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Law School Dropout to Fitness Mogul with John Heringer · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom Jackobs: Welcome back to the heart-led business show where passion meets purpose, and today we're graced with the fitness fanatic himself, John Heringer.
• 0:45
  Tom Jackobs: With over 20 years crafting champions at Method3 Fitness and a dynamic team of 17 dedicated pros, he's turned sweat into smiles and goals, into gains.
• 0:57
  Tom Jackobs: When he is not empowering nearly 600 clients.
• 1:01
  Tom Jackobs: You can find him sharing quality time with his amazing wife, Sarah, and his rockstar sons, Jackson, Brennan, and Ryland.
• 1:09
  Tom Jackobs: Join us as we delve into John's heart-led journey and explore the magic of building a business that truly cares.
• 1:16
  Tom Jackobs: John, welcome to the show.
• 1:17
  John Heringer: Thank you, sir.
• 1:18
  John Heringer: Pleasure to be here, Tom.
• 1:19
  Tom Jackobs: I am really excited about this conversation today because John, we've known each other for probably 15, 16 years when we both had our own fitness business.
• 1:29
  Tom Jackobs: Well, I sold out.
• 1:31
  Tom Jackobs: You'll still have yours,
• 1:32
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 1:32
  Tom Jackobs: 20 years.
• 1:33
  Tom Jackobs: That's incredible journey.
• 1:36
  Tom Jackobs: Especially in the personal training and fitness world.
• 1:38
  Tom Jackobs: So I'm super excited to dive into that.
• 1:41
  Tom Jackobs: But of course, the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:47
  John Heringer: So I think my definition of a heart-led business would be one that is led, cultivated has a foundation built upon relationships.
• 1:56
  John Heringer: When we dove into kind of what makes Method3 really special and unique, when we really drill down we find that it is all, it all starts with relationships, whether that's with our partners, that's what we call our clients or with our teammates.
• 2:09
  Tom Jackobs: I really love that because at the crux of any business, there has to be a relationship because at the end of the day, we do business with other people.
• 2:18
  Tom Jackobs: And as, as people, we like relationships most of the time anyway.
• 2:23
  John Heringer: Most of the time.
• 2:24
  John Heringer: Yep.
• 2:25
  John Heringer: Yep, exactly.
• 2:27
  Tom Jackobs: Tell us about your journey into Method3, like maybe what you've done before, Method3, and what got you into personal training and the fitness business.
• 2:37
  John Heringer: Totally.
• 2:38
  John Heringer: Let's see.
• 2:39
  John Heringer: I'll try to make this a blitz through time.
• 2:41
  John Heringer: So actually, wanted to be originally an attorney.
• 2:46
  John Heringer: International Corporate law was gonna be the name of the game.
• 2:49
  John Heringer: Was bent on that since like high school.
• 2:52
  John Heringer: And then while at Santa Barbara, that's where I did my undergrad.
• 2:55
  John Heringer: I studied political science and Spanish kind of continuing on that route.
• 2:58
  John Heringer: And but I got a minor basically in personal training as well.
• 3:02
  John Heringer: And I just loved those classes.
• 3:03
  John Heringer: Nutrition and anatomy and fizz and kines and all these great classes.
• 3:08
  John Heringer: And it was my kinesiology professor Romeo, who got me excited about just health and fitness as an actual career.
• 3:15
  John Heringer: But I stayed on this journey of, Nope, I'm gonna take the LSATs, I'm gonna apply to law school.
• 3:19
  John Heringer: And then it was really when I graduated, right when I graduated.
• 3:23
  John Heringer: About to say, cool, I'll go to this law school.
• 3:26
  John Heringer: And I just had this epiphany of you know what, I envision myself being an attorney in 30 years, but I can envision myself being a coach.
• 3:33
  John Heringer: So that was a, an interesting conversation with my parents dad, who was let's rethink this a little bit.
• 3:39
  John Heringer: Mom, who was like, oh, you're young.
• 3:41
  John Heringer: Just what does your heart tell you to do?
• 3:43
  John Heringer: Go for it.
• 3:44
  John Heringer: You can always go be an attorney if it doesn't workout out.
• 3:47
  John Heringer: And so it was kinda like cool.
• 3:49
  John Heringer: Okay, dad, thanks.
• 3:50
  John Heringer: And then it was, okay, mom, that's what I wanted to hear.
• 3:52
  John Heringer: Thanks.
• 3:52
  John Heringer: But they were both super supportive and I started at literally at front desk at just a local, gym.
• 3:58
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 3:59
  John Heringer: Ended up, becoming certified, working my way up within that, more of the health Cub kind of big box gym.
• 4:04
  John Heringer: It was a place called the right stuff health clubs actually.
• 4:07
  Tom Jackobs: The right stuff.
• 4:08
  John Heringer: The right stuff.
• 4:09
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 4:10
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 4:10
  John Heringer: So anyway, I worked my way up in the healthcare industry for about five years and just some things transpired and changed for me within the structure that I was like, you know what?
• 4:19
  John Heringer: I think I'd rather just go try this on my own.
• 4:22
  John Heringer: And at that time the company was actually called Fast Action Training, so I started that on the side.
• 4:29
  John Heringer: Yep.
• 4:29
  John Heringer: And then was
• 4:30
  Tom Jackobs: Wait, what was the, sorry, but what was the slogan for FAT?
• 4:35
  John Heringer: Get fit with fat.
• 4:36
  John Heringer: That's right.
• 4:36
  John Heringer: Yep.
• 4:38
  John Heringer: FAT.
• 4:39
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 4:39
  John Heringer: My, my clients back then would lovingly say that they were going to their fat class for the day.
• 4:43
  John Heringer: And I'm like, I don't think that was, in retrospect, really should have thought this through here.
• 4:50
  John Heringer: The acronym might not serve me well, but I will say it was memorable at the very least right?
• 4:55
  Tom Jackobs: If done the PHAT that would've.
• 4:57
  John Heringer: I should have done that.
• 4:58
  John Heringer: Yep.
• 4:59
  John Heringer: Yep.
• 5:00
  John Heringer: And then, I've always been a huge fan of marketing and sales and actually that's not true.
• 5:04
  John Heringer: I'll, let me back up.
• 5:06
  John Heringer: I wasn't always a biggest fan of marketing and sales.
• 5:08
  John Heringer: Learned to love sales and then became a, just a student of it, student of marketing.
• 5:13
  John Heringer: We crossed paths back in the NPE days and really fell in love with all those things.
• 5:18
  John Heringer: But I, we got lucky enough to be featured on Groupon.
• 5:20
  John Heringer: And so, I know there's probably a variety of people watching this, but in the States huge thing that back in the day before it became a conglomerate of multiple different deals you could get.
• 5:30
  John Heringer: They had a daily deal and it was just one email blast that went out.
• 5:35
  John Heringer: And it was, obviously I think back then it got a crazy valuation'cause it grew so fast, Groupon and, But we were lucky enough to be featured.
• 5:42
  John Heringer: We sold a bunch that gave me the opportunity.
• 5:45
  John Heringer: The way they paid out back then was a third, right when the deal closed a third, 30 days later and a third, 30 days after that.
• 5:52
  John Heringer: From a budgeting perspective, it actually really helped me.
• 5:55
  John Heringer: And it was like if any time we're a time and this were a sign, this is it.
• 5:58
  John Heringer: So I'm gonna go for it.
• 5:59
  John Heringer: So I quit my full-time coaching gig that I was doing at the time,'cause I had just gone back to the personal training went on into fast action training.
• 6:09
  John Heringer: At the time we were just subleasing a space.
• 6:11
  John Heringer: Lucky enough to have a lot of people come in.
• 6:14
  John Heringer: Redeem their Groupon, flip them into, ongoing training thereafter.
• 6:19
  John Heringer: And it was a funny time, Tom, because where I was subleasing from was a tanning and fitness like space.
• 6:26
  John Heringer: It was called eclipse tanning and fitness.
• 6:27
  John Heringer: So the funny thing was, is I'm literally doing consults with people on this couch.
• 6:32
  John Heringer: 'cause I didn't have an office.
• 6:34
  John Heringer: And the fitness space is attached to this tanning salon.
• 6:36
  John Heringer: I'm doing consults on this couch as people are coming in and getting their tan on.
• 6:40
  John Heringer: And it was just a funny thing to have this kind of look, tell me about your goals.
• 6:44
  John Heringer: And someone's like, yeah, I'll get 15 in the standup.
• 6:46
  John Heringer: And it's like just comical that it was, you know, I'm like trying to be serious in this environment, but, I love reminiscing about those times and just, it may, it helps maintain a sense of humility of the grassroots of how we started and never taking anything for granted.
• 7:01
  John Heringer: So fast forward, we were there for about a year.
• 7:03
  John Heringer: We continued to grow.
• 7:05
  John Heringer: We then located a space and we've now been in business about 15 years.
• 7:08
  John Heringer: We just celebrated our 15 year anniversary.
• 7:11
  John Heringer: We had a huge turnout.
• 7:12
  John Heringer: It was absolutely awesome to celebrate and just reminded me I spoke about my definition is, heart-led business is built on relationships, and ultimately that's what I got to see, just inaction.
• 7:25
  John Heringer: Our team connecting our team, connecting with our partners.
• 7:28
  John Heringer: That's what we call our, we call our members partners and we call our memberships partnerships because we think it's two way street to get them where they wanna go.
• 7:36
  Tom Jackobs: Love that.
• 7:37
  John Heringer: Yeah, so it was just a beautiful time.
• 7:39
  John Heringer: We did it at this cool bocce place.
• 7:41
  John Heringer: We had a bunch of food catered in and just had some fun, unique gifts.
• 7:45
  John Heringer: We gave various people and got to celebrate a few 15 year partners.
• 7:49
  John Heringer: So we literally have, now, I think.
• 7:52
  John Heringer: Four.
• 7:53
  John Heringer: We've celebrated five 15 year partners, so people that have literally been with me since almost the very, very beginning.
• 8:02
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 8:02
  John Heringer: Which is just incredible and it's so fun to share that.
• 8:05
  John Heringer: I'll have to send you afterwards.
• 8:07
  John Heringer: Something we do is we started a few years back, which is an annual like Method3 magazine.
• 8:14
  John Heringer: And it's like a year in review.
• 8:15
  John Heringer: And our marketing coordinator, Shannon, does an absolutely incredible job.
• 8:19
  John Heringer: Just showcasing what we did for the year as a group partners different stories that we have, team things.
• 8:26
  John Heringer: It's just an incredible magazine.
• 8:28
  John Heringer: I think people now really look forward to it.
• 8:30
  John Heringer: Fun to, to celebrate.
• 8:31
  John Heringer: 'cause some of these partners have been with us like a year and they're like, wait.
• 8:35
  John Heringer: You just celebrated 15.
• 8:37
  John Heringer: And so I it's awesome because we've obviously done a great job cultivating these relationships and helping people wanna be a part of something and a community and all these different factors.
• 8:46
  John Heringer: But I think it also then shows people that are coming in, wow, this is like a place I could just call home.
• 8:52
  John Heringer: An amazing journey.
• 8:53
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 8:54
  John Heringer: To say the least.
• 8:55
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Tom Jackobs: That is amazing.
• 8:57
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Tom Jackobs: And I'm totally with you on the reminiscing and the Groupon day.
• 9:01
  Tom Jackobs: I remember when we were listed on Groupon as well in my fitness center.
• 9:05
  Tom Jackobs: The phone would not stop ringing.
• 9:08
  Tom Jackobs: And I was like, hands on deck.
• 9:10
  Tom Jackobs: Crazy.
• 9:11
  Tom Jackobs: It's so good.
• 9:12
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Tom Jackobs: And then it wasn't.
• 9:14
  John Heringer: And then it wasn't.
• 9:15
  John Heringer: The correct.
• 9:15
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 9:16
  John Heringer: As many from marketing things can be sometimes.
• 9:18
  John Heringer: Yeah.
• 9:18
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Tom Jackobs: So it's interesting, like how did you like get away from the law, and thinking about being a lawyer and an attorney, and then shifting to fitness because it's so very different.
• 9:34
  Tom Jackobs: Is it you're leading with your heart.
• 9:35
  Tom Jackobs: Like I always envisioned, you're helping people change their lives in a very positive way with fitness, international law.
• 9:43
  Tom Jackobs: That's cool and stuff, but is it really working with a lot of people.
• 9:48
  John Heringer: Makes for a fun topic, whenever I get to meet people at a different, like a dinner party or something, and it's like, what do you do?
• 9:53
  John Heringer: I do fitness and we'll dive into a little bit of the backstory of it and they're like.
• 9:57
  John Heringer: it's a great icebreaker on some things.
• 9:59
  John Heringer: I think growing up my, my dad was a doc actually was an ER doc, and then he opened up in an urgent care and family care practice.
• 10:06
  John Heringer: So the entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family.
• 10:09
  John Heringer: Mom was a nurse, and so an attorney just fit into the, like safe career, professional career.
• 10:17
  John Heringer: And truly I've always had a more.
• 10:20
  John Heringer: Analytical mind than a creative one.
• 10:23
  John Heringer: And I love languages.
• 10:24
  John Heringer: I love languages.
• 10:25
  John Heringer: I love Spanish.
• 10:26
  John Heringer: I still speak Spanish to this day.
• 10:28
  Tom Jackobs: Bueno.
• 10:28
  John Heringer: I, yeah, Ci, Muy Bueno, Ci and I think it just it just fit at the time.
• 10:33
  John Heringer: And then when I was in college, I just, I had started literally, I think in high school getting into, working out, really got into health and wellness for myself.
• 10:43
  John Heringer: Saw the changes it made in me, saw the performance changes, that occurred when I would, I did swimming in water polo.
• 10:50
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 10:50
  John Heringer: And the ability to like train to do these things and help have them improve my sport performance.
• 10:56
  John Heringer: So that just got me really excited about all of it.
• 10:58
  John Heringer: And so then when I got to go further that education in college, just for, at that time really just for fun.
• 11:03
  John Heringer: It made me realize how passionate I really was about it.
• 11:07
  John Heringer: And then all I had in my head was that I wanted to own my own gym.
• 11:11
  John Heringer: That was it.
• 11:12
  John Heringer: And so in the health club industry, that kind of presented a possibility.
• 11:17
  John Heringer: At the time when I resigned, actually I was, I was operating one and overseeing two others, so I was, i'd say really at that time I was more of a regional person.
• 11:25
  John Heringer: Regional manager of sorts without really any like ownership or interest or equity.
• 11:30
  John Heringer: And to be honest, I knew I really wanted to do things differently and have it be less of a big gym that people come into and more of one that was built upon these relationships that, if you didn't come into the studio, we were gonna know and you would hear from us versus, Hey, if we don't hear from them, that's okay, because they're still paying their dues.
• 11:48
  John Heringer: So I think it was, it was, when I tell people the story, it sounds very odd, but, along the way, I just built this growing love for all things health and wellness.
• 11:59
  John Heringer: And I think even now, we've had Method3 for 15 years.
• 12:02
  John Heringer: My wife and I had bought into an awesome franchise, had two locations there, just recently sold those.
• 12:09
  John Heringer: Honestly the thing that's always remained the same is this love for health and wellness.
• 12:13
  John Heringer: Whether it's now biohacking on myself and diving deep and then sharing these things with my coaches and, we just went to idea the big Health and wellness conference.
• 12:22
  John Heringer: They had their idea world Conference.
• 12:24
  John Heringer: Just up here in Sacramento California.
• 12:26
  John Heringer: So I lived just outside of Sacramento.
• 12:29
  John Heringer: My studio is actually in the Bay Area in San Jose.
• 12:31
  John Heringer: It's about two and a half, three hours away.
• 12:33
  John Heringer: So I don't go down there that much at all.
• 12:35
  John Heringer: I go down there about once a month or so and just connect with the team remotely.
• 12:40
  John Heringer: So but I got to bring the whole team up and it was just such a great experience.
• 12:43
  John Heringer: Got him in a hotel, had big team dinner.
• 12:46
  John Heringer: Everyone's doing different educational sessions, and then we come back to the studio.
• 12:50
  John Heringer: Now they're doing teachbacks for each other.
• 12:52
  John Heringer: So we're all just improving this awesome sense of learning, and I love it.
• 12:56
  John Heringer: And we've just provided a place for coaches to really thrive.
• 13:00
  John Heringer: And whether that's from education or just being able to be awesome at their craft and it's a, yeah, it's a really a special place.
• 13:07
  John Heringer: I'm biased, but it's special.
• 13:09
  Tom Jackobs: It's a testament to be in business for 15 years.
• 13:11
  Tom Jackobs: Like most businesses don't make it the first year, let alone five or even 10.
• 13:16
  Tom Jackobs: So kudos to you for sticking with it because I'm sure first of all, like taking care of your employees is so important because they're the ones that are taking care of the clients.
• 13:29
  John Heringer: Correct.
• 13:30
  Tom Jackobs: And if you don't taking, and so it's brilliant the way that you've structured that to keep, the what do you call the employees or
• 13:38
  John Heringer: we, I just call'em teammates.
• 13:39
  John Heringer: We're all teammates?
• 13:40
  John Heringer: But we call our members parters.
• 13:43
  Tom Jackobs: Partners, yeah.
• 13:43
  Tom Jackobs: So the teammates are taking care of the partners, and the partners are ultimately taking care of the whole business because they keep coming back for more.
• 13:51
  Tom Jackobs: To have somebody that's, five people that have been there for 15 years.
• 13:54
  Tom Jackobs: That's amazing.
• 13:56
  John Heringer: We had just a partner that I connect.
• 13:57
  John Heringer: We have a our own little show called The Stronger for Today show that we interview, different people and a lot of them are partners to share some of their stories for the older adult that's were trying to share and show, how when you, it's never too late to start in some of these journeys and what it can do for not just improving your lifespan, but your health span, right?
• 14:17
  John Heringer: The enjoyment of those years.
• 14:19
  John Heringer: I got to connect with one of our female partners her name is Anne.
• 14:23
  John Heringer: She just finished an incredible hike The Himalayas.
• 14:27
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my God.
• 14:27
  John Heringer: Went up to I don't even know, 15,000 feet or something.
• 14:29
  John Heringer: 14,000 feet.
• 14:31
  John Heringer: And one of the things she shared though, is she's gotten so much out of her partnership with us and her coach, Justin and all these things.
• 14:36
  John Heringer: But what really struck her that she shared with me, which I thought was, it's, it was great'cause it's literally our goal and that I tell our, I tell people when they joined with us and I tell, our team is like, we want through our actions.
• 14:49
  John Heringer: We want our partners to understand that they are more important, their goals are more important, their success is more important than the money that they're investing in us.
• 14:59
  John Heringer: And it was so awesome because this girl's been with us for about a year.
• 15:03
  John Heringer: And she literally said that verbatim to me.
• 15:06
  John Heringer: She's I just feel like everything, every person I connect with, coach, like I can just sense you guys care more about us than you do about the financial, thing that's happening.
• 15:15
  John Heringer: 'cause obviously there's gotta be a transaction there and that's, you gotta be a business.
• 15:18
  John Heringer: But but I don't even realize that or feel that, I just feel that like, all you care about is us.
• 15:23
  John Heringer: And I was like mission accomplished.
• 15:25
  John Heringer: This is great.
• 15:25
  John Heringer: it was so cool to hear and from a newer person, that's been with us just over a year at that.
• 15:29
  John Heringer: But I think this that focus and this focus on our team and our partners and really just being, and, slightly insane about how we can serve better, all the time, is what has been a huge piece of our success.
• 15:44
  John Heringer: And one of the cool things it just did, was I was trying to track our average length of engagement.
• 15:48
  John Heringer: And it was hovering around, still very strong, but hovering around anywhere from 39 to 41 months.
• 15:56
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 15:57
  John Heringer: And so yes, great.
• 15:59
  John Heringer: In and of itself.
• 16:00
  Tom Jackobs: Crazy.
• 16:01
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 16:02
  John Heringer: It's now actually though about 46.
• 16:06
  John Heringer: So the crazy thing was thinking, wow, we are literally almost, our average length of a client staying with us when they sign up is almost four years.
• 16:16
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 16:17
  John Heringer: It was just really cool to go back and see that.
• 16:19
  John Heringer: And I think part of that is actually a little bit of a segue into personal training.
• 16:23
  John Heringer: We've now years ago, we used to be more top heavy group to personal training and I'd say now it's definitely more evened out or slightly more personal training than group.
• 16:33
  John Heringer: And so I think it's been an interesting, but we've done a good job at still having those one-on-one personal training clients.
• 16:38
  John Heringer: Not just develop a relationship with our coach, but with the community at large.
• 16:42
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:42
  John Heringer: and so I think that's been a big piece of helping people wanna stay a part of what we offer besides just the coaching sessions that they're getting.
• 16:50
  John Heringer: It's more than that.
• 16:51
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Tom Jackobs: And that's what I found too, is when you connect people in a kind of a shared goal like fitness or the pain of going through a workout with, a personal trainer, that's a little bit too.
• 17:05
  Tom Jackobs: But then they're sharing in that experience together, they've cre it automatically creates a community, but then it's also our job as the business owner to set the tone for that to actually happen.
• 17:15
  John Heringer: Correct.
• 17:16
  Tom Jackobs: So tell me how do you think that you set that tone from the very beginning to make sure that, fast action training turning into Method3 is, was congruent all the way through.
• 17:26
  John Heringer: Whew.
• 17:27
  John Heringer: I'm gonna first say that I made a lot of mistakes and so it's by learning from those mistakes and through people that you realize aren't the best fit as coaches, because ultimately it's, I think that was one of the hardest lessons was how am I gonna duplicate myself?
• 17:41
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:42
  John Heringer: Because I can't have this run just on me and you're doing your, I think the first thing is understanding that.
• 17:47
  John Heringer: No one will be a hundred percent John.
• 17:50
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 17:50
  John Heringer: And not only is that okay, that's actually probably better because who would want a bunch of the same personalities like completely congruent the whole time?
• 18:00
  John Heringer: No one.
• 18:01
  John Heringer: Right?
• 18:01
  John Heringer: That'd be annoying after a while.
• 18:02
  John Heringer: So I think that was actually The thing I came to realize is that as I got more people on each, had their own unique strengths, I call'em flare.
• 18:10
  John Heringer: Everyone's got their own flare.
• 18:11
  John Heringer: I say, look we're all working, and we literally just talked about this because we had a program design template and everything that we had created together, collaborated on to kind of serve the older adult who we really coach primarily now, like 40, 40, 45, 50 plus.
• 18:25
  John Heringer: And we gotten away from it.
• 18:28
  John Heringer: And so we had to circle back and say, okay let's recalibrate this template that we use.
• 18:33
  John Heringer: To say what are the important pieces that need to take place in terms of someone's program, like mobility, strength, all these pieces, and then the exercises they're in.
• 18:41
  John Heringer: Here's our exercise library.
• 18:43
  John Heringer: You can have a few different ones, but let's make sure we're speaking the same language.
• 18:47
  John Heringer: What you create within that, like the ingredients and the recipe that you create for that client.
• 18:53
  John Heringer: You and I could create ones that are totally different, but as long as we're going from the same template, from the same exercises, from the same thinking of how to serve this person to keep them safe, but effective.
• 19:03
  John Heringer: Then we're good.
• 19:04
  John Heringer: And so I think that was a realization slowly started to occur is I can have all these different people, but as long as we're working within the same framework under the umbrella of Method3 and serving people from a like a company standpoint, not like a John versus Tom versus Bobby versus Sue.
• 19:21
  John Heringer: It's not individuals.
• 19:22
  John Heringer: We're a collective.
• 19:23
  John Heringer: And so I really try to make sure that I'm harnessing that we have weekly team meetings.
• 19:27
  John Heringer: I'd say it starts from our interview process to make sure that we are, it's a lengthy interview process.
• 19:32
  John Heringer: We also have something very unique, I'll say, Tom, is that instead of like hourly or commissions or all these things.
• 19:38
  John Heringer: We literally have a salary, like it's Hey, this is what you're gonna get, paid.
• 19:43
  John Heringer: We expect you to eventually work up to this many service hours.
• 19:47
  John Heringer: 25, 30 service hours, you'll get paid for 40.
• 19:50
  John Heringer: You can do all your program design, you can make sure you're cleaning and taking care of equipment, putting things away if you have extra time, here's a list of, we call'em downtime duties to make sure that you're helping move the needle in some respective way.
• 20:03
  John Heringer: So that you're not just getting paid for being on the clock for doing nothing just because you have a client canceled.
• 20:07
  John Heringer: And so that has given our team the ability to like just focus on what they do best.
• 20:15
  John Heringer: They're not worried about these tumultuous ups and downs in income.
• 20:18
  John Heringer: What if so and so goes on vacation because our income stays the same?
• 20:21
  John Heringer: We just may expect them to do some different things while those hours open back up.
• 20:26
  John Heringer: We offer access to benefits.
• 20:27
  John Heringer: We have a 401k, we have paid time off.
• 20:30
  John Heringer: So there's just a lot of things we do a little bit different that gives stability to coaches in an environment and industry where typically that's not the norm.
• 20:39
  John Heringer: And so I think all those things together have created an atmosphere where they feel, they feel safe, they feel appreciated and they get you to just focus on what they do best with their own respective flare, under the umbrella of Method3.
• 20:55
  John Heringer: And so it's allow them to really thrive.
• 20:58
  John Heringer: And create this amazing, we collectively, we create this great community together, and I tell my team all the time, I said, look, I'm blessed that we have this amazing team.
• 21:07
  John Heringer: I feel equally blessed that we've attracted the right people in as partners.
• 21:11
  John Heringer: To be a part of this with us, because together we make up this unique thing that is Method3, I always call where we are like the beacon of positivity.
• 21:19
  John Heringer: Like people are literally drawn to us at Method3 and want to be a part of it.
• 21:23
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:24
  John Heringer: But we can only, make sure we gotta make sure it's a good fit, right?
• 21:26
  John Heringer: As, as both partners coming in, teammates coming in.
• 21:29
  John Heringer: And I think that's given us the ability, me the ability to step out more and just, lead from more of a visionary sales marketing, process driven standpoint.
• 21:38
  John Heringer: And allow my team to be the main ones that execute.
• 21:40
  Tom Jackobs: That's brilliant.
• 21:41
  Tom Jackobs: And that's what the CEO should be doing too, is setting the tone and direction.
• 21:45
  Tom Jackobs: So let's shift gears just a little bit and Talk about the business side because we're kinda had the same business for a while.
• 21:52
  Tom Jackobs: There's challenges probably early on.
• 21:55
  Tom Jackobs: Around money, and you still wanna be heart-led, but then the bank account is telling you, oh, you need some money.
• 22:03
  Tom Jackobs: How do you balance the need to making money and profit with still being heart-led, and how do those combine together for you to make such a great business?
• 22:13
  John Heringer: Yeah, I think I know as coaches we come into this just with this heart of gold.
• 22:16
  John Heringer: We wanna serve everyone and it's hard to ask for money and then we, all of a sudden we're guilty of saying, oh, I only want to charge Tom this'cause he's great and I know him from before, but Bobby, I don't know.
• 22:25
  John Heringer: So I'm gonna charge him full price.
• 22:27
  John Heringer: And that, and it's all these different, I think one, getting some business coaching, I've always been a fan of having a coach to figure out what I need at the time and trying to find a coach that will serve that need.
• 22:37
  John Heringer: And so I've had, I'd say thankfully I've had a majority of great coaches.
• 22:41
  Tom Jackobs: Same.
• 22:42
  John Heringer: Some, that, one or two maybe that I'm like, ah, maybe would've done that different and not signed up for some coaching there.
• 22:46
  John Heringer: But you still learn through those as well.
• 22:49
  John Heringer: I think it was coming to the realization that I can't serve people and keep building this amazing community unless, I'm charging what we need to charge and paying my team, a reasonable great wage, especially since it's salary.
• 23:02
  John Heringer: And then we're taking care of them in a variety of different ways.
• 23:05
  John Heringer: And the only way to reconcile that is by making sure that we are charging what we should be to maintain profitability'cause if we're out of business, we can't serve anyone.
• 23:15
  John Heringer: And to be honest, I tell everyone like that would be horrible'cause a light would be extinguished from the earth.
• 23:20
  John Heringer: And if we're gonna do our damnedest to make a dent in the universe, we can't do it if we're not profitable and not actually like in business.
• 23:28
  John Heringer: So we definitely did rate increases throughout the years.
• 23:31
  John Heringer: There were a couple, one or two kind of oh, blank moments, where I had to kinda say, wow, how did I mess up my numbers here?
• 23:38
  John Heringer: What did I not do?
• 23:39
  John Heringer: Did I not appropriately say for taxes or think what, whatever it was?
• 23:43
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 23:44
  John Heringer: Those were all things we got to learn through.
• 23:45
  John Heringer: And I think now, and then the pandemic, honestly, going through the pandemic was literally, it was harder than starting the business going through that.
• 23:54
  John Heringer: I know it was hard for everyone, but in health and fitness, it was extremely challenging.
• 23:59
  John Heringer: Specifically where my studio was located in Santa Clara County, in California, it was just completely shut down.
• 24:04
  John Heringer: And so we had to pivot.
• 24:05
  John Heringer: We built, we did online.
• 24:07
  John Heringer: We Built an outdoor training area.
• 24:09
  John Heringer: We called it the outdoor arena.
• 24:11
  John Heringer: Literally we did a lot of outdoor sessions for pretty much almost 2 years because it took people, was a little bit of a challenge to coax people out, not because the pandemic in terms of the virus.
• 24:22
  John Heringer: I'll say maybe some were like that, but more so because they were used to training indoors.
• 24:26
  John Heringer: And now we're assign to the train outdoors.
• 24:28
  John Heringer: And we're blessed with pretty much some very good weather, I'll say where we are in San Jose.
• 24:34
  John Heringer: But literally for 2 years and we were able to, get through the pandemic.
• 24:38
  John Heringer: And we've literally grown every year since then.
• 24:41
  John Heringer: And this year we'll be, last year already was, and I think this year will be again, like the best year we've had in 15 years.
• 24:47
  John Heringer: I feel grateful every day, and I tell my team, I'll never forget the pandemic because it grounds me in humility and gratitude.
• 24:56
  John Heringer: Also the lessons learned of we will always have a strong, I say strong, very strong cash reserves to float any storm so that there will never be a moment.
• 25:08
  John Heringer: I'm going, oh no, how are we gonna survive?
• 25:10
  John Heringer: We will make it through anything.
• 25:11
  John Heringer: It also really made me a lot more since the pandemic, I think the year after.
• 25:17
  John Heringer: So 2021 and every year since we've raised our rates, every year
• 25:21
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 25:22
  John Heringer: And that's a such a fear, everything comes down to fear for raising our rates.
• 25:25
  John Heringer: And I can tell you right now with almost 600 clients, we typically, we'll raise it anywhere, we charge our clients, our partners weekly.
• 25:33
  John Heringer: So we'll raise it anywhere from 3, 4 to$5 per week.
• 25:38
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 25:38
  John Heringer: Part of that is also when we raise it, it sounds like 3 bucks a week.
• 25:42
  John Heringer: Okay?
• 25:42
  John Heringer: 12 to$20 a month for a studio.
• 25:46
  John Heringer: Time is by that many members.
• 25:47
  John Heringer: That has an impact, right?
• 25:49
  John Heringer: That allow us to maintain profitability.
• 25:51
  John Heringer: Great raises to our team but also take care of all the other things, inflation, all the prices that
• 25:56
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 25:56
  John Heringer: increase from our vendors.
• 25:58
  John Heringer: Electricity as we grow, like all these things, our rent goes up, like all these things
• 26:01
  Tom Jackobs: Yep.
• 26:02
  John Heringer: That go up.
• 26:02
  John Heringer: So you have to raise prices, right?
• 26:05
  John Heringer: Or else you have a business.
• 26:06
  John Heringer: And so literally out of all those times we've raised it, I think on average we will lose anywhere from 1 to, I think the max in all the past years, like the past 4 to 5 years has been 5 people,
• 26:18
  Tom Jackobs: People.
• 26:19
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 26:19
  John Heringer: So, 1 to 5
• 26:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 26:20
  John Heringer: people out of 550 plus clients.
• 26:23
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Tom Jackobs: That's amazing.
• 26:24
  Tom Jackobs: That's 0.01.
• 26:26
  John Heringer: So it's just a fear-based thing and that's allowed us to maintain this getting back to your original question there, to maintain this, like in order for us to fulfill our purpose and have the impact we wanna make, we must maintain profitability.
• 26:40
  John Heringer: And that means, always evaluating where we're at from that standpoint.
• 26:43
  John Heringer: As we bring on new people, as we grow, as we look at, acquiring equipment, or getting new space or more space it always has to come down to where does that impact our bottom line?
• 26:53
  John Heringer: Can we afford this?
• 26:53
  John Heringer: Can we float this?
• 26:55
  John Heringer: Does it make sense right now?
• 26:56
  John Heringer: Is it a now, is it a later?
• 26:58
  John Heringer: Because if it ever puts us into too much of a precarious position, then it's probably not worth it.
• 27:03
  John Heringer: Like even right now we're growing.
• 27:05
  John Heringer: We're gonna need more space, whether it's a completely new space or just acquiring more.
• 27:10
  John Heringer: But we're going to not do that until we're literally bursting from the seams and figuring out, because then it'll be a much easier way to fall into that new space and afford it and not have any OSH moments.
• 27:23
  John Heringer: We're just gonna go, okay cool.
• 27:25
  John Heringer: We accounted for this.
• 27:26
  John Heringer: Now we have more space to float these people that we were kinda like.
• 27:28
  John Heringer: Crammed in a little bit on top of each other, but now we're good.
• 27:30
  John Heringer: We've got the space and we can afford it.
• 27:32
  John Heringer: So trying to be really intentional about that.
• 27:34
  Tom Jackobs: That's great'cause all that planning that many small business owners don't really think about.
• 27:39
  Tom Jackobs: It's all from the seat of your pants and when you put your heart into something, a lot of times you don't always think through all the different consequences.
• 27:47
  Tom Jackobs: So it's very smart.
• 27:47
  Tom Jackobs: It's great.
• 27:48
  Tom Jackobs: So John, tell us it's kinda come to that time, unfortunately, this has been a great conversation.
• 27:53
  Tom Jackobs: You've shared so much wisdom of your journey, but how can people learn more about you and Method3 Fitness?
• 27:59
  John Heringer: Method3fitness.com is our website.
• 28:03
  John Heringer: You're welcome to go there and check out who we are or what we do and how we serve our people.
• 28:07
  John Heringer: You wanna hit me, with an email, I'm happy to get back if there's anything I can do to assist you on your journey, whoever's watching email's pretty simple.
• 28:14
  John Heringer: JOHN john@methodthreefitness.com.
• 28:17
  John Heringer: It's method, it's the number 3, the digit, and then fitness.com.
• 28:22
  Tom Jackobs: Just like your shirt.
• 28:24
  John Heringer: That's just like my shirt.
• 28:25
  John Heringer: That's it.
• 28:25
  John Heringer: So you can check us out there.
• 28:27
  John Heringer: Happy to assist on the journey where I can.
• 28:28
  John Heringer: I think if there's any, no matter what the business is that people are in that are watching this, I think we all have these aspirations as we vision cast.
• 28:37
  John Heringer: just one, two thing I wanna say about that is just allowing yourself the grace to let that vision evolve.
• 28:43
  John Heringer: And change but never letting really go of it, right?
• 28:46
  John Heringer: Because I'll say that as we've gone through now 15 years in, I'm still super passionate.
• 28:51
  John Heringer: We've got annual planning we're doing with our leadership team next week.
• 28:53
  John Heringer: I can't wait to figure out how we're gonna continue to climb, get to a thousand partners that we're gonna lead, And then how we now cast our, what we've built out and train people online since that's become such a much more, Easier thing to do for people, even the older adult.
• 29:08
  John Heringer: So you know, don't let go of the vision.
• 29:09
  John Heringer: Know that as you progress and climb and you find the right people on your team, it gives you more and more time to then cast that vision and create it and excite your team and row the troops behind that so you can really have the impact you wanna make.
• 29:22
  Tom Jackobs: that's great advice and we'll make sure to package that up into a nice short that we can publicize, that's absolute gold right there.
• 29:29
  Tom Jackobs: John, thank you again for being on the show today and sharing your wisdom.
• 29:32
  Tom Jackobs: We've been friends for a long time and I always appreciate talking to you.
• 29:36
  Tom Jackobs: You have such a great attitude and your spirit is so much in the heart.
• 29:39
  Tom Jackobs: So thank you for everything.
• 29:41
  John Heringer: My pleasure, Tom.
• 29:42
  John Heringer: Thanks for having me, man.
• 29:42
  John Heringer: It's been great to wrap with you.
• 29:44
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 29:44
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you dear listeners, for watching today or listening in today on your podcast Player of Choice, and we really do appreciate it.
• 29:53
  Tom Jackobs: So if you wanna check out everything that John's doing, we're gonna put that all in the show notes.
• 29:57
  Tom Jackobs: So just check that out down in the show notes.
• 29:59
  Tom Jackobs: And while you're down there, if you could do us a favor and give a show a rating and a review.
• 30:03
  Tom Jackobs: Hopefully 5 stars.
• 30:04
  Tom Jackobs: That definitely spreads the word about the heart-led business show and helps those that want to be more heart-led.
• 30:10
  Tom Jackobs: Be okay with being heart-led and making a profit.
• 30:12
  Tom Jackobs: So until next time, lead with your heart.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.