym, any of that stuff, like you're not going to pop up at all. Like because remember, it doesn't give a lot of recommendations. It gives like, you know, one to five, usually one to three. So if you're not putting that into account, you might be losing half the search 'cause search on Google is going down, okay? Now I hate to listen. I am a believer in what me and Andy were saying at the beginning of this podcast, right? If the lights go out, the electricity goes, the internet's down. I want to make sure that our gym's still not just survive but thrive, okay? It's the foundation. But it's also insanity. And I've had a couple of people that are like, man, I don't care about that. I'm like, well, you're nuts. That's insane because that's the world we live in right now. Like you have to have a media presence. You have to be like, you have to be your own media company. You have to think about AI. 'Cause the one that says you're nuts is like, yeah, listen, that's the same person that in three years, you don't have a gym, you know what I mean? 'Cause you're not caring about these things. So, fortunately or unfortunately, what we do has a certain requirement. When things change in industry, we have to change. We have to evolve. We have to learn new things. We have to deal with the, you know, setbacks and obstacles and stuff like that. And so, you know, we wanted to talk about this 'cause there's multiple parts to it, right? Like you do have to go into the community. Puckin' yes, you gotta go to the community. But I told our guys, you know, we have Jake Wolf who is in our mastermind. We were just giving him props on this last call because I did a presentation on, it was a Saturday prezo, right? I think it was a Saturday prezo, yeah. And in this guy, the same day is already emailing his website guy. In the next day, I go on his website and he's made all these changes that are like our AEO friendly on his website. And now, you know, I was like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, oh yeah, I sent that right away. We started making changes. Now, why do I bring this up? I bring this up because it doesn't take that long. You just gotta get focused, take the knowledge and apply it. And now he's already a couple of steps ahead of everybody in his local area that's in the gym business, right? 'Cause he made a site, he improved his front end offer. He put the prices up, he had FAQs, he did all this stuff. Not everything, not all the 14 points yet, but he knocked out about four of them that are really important. And guess what? He's gonna get searched more, he's gonna get found more, he's gonna get more leads of that in 2026, right? Like, it's not like rocket science. It's just can you sit down, get your shit together, and then work on the thing, you know, rather than like stay busy, scroll your social media and say you're busy. 'Cause that's what tends to happen. - Oh yeah, no. Shout out to Jake Wolf, that was a G-Move. I was so impressed when you told me about that. And it's no doubt he's doing so well. - Yeah, I mean, this is a thing, right? Like people that take fast action, because when you're listening, by the way, when you're listening to this pod, okay? The magic is in this. We're gonna say a bunch of stuff, a lot. More than you can get done in a year, maybe, right? But there's one or two things that you'll hear that will resonate with you. And maybe it'll be when you listen to Andy, and they're like, "Hey, I wanna have more youth athletes, "but I'm not going in community at all." Like, I'm not doing any speed camps. I'm not doing any ACL prevention training for volleyball, basketball. I'm not doing any team speed for this, that, the other, right? Like, I need to set up one or two things in the next 30 days. Like, let me get on a call, let me get on a phone, let me get in, you know, shake hands and kids' babies and set these things up. And in the rest of the stuff I'm talking about, and Andy's talking about, you might not do it, but that's okay. You took action on something, right? Maybe you're gonna go, what's this AEO thing Luke is talking about? And you're going to Amazon, and you'll buy a book on AEO from Perry Belchard. There you go, I just said it. And you'll read through the book, and they actually do some of the shit, okay? Or you're gonna go, you know what? I don't know what the hell's going on. I need accountability, and I'm gonna go to builtalazgim.com. I'm gonna, you know, opt in for a phone call, have a conversation, and get into the mentorship, and grow my business significantly, like, you know, the 30 plus gym owners that we're working with right now. You got it, like, what is it that you're going to actually do? Because every time you learn something, if you build the skill, and it is a skill, it's not something God-given, just like, you fell out of the sky, or your mom and dad gave to you, it's a skill that, like, when you learn a thing, that you go do the thing, and you gotta practice it, 'cause it's hard, right? Like, oh, otherwise you just consume, you know, like, man, I listen to my 11th podcast this week, cool. What did you take action on from the podcast that you learned? What notes do you have? Did you write down notes? Do you have, like, clear, next strategic steps from the stuff you listen to? Now, man, I just like listening to podcasts. Well, that shit, don't matter, you know, like, but, how is it affecting your business in your life when you're doing these things, man? Like, so, I will, Andy, on your side of things, and by the way, like, I wanna kind of dive into, how do you operationalize this? 'Cause you do it with your team. So, when you're solo, right? And you talk about doing these things, it's a lot. But how can you have your team help on the side of educating the marketplace and the proof side of things? Like, what are some things that you guys do at BCI? That, like, essentially, you know, 'cause, and I'll just give a super simple example, right? I create a lot of content. If every one of my coaches just made two pieces of content per month, well, we have a total of six coaches. That'll be an extra 12 pieces of content per month. And that's, that's a, moves forward, right? Like, if every coach asks for a referral every week, now we have a lot of asks for referrals, rather than just me running around asking for referrals. So, like, what are some of the things that would kind of go into the buckets of educate the marketplace and proof that, like, basically, because it becomes compounded because you guys do it as a team. - Yeah. Why don't you think the direction that you've gone with being really heavy handed with content? and I've seen really benefit Vigor as a whole. Even just like your organic reach has been really powerful for Vigor. At BCI, we really relied on brand and like how long we've been in the market. And when you were talking about like people like saying, oh, I don't, yeah, I don't wanna do that AEO stuff. Like, man, I probably am a little bit on that side. And it comes because the way that I built my business was very manually driven, being out in the community, doing a good job. But even I've recognized like this is incredibly important. So we send out a regular cadence of emails and we have content and we've got one specific person who kind of has a talent for that and she holds a lot of that. Shout out to Maddie. She's one does an incredible job there. She really has a mind for marketing. But the way that we're going to be operationalizing this more in the future comes down to us being really clear on what we stand for. And when I talk to a lot of gyms, when I ask them about their training and their product, there doesn't seem to be an appreciation for the depth required to separate you from all those other big fitness brands. So like I mentioned, our training system article and the principles behind it and our training rules. As a staff and a team, we spend a lot of time getting very clear on those things. What do we stand for? So when everybody's unified behind that message, it gives you the ability to multiply it in the market. I don't know if every coach at every gym that I've spoken to can explain the training rules or the principles behind the system that they implement. And that's one thing that we're really focused on right now is clarifying that message inside our building as a staff with our membership base and then operationalizing it through a regular cadence of content. We've done other things internally, like an in-house podcast, a member's only podcast for our members to get a better idea of who we are and what we stand for. We do have a document that it's called who we are, both for the athlete side and the adult side of our business. And when we're talking with people in the community, it's a great way for us to just send them something to get a real idea of who we are and what we stand for. So I'm excited about 2026. It's gonna be an area where we create a lot more content and put it out in the market. But we've really relied on brand and social proof to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And you were talking about taking action on skills quickly. It's funny because now we're doing more paid advertising than ever and we haven't done a ton of that and it still feels a little clunky. If we had been taking more imperfect reps, you know, five years ago doing that stuff, I think it would be even smoother. So I know there's somebody listening to this that isn't doing a lot of content like we've been. We've been able to build a great business without doing a ton of it. But I would tell any gym owner listen to this, like start taking the imperfect reps now because the more imperfect reps that you take, the better the product's gonna be within the next year, two years. And I think it's gonna matter more and more and more. I think that's just the reality of where we are, paid advertising, digital communications, transparency, and trust are gonna be built through video. - Those eight, man, I actually wasn't texting people. I was actually texting myself for another article idea, which is figured around training system and training rules. Because again, like I think you're absolutely right, you know, where if you can verbalize, communicate, you know, and show even visually, like what you do, how you do it, and kind of things that you stand for, even from a principal's training. People, like here's the thing, by the way, like this is all research, right? Like if you have a system, people will trust you more, okay? Why? Because you can explain like this is how we built this system, you know, like this is why we believe the things we believe and you guys have been in business over 20 years. I'm coming in, well, I've coached for 21 years, but I'm coming in on 20 years of a gym. So it's like all this time and experience has led us to build these rules around training and these principles around training. And this is how we operate, right? And when people don't have that and you have it, you will be deemed more trustworthy, right? Like, so again, to be able to tell people, like remember uncertainty equals anxiety. The more certainty that you can create with a person, the more they're gonna be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like what they're saying makes sense. But what if you don't have anything to say? That's uncertainty. Like, I mean, and by the way, think about any person like right now, me and Andy are like, hey, we want to improve our built to last website. So we're getting on a call with a two different companies, right? That we're gonna try to figure out if they can help us out. One company's kind of like, they don't have like a pitch deck with principles and explain the process that they go through to make the website go from okay to fucking like best in class, right? The other company goes like, well, here's the process we go through. First, we evaluate your site. These are the things that we evaluate because they're the most important when it comes to conversion. Once we see which things are not great, we now go in here and we do this. And here's how we do it. Like they show you basically the, you know, the mechanism behind the watch. And then it's like, so once we do that, then we test it and we actually show you kind of how it did before and how it's doing afterwards and the more time goes by, actually continues to do more better. While the other company's like, yeah, you know, what we do is what we're gonna flip your site, we're gonna make sure it works. And this is how much it is. And you're like, which one are you gonna pick? Dude, you're gonna pick number two because they showed you what they do, how they do it, process from A to B. They show you examples of how they've done it with other sites ideally in your industry. But either way, well, that's what you're doing with content. You're demonstrating the system behind getting the results. And then you're showing case studies and examples of people getting the results. So if you have that out in the world, you not think that you're going to, you know, I would say get better like clientele and get more clientele, you're damn right, you will. The other thing that happens, which Andy also stated is like, if your team reads that article, will your team be better at communicating what you're doing, how you do it? You're damn right, you're damn right. And the thing is, if you have, you know, yesterday, one of the new pro soccer players that I trained from the rain came in, it was like, you know, it was a busy, like, it was like 4.35, very, very busy time at our gym on a Monday, you know, team trainings getting ready to go, tons of semi-private, physical therapies, cranking. So she's like, oh, like, man, I love the atmosphere here, is like, you know, independent trainers. I'm like, nope, like, we're, we do it one way. I can't, you know, I'm like, oh, interesting. So then I start explaining, right? Like, if I would be pissed off, if we don't have a system in a way of doing things because I know that this way generates results. My point to that is, imagine, like I said, everybody can speak the same language. But then imagine, like, you go to a gym and like, one person's like, yeah, man, I go, I go German volume training. It's what's best, you know, we build muscle, you know, and another person's like, no, like, I like movement and athleticism, we kind of, and then another person goes, you know, like, one person's like, paleo's the way to go with nutrition. Another person's like, nah, vegan, you know, get rid of toxins and meat, like, whatever. I'm just making shit up. But you, you, you, you would be like, what the fuck is going on? That person thinks this, this person thinks that, this person thinks that, this person, I'm confused. I don't know what the hell is going on, which is basically social media, right? Like, you get bombarded by a hundred different messages. But if your team is like, oh, we believe in this principle. We believe in this principle. And you go to the next culture and it's like we, everybody's saying the same thing. You know what it does to the client? They go, I'm certain, man, I'm in a right place. Same language, right? Man, kicker, actually, Mike Robertson was talking about this in Nashville, right? Like, one of the reasons why personal training gym struggle no unified language, no unified principles and beliefs, right? Think about what CrossFit did a great job of. They introduced this concept of functional fitness to people. Now, me, you, Mike Robertson, like people that, we may have a different definition for what functional fitness is, but they did a great job of explaining to their customer what they believed it meant. And it was a simple language that translated into their community. And they created a cult like following around that idea. And again, orange theory, we can talk about them. Like the orange zone, there's, like their clients know what that means, right? So they've educated clients. What's that? I said, yeah, right? Yeah, but it's late. It did not exist for real. But they've done, and I think they call that in marketing a transubstantiated language, I believe. Where it's kind of like a made up term that you can rally your community behind. And what I find is a lot of gyms, like we take that for granted. You know, Mike is a good example. He created the R7 system that gave people, you know, something to anchor on to. You and I both have used variations of that in our gyms to give a simple language that everybody, you know, can get behind. We use a P4 language now because we felt like seven things was a little hard for people to remember. Just to make things simpler and easier for people to understand. So outside of like educating the market on like, you know, things like, I don't know, hit training if that's what you do, or the importance of max velocity or fat loss, whatever, like whatever your niche is inside your gym, you need to be able to educate them on why you're different than your competitors. You have to be able to educate the market on what's unique and different about your program as a whole. And I don't think. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little cynical, but I don't think as many gym owners as I would like have really strong, unique beliefs that they communicate as their differentiator. And I would challenge gym owners to, like, put that on paper. What do you stand for? What are your beliefs? What are your training rules? What are your principles? And how does that differentiate from what's available in the market to your customer? Man, it's funny. I'm actually looking up an article I wrote for on it a long time ago. It was called the future of group training. I'm trying to find it, but it was actually in a physical magazine and online. I still have the magazine cover because it was like Joe Rogan's on a cover and then there's like a big like Luca Hosevar on team training magazine cover, which was cool. But it was like a six page or eight page of me writing out our team training and the philosophy behind it. Like, you know, team means together everybody achieves more, right? And then I went through, you know, I've, I would say definitely borrowed Mike's R7 system and kind of integrated into everything, right? Like our small group personal training, our semi-privileged are all of that stuff. And then I also talked about how team training covers a lot of the R's. It's not perfect because it can't be. That's why we have all these other systems. But when you read the article, you know, it got, like, it got shared a ton and a lot of people reached out to me. I was like, wow, this is like really useful. And I'm like, when you have to defend your system in a court of law, right? As well as just call it that, right? Like you go, Andy, I want you to defend your sports performance system, the principles, the rules, the P4, why do you do it the way that you do? Even said one of the things you're like, seven's a lot to remember. I agree with you, by the way, you know, we kind of, we kind of break it down like our R1, R2, R3 is really like warm-ups, right? And then we have at speed athleticism powers, R4, then we have strength and resistance strength. So it's simpler, right? But like, I still follow the framework, R7. But my point is they're like, when I'm, if I'm grilling you in a court of law, it's like, you know, a few good men. If you don't know what that movie is, man, I don't know what the fuck you're doing. Cause it's like a damn day movie. You know, tell the truth. You can't handle the truth. But it's like you're there in court. It's like Eddie, why do you put this into your program? And you're like, we put this in here because and my past experiences and wisdom have told me that. And because of this and because of that. And it's like, okay, man, cool. What about this? Why do you put it in there? Right? Like, that's what you're essentially doing. You know, your break, like, so one, I know my shit. I have a reasoning. You know, when, when I teach my team, I'm like, when you bring me to program, I'm going to ask you why that's in there. Why is it this exercise and not that? Why this rep range? Why two grip dominance? Super set. Why, why, we, right? And you, by the way, you might do a different than I, but you might, but you have a good why behind it. And you're following the principles. Oh, you're using straps. It's two grip dominant, but you're using straps. Oh, you want to, you want to get the hammies. So you don't worry about the grip. Cool. Cool. Like, right? Like, I great explain yourself. Yeah, what a dirty of people. When they get up on the stand, it's like, um, this makes him tired. Uh, this is fun. What, you know what I mean? Like, and by the way, that might be an okay reason. Like, I have things in my program in, right? WYW, the last three exercises, whatever you want, which can be weakling training. It could be what the client wants. Like, hey, I want to work arms. Great. There's a reasoning behind it. But you have to be able to explain it. And what me and Andrew are saying is like, why not, by the way, sit down and like distill your thoughts and your experience and your wisdom and articulate it through words and videos and pictures to where when somebody goes through it, they go like, Oh, this makes sense. Because if they go to another gym and that person can't do that, you are deemed more trustworthy, more of an expert and more magnetic. We know this. This is like what science and research shows, okay? So that's the, and I think that because everything's become shorter form, you know, I, and I know you probably get this too. I get it too, where it's just like, you know, what's the quick 20, 30, 45 second clip that can get more eyeballs and it's got a great hook. Now, look, there is a place for that, by the way, I'm not, I'm not kicking it completely out. We know the baby with the bath water, but, but expertise is deep. It's like entertainment can be shallow. Seven second clip of a cat jumping up, smack and look in the fucking face, me bleeding out, get some million views. Okay. What does that tell me about like, how good you are at helping me get her damn result, you know? So this is, you know, this is kind of all, all like the topic of the whole proof side and the educate the marketplace side, where I think you got to give your best shit away, you know? And, and by the way, like, this is another thing that Frank Kern topping, I've been very fortunate to, you know, spend personal time with, with, I think one of the best living marketers that, that exists. And you said, you know, said, look, like when, when you give your best stuff away, there's a couple things that happen, right? Number one, you show that you know your shit. Okay. And by the way, there's a confidence behind that. Imagine, like, I'm giving my best stuff away. I'm giving you, I'm giving you the recipe, right? So it's like, damn, there's a certainty and confidence, an authority behind doing that. Number two, will people do it just because I gave them the whole thing? No, fucking no, because we need the bigger the challenge, the more support we need, right? So if I gave you like all the A.O. shit that you need to do, you probably won't do it. You want, I mean, some people will, but like a small, small, small, more percentage. Now, if you hire coaches and get accountability and guidance and those coaches know how to strategically break down those skills to where they're doable for you and not overwhelming, right? And they keep you accountable to do those things. You have success. So that person, when you give them the thing, you give them the recipe, once they can't do it, they come to you for support because you've helped them already, like you gave them the juice, right? And number three, you also differentiate yourself from everybody else because everybody else is like, nah, we don't, you know, we don't give the secret sauce and it's like, oh, come on, man, we're beyond that now. You know, like, come on, like, you know, like the wizard of Oz behind the curtain, I'm pulling the levers. It's magic. No, like I'm going to give you the actual map. I'm giving you the map. The thing is is that like you need a fucking Sherpa to take you to Everest because I'm, if I give you the map of Everest, are you going to go there by yourself? Probably not. You're going to die. You need a Sherpa because the Sherpas been there and they've taken people just like you up and down, fucking thousands of times, they know the obstacles, they know where there's a cliff, they know where it's danger, they know where there's a shortcut, they know what to do when shit goes wrong, right? And that's what a great coach does. So give your best shit away and then be the coach once they come to you because they know that you're the right fit. I don't know if you know this, man, I get really fucking fired up about this stuff. I need to get an extra cup of coffee in before we do these things. Man, it's on low-dose caffeine these days, low-dose. We're going to make an energy drink called coaching first. You know, it's funny. He's talking about all that. I literally was like your whole thing that you just talked about with like expertise and all like it always ties back to coaching first, everything ties back to coaching first. And I think like we beat this drum so hard because nobody else really talks about it. And instead, if you are a good coach and you really know what you're doing, creating your coaching rules and your coaching philosophy and teaching your team how to do it, like that stuff is a lot easier. Like if you've ever, I know there's gym owners listen to this who have hired their first batch of employees and they walk around on their gym floor and they see exercises being done wrong or not executed at the level that they want them to be. That's a reflection of your team not understanding your coaching rules and philosophy at a high enough level. Not being able to stand in front of a group of parents and communicate why your program is different than the local sport performance franchise. Like that's a coaching first issue. You know, like all of this comes back like not being willing or interested in giving your stuff away to the market so they can see how good you are. That's a coaching first issue. So like while this is all about educate the marketplace like I just I'm going to beat this drum until like the words coaching first just rattle around in people's heads. It matters that much. You know what's funny because you said educate the marketplace but it's like educate them with what? Right. You have to educate them with your knowledge, skills and experience of being coaching first. Yeah. Because this is part of by the way, this is part of the issue on a grander scale. Like I'm not even talking about gym owners now. I'm talking about the grander scale or the fitness industry sometimes, right? Like where somebody that has, you know, include it by way, anybody that transforms their body and like improves their life, I give them like, fuck yes, I support you, right? But this person has an equals one goes and blows up on social and it's like you're not, you don't, you don't really coach people. You don't, you actually do not have a lot of knowledge. It's and wisdom from coaching other people, right? But you're spewing it and it's like to me, there's sometimes there's an issue there, right? 'Cause it's like there are people that spent their whole lives, you know, getting great at this and continue to get great at this and help people in person, and then they share their education online, which is what I'm a believer in, right? And again, it's a deal, it's a hill I'm gonna die on. I think that's, there's an entertainer versus educator. Me, I like to be an educator who also sprinkles in entertainment. Okay, 'cause nobody wants boring shit. But with that said, right, like, I think that you have to develop the main master's skill which is coaching first, which is coaching. And by the way, like, I don't know if you guys will see this one, like this comes out on the 27th. The only reason I'm like, I was shouting it out, is like Brad store, but like, look at this shit. This is how you know, flaps, papers everywhere is because the way of excellence, a guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world. And we started losing this, okay? I think that as a whole, we've started losing it. Because, you know, and one of the things is like, the patience, the master, okay? By the way, I read, I put this on my story, so I'm gonna read it out loud and it's from the book. So I didn't, you know, I didn't make this up myself, but it was a powerful thing, okay? Okay, it says, to take the master's journey, right? I keto master, George Leonard, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills to attain new levels of competence. But while doing so, and this is the inexorable fact of the journey, you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau to keep practicing, even when you've seen to be getting nowhere, okay? The journey of mastery is not weeks, months, many times not even years, it's decades, right? Or I'm sure I say it's many years and decades. And we don't, like, just like, there was a crazy study done, where they locked people in a room, their real ship, and normal people, so they weren't like leaning towards being frantic or whatever. And they said, hey, you're gonna just sit in this room with your thoughts. And, but here's a thing where you can zap yourself with electricity, right? If you get bored, okay? 75% of men couldn't handle just being there with themselves, their thoughts. 75% of men zap themselves multiple times in 15 minutes, 25% of women, right? And the thing is we're so bad at just being able to be focused and present with a thing, and to become a master of a skill, guess what you need. You need to do a lot of the thing deliberately focused, and because we're losing that, we need distraction left and right. And so we are losing this thing that's, by the way, biologically wired into us, cells want to what? Flourish, okay? Reproduce and flourish. It's literally like the basis of all, I would say humankind. We've stopped flourishing 'cause we can't fucking focus, okay? And so the point is it like to be a coaching first, business owner, gym owner, you have to build your skill of coaching first. And for that, you need to be committed to excellence and for that, you need focus and patience. And I'll tell you what, one of the best things and the best ways you can do that is to alter your environment. And so as we finish this off, I don't give a shit if it sounds like a pitch, 'cause it probably is. But if you wanna be surrounded by coaching first, gym owners, they're dedicated to their craft, and then building an operationally excellent business, and you wanna have accountability and a tribe where the standards of that tribe are high level coaching first, operational excellence, educating the marketplace, unreasonable service, and personal leadership, 'cause nothing happens if you cannot lead and grow, then go to builtdelasjim.com. Sign up for call, let's see if it's a good fit, because that's what we believe in. And like that is how we have functions. And again, we're not saying that we know everything, actually far from it, but we have been in business for a combined 45 years, and that is actually extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely hard to do. And in 14 years of business coaching, I think Andy's around 10, I've done 14 of this, and it's like, combined with coach hundreds of gym owners, okay, and it's hundreds to success. So we know a little something. Been there, done that, still doing it. Um, all right, get off my pedestal, man. Is there anything else you wanted to add? I get on these, on these rants, but. Nah, man, I think the way you ended that was perfect. That's how I would want people to leave from this podcast. That's, uh, we put a lot of thought into what this company stands for. It's not just about helping people scale and stack cash. It's teaching great coaches how to build great gyms. That's what we stand for, and I think that was great. Yes, sir. So listen guys, if you, hey, you can find us on social, we let like send us messages, and again, we dropped this, you know, this is going to drop as a four part, like, right off the bat. And then we're going to have a weekly show like this. Uh, we're going to bring other awesome gym owners on too. Uh, I'll be a lot of us though, because we got a lot to say. So, uh, but with that, like, we love questions. So if you send us questions, for me, it's like, you can go to Luke at VigroundFitness.com. Uh, Andy, I don't know where it can shoot you an email, but they can DM us as well on social, because we stack those questions. Any email that you're willing to give out here? Yeah, Andy [email protected] is my personal, but I am asked on, yeah, that's my personal y'all can have it. Um, um, I am back on the IG thing. I took 90 days off, but I'm back on and, uh, I was gone so long. I couldn't even find my messages because they like reformated the app. So I do know where the message function is now. So if you want to send me a message on IG, I'll be responsive, but, uh, I'm, I'm taking a very minimal effect of dose of social media into 2026. The likelihood of me taking those questions is higher, but still shoot them as well. Wow. Very, very, this show, listen, this show is about, like, look, we, we operate our gyms, uh, every day, we are in our gyms every day. Um, you know, we've built a life and business where we are not burnt out from our gyms. Uh, we're not going to bullshit you and tell you this is an easy game, because it's not, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that in 19 and a half years of gym ownership, I've never had issues. I mean, we've had issues left and right. We've had some really fucking hard times. And we'll talk about those too, because when I absolutely hate when there's people in the industry, they're just like, make it seem like it's always, they, they have always conquered the game and like, they've never had a shit show. Okay, we talk about the shit show and we talk about how we overcame the shit show. Because that's what it's about, right? This is for the real ones, man. Like, this is, we love this industry. If you gave us $10 million tomorrow in our bank accounts, we'd still be in this industry doing the shit that we do because, you know, it's a meaningful, again, purposeful, meaningful life. We believe that this change is lives. And, um, we believe that we can help other people change more lives through their gyms. Um, and that's why we do this shit. So always, hey, listen, we appreciate you being here. You could be anywhere else listening to anything else. Uh, we'd love if you go and give us a review, uh, give us a five stars or four stars, whatever you feel that this is delivering to you. But we're going to keep showing up. This is the beginning and it's not going to stop. We're going to keep doing this forever. Appreciate you guys. Love you guys. We're going to the next show, peace. (upbeat music)