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Why Quick Cash Grabs Won’t Save Your Gym · Gym Business Coach Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, we'll come back to the gym business coach podcast.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm here with Tim Lyas during the studio as always by Randy and so what to make morning morning.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You would go.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we are back back in the saddle right back to it.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got some big things happening.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, rock and roll, let's talk about this shiny ball syndrome that seems to be affecting so many gyms and why.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So shiny ball syndrome is the syndrome where gym owners, business owners, but let's just call it gym owners, C.A.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Profit Center, see an offer, see a thing that they can make quick money.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: irrespective of whether or not it'll break their systems if they believe in it if there's ethics involved or not and they gravitate towards that thing as the solution to fix all their problems.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can grab 20 grand 30 grand 50 extra $1,000 in this next month or two by doing this thing this shiny ball, this distraction to the main thing that they do.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just to cover the bills and it's a huge problem in this industry as well as other industries.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the main problems that I see is it gets, it's a band-aid solution, typically, whether or not it aligns with your values, there could be some that do and some that don't, but it is a short-term solution for a long-term problem.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they're in lies the issue.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our industry, fitness, gyms, personal training, typically it's done on a subscription basis.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And most other industries, bagging, pleading, scratching, claw to get their business to align with a recurring revenue model that is already
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, out of the box is what fitness does already and a lot of times gyms throw away that huge advantage by doing stupid things.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hiver be it on us being do us doing super things like selling training packages where it's 10 sessions session based yeah or it's a six month 10 month 12 month paid in full or it's a three month membership where it's like hey you may be three individual payments but it ends at three months because that's all we could get you to sign on the dotted line for versus a gem that is grounded in building
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: whether or not that's an annual term or a month a month or even a week to week term.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a recurring, there is no end date, I guess.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a building up the monthly recurring revenue you hear this term, MRR, quite a bit.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about it like every single day, but basically it's the thing.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you get it to a point where it just covers minimum covers, your base operating expenses, and we'll define base operating expenses as, you know, what it takes to run your business every single month, call it utilities, rent, pay real marketing, all of the things that go into the day-to-day op exit count.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And your recurring revenue gets to a point where it exceeds it.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just say cost you 30 grand or base operating expenses.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now you're at 30 grand recurring revenue.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you get to that point, the shiny objects kind of just go away.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're not grasping for things to bandede the problem, which is, hey, I don't know I'm making enough money on my basic membership stuff.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, I need to go find these other bolt-on solutions to get me to the next month.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the problem.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we see a lot with the offers from agencies, to gym owners, you know, both this trial on or use our offer, use our hook, do this thing.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even though, like you said, it might not be an alignment with what the business does, the gym owner does or believes.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, high ticket front end offers, challenge based mentality.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, hell.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: We just had the conversation around peptides and, and that is a, is an income source or a profit center for a gym, whether, you know, bringing in some reels as a third party to facilitate it.
• 4:30
  [UNKNOWN]: Mm-hmm.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things, I guess all of those things, kind of distract you from the main thing.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're taking your eye off of the monthly recurring revenue, the training revenue.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you just focus on building that monthly client base that's on recurring revenue, all those shiny balls, they kind of start to tarnish.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're not drawn to them.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: let's use the example that we saw this weekend, right?
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a we had a million dollar model.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had 17 or so gem owners in the room
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh... we were talking about you you presented on kind of one of the traps is a shiny balls in the industry and it was interesting one of the gym owners in the room who who like he has the most profitable gym of any of the guests um... said right away he's like you know i'm not i'm not enticed by any of those things and he said it really interesting he goes because i don't need that money yeah you know and if all of us if everyone else in the room was to weigh themselves against the success of his
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, um, when you're in a place of desperation, when you're feeling like I need to do something to get those bills paid today type of thing, you're going to grasp at straws you're going to find yourself, you know, really enticed by a lot of those things, but then you look at a business like, you know, this gentleman's, uh, and
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: just hear him say like none of that is even interesting to him yeah it it it it it it it really drives that point home that when you have all your expenses covered when you have a consistent monthly recurring revenue you don't need to be grasped masterless yeah it's boring the grind to get to that point is super boring because it's not that's not big cash influx is it's to grand more this month and last month for grand more this month and the two months ago six
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a grind and when you're broke or your cash is low, your reserves are low, you start to get a little desperate, you know, I've been there, I understand, but it took a lot of discipline to do this and yeah, I probably try just as many shiny balls along the way as anybody else, but every single one is going away.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: to this point where it's just our base, it's just our semi-private training.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have one product and it serves this a million dollar gym that we own operate, it runs like a machine and stress goes away.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, yeah, I get looking at the income and looking at your expenses and freaking out.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess the thing I would say, because, look, nobody, not everybody's immune to just trying something, just make sure it aligns with two things, one of your ethics into your systems.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you have to break your systems to deliver a product,
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to hurt the business more in the long run than just not doing it at all because you're going to lose other recurring revenue that you're building up because you're focused on this other thing.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's one thing I would warn in the ethics, don't sell your soul to make a buck.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it just doesn't matter.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that thing is that you don't believe in, as soon as you see, you don't really believe in it, then just don't do it.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, and there you go.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's the two things, but like, look, guys, I understand X plus Y equals Z.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we need to make sure that those two numbers cover your base operating expenses.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if it means you've got to do one thing here or there, be careful, be careful.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you can layer it right into your normal delivery systems,
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: don't, you know, take the money, don't burn recurring revenue, don't do a paid-in-full thing to your current members, the way you're recurring revenue gets cannibalized at a discount.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: At this game, that'll be the worst because at the end of the day, you're starting behind the starting line.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're starting 10 yards behind it.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like you got to get to the starting line and then you start the race in the long run.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just, you know, at the end of the day, I understand where you're, you know, everything with the stresses and you got pay roll and the rents coming up and what do you do?
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So just I would just give you those two fair warnings, but if you have the discipline and you've got at least some cash reserves, the flowchio, you are 10 times better, just stick into the plan, growing that delta, tracking the delta, growing a recurring revenue.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And just do that slow grind guys.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what else to say.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's that's where we're at.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't look at shiny objects anymore.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We stay on our path.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's about of this all but it's boring, but it's successful and it's profitable.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's it's it's it's it is a little bit of love the the longer play.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the one thing that we you said it earlier, right?
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We squander the MRR for the cash grabs, but that cash grabs never going to get you out of the hole.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: The only thing that's ever going to change like you have to make a change and it's to get the MRR up to a certain point.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: and it's like one of those you know difficult but inevitable situations when you focus on that and it could be six months it could be maybe it's eight maybe it's a year but the benefit of multi recurring revenue and it when it's an alignment with a program that has retention
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like we talk about clients on average, stay 36 months here.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: That gives you a heck of a lot of a runway.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then it's almost like Penny doubled every day.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Type, or, you know, I guess it'd be every month in this situation, right?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: That client that joins this month that you get that first month's due with is in the business next month.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: You add some of these business next month and it's that in stacking of recurring revenue.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is how we dig gems out of the hole once and for all.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the thing is if, unless you make that, your, your ethos, your mission, you're always going to be in this cyclical buying cycle where, you know, whatever that shiny ball is work today, this month and then next month, you're again, like you said, behind the app, all having to grasp it something else to hope to be able to cover the bills in.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: that that to me, I don't care how unsexy systems are in the long haul.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hell of a lot easier to sleep at night when your bills are paid.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one last thing I'll add, like Zack mentioned it in the talks over the weekend.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was building a brand versus, uh, hitching your, your wagon to another horse, like yeah, like the example right now is high rocks, right?
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like high rocks isn't
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, you're using it as a method for bringing it's an attraction method and do you believe in high rocks?
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I don't look that far.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know it's a lot of running.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So probably don't believe it.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they're being honest, you know, but GMs would just throw it on their website.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: We knew high rocks trained.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spartan races, like did it?
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where is it?
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You change your whole identity?
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where Spartan races now?
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: where are they around anymore are people seeking out gyms so that they're you know there's a next play for the month you know next year you're going to be doing something else like
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's a hell of a lot better feeling that you know you just block at all those shiny objects that come and they come all the time.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: They will be there next month and next year there's gonna be something new.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this will be aware and hopefully be smarter about things but anyways, rant over but...
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, uh, that's the truth, though.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the truth.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We see, I see Jim's bouncing from thing to thing offered offer, and not to mention Jim's, but like if we really want to go deep into it, you start seeing people jumping from thing to thing.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like they're a AI guru or a crypto guru or
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: a peptide guy now like you just look around either they're they're they're rebranding themselves yeah you see I'm sure you know there's a lot of people who are talking about yeah wait I thought you were the stock guy now you're the crypto guy but wait a minute what's your an AI guy now is that where to know you're a precious male you're a forex trader you're a
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're a peptide guru.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's no, that's up as a real estate agent, something they'll all end up as real estate agents.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting, constant.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just who are you?
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is your exam stand for?
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you offer?
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is your thing?
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is your main thing?
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: grow that recurring revenue.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And none of this other stuff will ever matter.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So anyways, back to a back to the regular schedule program.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, hopefully that helps you guys just a little rant, little chat here about that.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're seeing it popping up over and over.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's it for this episode, guys.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, keep changing lives, we'll see you in the next show.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, thanks for listening to another episode of the Bill's Girl Podcast.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want more help growing your business, join our free Facebook group, profit accelerator, hoping training gyms grow to $30,000 a month and beyond.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'd love to see you there.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go check out the show notes for the link and keep building something great and we'll see you in the next episode.