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7 Habits of Winning Gyms – Habit 5 · Gym Business Coach Podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are listening to the built-to-grow podcast delivering the knowledge in all things, fitness, business We help jimrollers win, hear your hosts, ten lions, and Randy Axton
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, welcome back to the Bilt Grove podcast from our host, Tim Lines, joined in studio as always.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Rain, de-anx, then.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're here.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're doing it.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're doing the thing.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, we're continuing our series of the seven habits of winning gyms.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've covered the first four, we're going into number five, winning gyms seek the competitive edge.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do I mean by this one?
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, winning gyms...
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: in gym owners the way the act is they see an opportunity in the squeeze every opportunity everything they can out of a specific opportunity to give you a couple examples for example the growth summit we just got back from the growth summit uh... we had all these opportunities to meet vendors and ask questions and go to dinners and go to the happy hour things and all that stuff was all part of the event
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: winning gems go to all of those things.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: The shake hands, they meet people, they ask questions, they net work, and they do all of those things.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know for an introverted person that's very difficult to go to a room, you don't know anybody starts shaking hands, right?
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And put the end of the day,
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's your obligation to find out what everybody's doing, get your questions answered, and find out what's out there.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, we all hear all the time, you don't know what you don't know.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's probably fastest easiest way to start to figure out what you don't know.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, so that's one example.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Another example that I think is more relevant is technology.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So technology moves fast, AI is moving fast, Facebook ads went fast, and there's all these opportunities that get presented to an owner of an operation, and you have to make a decision.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's either you switch or you don't switch.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're just talking about our CRM, which is probably switched, right?
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the opportunities that happen, and they come up right now, I believe, the biggest opportunities, AI.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're refusing to look at AI as something that could help your business, then you're not a winning gym.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Winning gyms look at something, they see the opportunity and they say, okay, how can we leverage this new tool, skill, you know, software, whatever it is to to win?
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you were around, if your gym was around prior to 2014, you had, there was a time that, you know, Facebook was coming online.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Facebook was around, but it wasn't the ads platform yet.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of gyms that never adopted social media early on.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you think about that now, like, oh my gosh, eventually everybody adopts, but it's those early adopters that get the biggest prizes.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then Facebook ads came around and literally it was like stealing.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you weren't doing it, what were you doing?
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you weren't running ads for your gym, really what were you doing?
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And a winning gym, and again, when I say winning gym, I'm looking.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about the owner, most like, you know, like the owner needs to be the one says, hey, you know what?
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's an opportunity here.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's let's learn about it and let's figure out a way to make it work for us.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: They test things.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: They try different marketing strategies.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: They go into their gems and they say, what if we did this differently?
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: What would happen?
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: They constantly are evaluating their systems and processes as their product itself and say, hey, you know what?
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if we did this differently?
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if we brought clients in over here in this side of the gem and we kind of did our dynamic warmups over here and then we went to this side or what if we rearrange the gem to be better?
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: didn't do every half hour.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We did every hour.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's there's a great example.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have a just had a call with one of our newest iron circle members.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's doing something that I hadn't heard of that actually makes a lot of sense.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So instead of doing every hour on the hour, that's what we do, he does every 40 minutes.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, why every 40 minutes?
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're telling me you started 5 a.m.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: they have a 5 40, then a 6 whatever, and then a 7 10 and a, you know,
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: By doing it this way, it allowed us to get 16 more sessions in a day because when those people at 40 minutes, the clients are coming off of the racks and we've moved them over to the other side of the gym, we can bring another group of people in.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can start them over here while they're finishing on this side.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you have a smaller gym, that's the things you have to do.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's a winning gym owner, he's obviously just moved into the iron circle, but this is a guy that said, what if we did it differently?
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the thing that I'm trying to explain here that winning gyms seek the competitive edge, like they look at things differently in opportunities that come up, but also on how they do their business.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a big part of it too in the Iron Circle's great example of it where you have to get out of the echo chamber, right?
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: lifetime foundation memberships, or the way something is service, team training, taking off over the last 10 years, now that's kind of become, you know, almost saturated, come out of you, you know, you have to always be looking for, you know, you know, you have to always be looking for,
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: like you said, the competitive edge and sometimes it does require you to get away from just the four walls of your business and look outside of it.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the things I love about the iron circle and the presenters that we bring in.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are the best in their realm, regardless of what that realm is, right?
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it could be leadership development, it could be customer service, could be, maybe, tech or AI, but they're not necessarily already doing it in the gym.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when we expose Jim owner to that type of thought or something that's happening outside of our industry, we get to pull from that success that they're seeing over there, apply it to our businesses and get a win with that knowledge with that education and unfortunately, you know, when you're only around the same conversations and the same.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: things that, you know, people are discussing, it becomes the norm, right?
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you aren't exposed to the differences.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't get that competitive, the ability for that competitive edge.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's doing the same thing, right?
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you're, you're trying to figure out how to do it.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: either maybe differently or just lean to what the most successful ones doing that do, you know what I mean?
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not really getting, I would say, a competitive edge as much as you are, the best of how it's been done type of thing.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, think about the competitive edge in your current market.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what does everybody else doing, right?
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does everybody in your market doing?
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most likely it's a large group training, it's class-based, it's one to many, like 20 people, or it's theory, at 45, it's probably in your market, boot camps.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the competitive edge would be, let's not do what they're doing.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a red ocean.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go do semi-private training.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's be the most expensive in town.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's provide the best-in-class service.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And let's run a totally different model where we don't need 500 people.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need a hundred.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we can make 600,000 a year with a hundred people type of thing.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've talked about it before, too, even when it comes to marketing, you know?
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody really looks at what the competitors are running as far as their front end offers and things like that.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the problem is just because they're running it doesn't mean that it's working either.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you're seeking out what your competition's doing and then you go and do the same thing, you're already behind the app all, right?
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So go out there, look at what they're doing and then decide to do something different, right?
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the competitive edge.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well it's very frustrating a lot of times we'll come out with stuff and then sure enough weeks later a month later the competitors are doing what we're doing.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh god you like with our ads it's like it's humorous in a way and it's like well by the time they're trying to copy us we're already on to the next thing type of thing um but
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It this industry probably more than many others.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not intimately as intimate with other industries as I am with a fitness industry, but in this industry, this is a copycatting.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, God.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a copycat industry.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's bad.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, when Tim senior my dad was working for us, he'd been in a lot of industries.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of like corporate environments, hospitality, telecommunications and he's had his own company.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: a can be one day is I don't understand what's wrong with your industry that everybody is like copying everybody else and they just steal things and it's just like I know it's just the way it is I don't know what to say it is it because it's a business acumen or lack thereof type of situation where well must be working if they're doing it let me just do what they're doing or
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: their price that this price so that must be good let me do the same you help I don't understand I don't either and I think it's it's kind of the opposite of having that competitive edge you know what I mean you're we talk with the law of averages and if you're going and you're just doing what everybody else is doing you're gonna fall in the middle of the success of everybody else is doing that right the competitive edge is
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: being the person that's going to skate first to where the puck's going is challenging what the industry's considered norm for a long time to see if something has legs is testing when it comes to marketing, when it comes to delivery, when it comes to all of these different things and figuring out if it can be done a better way without necessarily throwing all of your eggs into that basket, but
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's a basic style moves that you make in your general.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you two really easy examples.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we were used to be monthly now or weekly now.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so funny because we had seen weekly happening in Australia for like five years prior.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why do they do that?
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody like everybody in the U.S.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: is, but the thing is.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd never, I always like, push it away like this is our, they're always behind us because they're typically behind, like Australia is pretty far behind us except for that one thing.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would, if I would just to said, what if we did it differently back then, we'd probably been way ahead of it, but it doesn't matter.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We changed, it was a huge benefit.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had 99 cents to every bill, like that was something we
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: it adds over $10,000 a year and nobody even flinches at nine cents, right?
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's just our price points.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and it's the conversation, Jim owners are trying to figure out how to, like, not pay credit card processing fees.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's the thing they do at it about.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, do you do a pass through fee or,
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I like the idea of the 99 cents because you probably self-liquidate the near the cost of what your transaction fees are in something like not even close because like or transaction fee it depends on the volume I guess sure if your business Yeah, you're gonna make 10 extra grant a year Some of that's gonna go to fees anyway, but then you know like
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: 3% of 100,000 street grand a month.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's 36,000, you know, 99 cents.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it might not be a one to one, but at least you're not the point of that is right, 99 cents didn't affect a single relationship.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Moving, moving to a pass through feed where you're now showing your consumer.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, if every transaction you're going to be charged at full fee, that is a conversation that every consumer is going to see.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't sit as well with a lot of women.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's funny though.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every other business does it all the time.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: They all do it and we're afraid to do it because I think the product, I think the product, in service that the fitness industry offers,
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: compared to a beer or a steak.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: A meal, yeah.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That you see the fees, like you're, you're already committed to that.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you can't just cancel that meal.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've already done it, you know what I mean?
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also goes back to the fact that we talk about, right?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the product is a little bit, it's not a desirable product in the grand scheme of what people have the option of buying, right?
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We sell delayed gratification and hard work.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not in the scope of what you're going to go sell.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is definitely an uphill battle
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: somebody choosing to put gas in a car or go to, you know, have dinner with their family, that type of thing.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or even other services where something is done to you as opposed to you doing the work, right?
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a million reasons why the product is difficult, but it's also the relationship, right?
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: This person is with us multiple times a week.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: there are a few industries where that relationship continues.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you might have a PT or a Cairo, but what do you do?
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The average is like eight to 12 sessions, and then you're not with them anymore, right?
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're asking somebody to do that with us in a month, and then do that the next month, and the next month for years.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think some of those businesses can keep it transactional where we have to keep it a lot more relational.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So winning gyms seek the competitive edge and everything that they do including adding the 99 cents or doing weekly payments or being the first on AI or being semi-private when everybody else is large group training or using semi-private pros and delivery system as a unique mechanism for to beat everybody else.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a million examples of
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: opportunities that are our leverage versus the opposite of a winning gym would be what's everybody else doing.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me not test anything.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me just wait and see what happens when everybody else is doing it.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let me see what they're doing.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll steal that.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me do what they're doing.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll steal that and have nothing that gives you an advantage over anybody else
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: what's the silver bullet this this month and that's what a losing gym does losing gyms do what everybody else is doing don't be a loser gym be a winning gym seek the competitive edge always test look forward see what how you can beat your market and that's gonna help you win guys hopefully that helps you that's that's habit number five on to the next one guys we'll see on the next show bye
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, thanks for listening to another episode of the built-grilled podcast.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you want more help growing your business, join our free Facebook group, Profit Accelerator, helping training gyms grow to $30,000 a month and beyond.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'd love to see you there, go check out the show notes for the link, and keep building something great, and we'll see you in the next episode.