The 6 Hurdles We Had to Overcome to Build a 7-Figure Fitness Business
Paden
Okay, I could not be more excited for this. This is our first official podcast episode in the studio that you’ve been working months on, because in we’ve just envisioned this moment.
Michael Hughes
And this has been probably the thing that I’ve been the most excited about as we started to share and open up gymnazo.edu and everything we’ve been doing. And I know this is gonna be like one of the 1000
Paden
Yeah, so it’s the start of a journey. So you know what, let’s cheers it out. Let’s cheers it out. What do you drink sparkling apple cider. It’s 10 o’clock in the morning. But there you go. We’ve christened our first podcast episode. So we thought, you know, to kick off this podcast, we want so many people we know go back to Episode One. And they think like, I want to connect with the host, I want to get to understand the way the business started and the story behind it. And so I don’t know if you’re listening to this right now, the first time first episode with us, and you’re going to track with us through the next few 100,000 episodes. Or if you really are going back in time, and you’re catching up with our story. Either way, I want you to connect with me and my goal, what we built. And I also want to keep it really tactical. So today, we’re going to share about the six hurdles that we had to cross jump over even to hit our seven figure mark. And we want to share this with you because so often people walk into our facility and they look around and they feel like wow, there’s this a huge facility. I mean, it’s like, was it
Michael Hughes
13,000 square feet? And it started
Paden
big, big for the industry. Yeah, probably less 300 square feet. Yeah. So we want to go back and say take don’t compare yourself and where you are in your journey to where we are right now. And just to keep it real, like we’re always comparing where we are to the person or the business or the model that we aspire to. That’s human nature.
Michael Hughes
The comparison model so much harder now. Yeah, keep it in check. Yeah, social media because of you see this perfect image. Yeah. And you don’t really realize what it took the sweat and the tears and the investment.
Paden
And the journey.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. And yeah, and I think most people look at it, like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do that? Or? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we didn’t do that. Yeah.
Paden
So here we are. Six hurdles, six hurdles. And so I’m gonna have you start Michael because whether you guys know this or not, Michael was the personal trainer behind Gymnazo. And I want you to share a little bit about you as you’re in childhood even in like what how you found your way to fitness. I think that’s so interesting.
Michael Hughes
For get to this next hurdle. This is the part where shared a little bit about the multi dimensional movement coaching certification program, a coach mentorship program, and oh, yes, if this is your first time hearing about this program, the multi dimensional movement coaching certification program is something we talk a lot about. It’s our life work. It’s everything that I’ve learned in my career as a coach and an entrepreneur, distilled down to 10 plus modules over 90 days, and we give our MDMCers a guided experience. Basically, all the students that enroll in the MDMC certification program, go through a 90 day guided mentorship experience from me and my team, where we show them how to blend performance with restoration. How to master the 10% of science that elite coaches rely on daily, how to create a powerful ecosystem of services in your fitness business and how to dial in a five star customer experience. For group training, semi private and exclusive training. We teach you how to blow your clients minds with intentional progressive programming, and how to curate the experience that turns clients into raving fans, all while bringing our students into our team atmosphere. So they feel super supported, and pushed to think and coach outside of their comfort zone. So if this sounds perfect for you, and something you’re interested in checking out, go to the gymnazoedu.com website and check out the program to see all the modules broken down, and what our support and accountability systems are. Because this is not just a do it yourself course, where we give you video modules and we tell you the homework and don’t check in. When you join this program. We’re going to be on the phone weekly with you working through how to tailor our approach to your business, facilitate weekly coaching calls to make sure you’re tracking along with us and of course, answer any questions you have and come up along the way. Because you’re going to run into a lot of those if you’re embarking on a journey to your personal training passion into a full blown fitness business. So if you want to learn about the program, or some of the results our students have gotten, check out gymnazo.edu.com. And we’ll see you there. It was an interesting path that started really, really when I was young, super young. Lost my mom to a rare blood disease actually And that process of losing someone so close to you kind of built this lack of confidence feel inside me, that actually happens to a lot of children, unfortunately, is you develop a stutter. We have this big trauma in your life. And it was amazing to realize that actually how common it is. And I just thought it was just something normal. But through that process of developing this mental kind of disorder about yourself, you don’t feel this ability within you. What I did find that gave me that self confidence, which a lot of people know is fitness, working out at a young age, like seventh grade in the garage gym with my two older brothers. It’s amazing. And any of them, anybody who’s ever worked out for realize that when that workouts done, your mentality is like, this whole next level, and that was so true. And understanding that, and playing on that for month after month in the seventh grade is I realized that I wanted to be the person who knew the most about fitness and physical therapy. So that’s what I did I set that as a goal of my life and ever since then, that’s why I pursued to be
Paden
okay, so hurdle number one in building Gymnazo was,
Michael Hughes
unfortunately, getting into physical therapy school trying different schools to different years. Yeah, back to back years. Yeah. And that was tough. When you know, from junior high, you know what college you’re gonna go to, because the mentors in the area, my uncle’s, PT in that town, you take all the classes, you get your bachelors of science, you do more schooling afterwards, and you send those Ven, manila envelopes and at that point, and you just close that mailbox tour. And you say like, Alright, here we go. And you get that fin envelope that fin letter back, because you know, it’s thin. It’s just only one piece of paper, there’s no welcome.
Paden
There’s no orientation.
Michael Hughes
There’s no like, oh, or even like, Hey, I’m gonna be like to do an interview. And that was tough. That was tough each and every time.
Paden
So So what do you do to get through that?
Michael Hughes
It was interesting. Yeah, it will feel
Paden
like that’s what a hurdle is. It’s this point where you either redirect or you go over it? Yes.
Michael Hughes
And you kind of have to, you want to keep momentum, right? Because it’s much easier to go over hurdle with momentum. Yes, analogy that want
Paden
to get to fitness. See here, right. But hey, you know, to crush the analogy, so
Michael Hughes
get over the hurdle is harder. So it was really not it was this mindset the entire time that I realized that I had, it wasn’t, I always had a contingency plan. But I didn’t know what the plan what I was going to do. I just knew I wasn’t going to stop. So is getting that, that final letter, and the second year, and I’m like, Well, I still love what I’m doing
Paden
is your personal training at this time, right? You have already
Michael Hughes
built quote unquote, a business right? Even though it wasn’t, you know, that check, well, a personal trainer, you have your own, I don’t want to use the word business. But you have your own product, in a sense in it. And it’s you even though it’s working for a big box gym, I was getting, you know, still an employee, I saw the management and schedule idle selling, you have to do everything. No one’s doing it for you. And so you had momentum, I was still training on that point. And it was like, Well, I’m still I saw the client with knee pain, I still have a client who wants to lose weight. So the client wants to get stronger, but has XYZ problem, right? This is the typical trainer. So I wanted to continue to pursue education. And it was really interesting finding this institute. And this institute was really compiled by this one trainer who’s just doing some pretty wacky stuff, at least what I thought it was. And you asked like, I gotta figure out who that person is. Because what they’re doing looks really interesting. Just to understand
Paden
what was the first thing that you notice that make you think they were doing some wacky stuff, as you put it was
Michael Hughes
basically broad range, full body dynamic movement.
Unknown Speaker
And just a little weird, it looked like it looked like they were warming up for a sporting event. Not for fitness workout in
Paden
the gym in the gym. Yeah, it was next to the lineup of treadmills. There they are
Michael Hughes
bolted down machinery and the dumbbell rack and the mirrors. It just looks too verbose for a fitness facility. And it was because you wouldn’t do those movements in the machine because the machines really Yeah, fine, right, in a sense. So
Paden
So So besides looking weird was there What was it about what she was accomplishing in those movements that caught your attention because most trainers look at that and go really creepy really weird something you’re
Michael Hughes
off your rocker I’m out something you’d film upload on Youtube to fill in.
Paden
Yeah, okay. So you see that so why would you wouldn’t But what drew you in in that moment? Or was it not that moment was something different?
Michael Hughes
There was something about it that was just plain and simple authentic. You just saw it and you’re like, you know what, that looks different a Milton’s doing that. But be it wasn’t like someone wasn’t jumping around pulling a pulling machine hanging upside down. You know, they weren’t it was using their own body in positions that you looked at. It’s like, wow, that looks like swinging something. Oh, that looks like running. Oh, that looks like kind of that interesting move that someone doesn’t volleyball. Oh, so there’s bits and pieces to it. That just made sense. And so being
Unknown Speaker
aware, she say, Well,
Michael Hughes
what did John say? I wanted to meet this particular person. So me still being mean, she I was asking people you know you what you do. You’re in this Jimmy like, Hey, who is that person? So there’s there every gym at least ours had this token bodybuilder? Excuse me a power lifter? Yeah. Not like that. I call it Yeah. Builder power lifter. And he’s like, oh, yeah, that’s, that’s Lisa over there. And she really helps me clean up my SI joint. I’m like, why is it? Yeah, joint like, like your pelvis. You know? Yeah, my pelvis. And I was like, really? She’s a trainer. Oh, yes. Trainer. Physical? No, no. Oh, just trainer. light bulb went off. I got to talk to her. Because what trainer knows how to do that? Well,
Paden
because you always wanted to be a physical
Michael Hughes
therapist. So for us next level of like connection.
Paden
That was the goal. If she didn’t know that, then she snapped into something. And she doesn’t have what is it DPT? On her card?
Michael Hughes
Yeah. And it was amazing. Because it’s talking about like comparing people your chapter one to someone else’s chapter five. It was a comparison. Yeah, I wanted that. And that was the very first thing that
Paden
got you a treat. Yeah. And so then she introduced you to the gray Institute. She did.
Michael Hughes
Cool. It was a congress. It was a conference down in San Diego, and it was only a few months away. And went to it. You know, like all trainers, right? We go to these conferences. We fly down there. We booked the hotel. The it’s this continuing education course. And it was amazing getting there. And understanding after the three, two and a half day conference just that single day. Lunch break. I was like, got it. This is it. They painted a beautiful picture of what trainers
Paden
should know. But was it trainers or therapists? Anybody?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, movement space?
Paden
That’s a really important thing. Because typically, trainers are told to stay in that lane. Well, and they were including trainers. Yeah, always therapists in the conference, which is pretty groundbreaking.
Michael Hughes
What they said like who’s a trainer? Who Yeah, that’s what they did is actually at that point, because it’s now you know, 12 years ago, plus, they said, Kate, who’s a therapist? Yeah. Who’s a chiropractor? Who’s a podiatry? You know that? And then the last question was, okay, who’s a trainer?
Paden
That’s our industry, we’re always in a fall of 2020 has done anything to, to cement us anywhere. It’s the bottom of the totem pole.
Michael Hughes
But what’s fascinating is that the way that they described it, that was, you don’t need a license for this. This is just knowledge of human movement, and human understanding. And it’s interesting, you know, being getting a bachelor science, kinesiology, like, oh, I took biomechanics. I took that and you realize, like, No, you didn’t, you took textbook biomechanics? Yeah, we learned about lever arms, and hinge joints. It’s like, oh, yeah, that’s just the elbow, the elbow doesn’t work by itself. It works with the shoulder attached to it. And it does it at that at that, and I was ever taught that in college. So therefore, all my certifications on my continued education, even like corrective movement, Specialist certification was all protocol based, traditional 1970s physical therapy.
Paden
So I feel like an entire episode probably needs to be with Gary Gray to go into depth of like what his whole path has been. But the point here is like it captured you, and it legitimized your profession as being included at the on the at the seat at the table of helping people move through dysfunction. And it really fed that, like hunger that you had to elevate your knowledge and to really help people. Yeah, for
Michael Hughes
anybody listening. I just have to say this point. It’s realizing that as a physical move as a personal trainer, like we’re always in this hunt, to understand more, to not get stuck to help that client get through it. We have all the hearts of gold, and we feel them. I know we all feel it, when we just can’t deliver what we want to deliver. And to feel stuck as somebody said that simply. And this was like, oh, there’s always an option. There’s always an option. So I just want you to know that there is always an option in movement. And I say and this thinking is methodology. unlocked that I get the hard part is, you know, just because you unlock something doesn’t mean the door opens.
Paden
Well, yeah, because even so this is bringing me into this is sort of hurdle one, but it’s starting to become hurdle two. But hurdle one is, what do I do if I’ve been rejected from physical therapy, but I want to help people get out of discomfort and into their potential, because that’s really what you’ve always been focused on. But it’s rare for someone in fitness to be interested or even have the balls to say I want to get into their dysfunction, and I want to help them move out of it. And so I know that always been your heartbeat. But you go to this training, you get a seat at the table, even if it’s at the end of the table is fitness trainer. And you come out going cool, I’m gonna dive in. I think the program was worth $15,000 at the time to get that 10 month mentorship hands on a lot of different teachings came in as
Michael Hughes
a fitness, quote unquote, certification, huge deals, like no one would do that.
Paden
Yeah, it’s a big deal. But it got your attention, because I always believe those kind of dollar signs, like get you to show up and make it work because it’s a lot of money. It’s full investment. And so you do that. And then the all the examples are curated primarily for the clinical business model. So it’s that one on one in a treatment room, like a 10. By 10. Treatment
Michael Hughes
as a physical therapist. Yeah. What they know about physical therapy, yes, and
Paden
biomechanics, chain reaction, all that stuff. So you’re sitting there going great, I’m absorbing all this information. It’s everything you probably wanted, from physical therapy school, and now oh, wait, but I’m a personal trainer at this big box gym. How am I bringing this? Like, what am I doing to bring this education into the sexy fun energy of fitness? And so easy
Michael Hughes
as a one on one trainer to start this this session? Turn the clock off? Hey, let’s focus in on it. And on this? Yeah, but at that point, I’ve already developed a group training.
Paden
Yeah, for leverage
Michael Hughes
way more of a lucrative business, right. But you said, what I mean, it’s, you’ll be a one on one trainer forever, but you can be a good trainer and having another life like that. That’s kind of my general statement on it all. And to piece those intricate details into group training program was certainly a challenge. Certainly a challenge. But it’s one of those things like you just realized that it was possible. This this whole thing, it is possible.
Paden
I think that’s one thing I’ve always known about you is, and obviously when we met and started dating, it was one of the big things was like you just keep going. It I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you stop for a no. Seriously,
Michael Hughes
maybe you
Paden
if I say no, you better stop. But I really haven’t seen you do that. And so it’s funny to me to go back into these stories like the folk Lord, Gymnazo and like, try to imagine you learning about this clinical setting and then look at your group training session of like six soccer moms at 7am on a Tuesday and go great. We’re gonna mobilize whatever body part today through this workout. And then this brings me to hurdle two, which is how do you get clients to trust that you can actually help them? So you go get this education, your your? And I remember you saying like, are you trial and error? How to like infuse restorative every day with with dubious results? Some days great result other days as your fine tuning? How do you, like, get people to trust you? But talk to me about that? Because so often, I think in our industry is like you go and learn something new and epic, but you show up on Monday. A different trainer. I mean, this took you a year basically to refine your skills and start trying to hone it. I will say three years. Three Well, yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah, it took a while, a long time to fine tune it. But so how are you trial and error and infusing your new knowledge into what people know and trust
Michael Hughes
the cool thing about about setting an environment, right? Think about you walk into a movie theater, and there’s a bunch of chairs, it’s dark, there’s a screen, everyone faces the same direction, because it’s super simple. You fall in line, going to Disneyland, it’s pretty simple. There’s streets, you see a lot of queue for a ride, you go you follow the crowd, what we did, and what I did with Gymnazo is I hit because I had the the availability, she was able to create my own environment. And since I was the authority, the only person there I could set the tone. And it’s really amazing. A in a good way in a bad way. How much people trust trainers. It’s good thing it’s a bad thing. Because they have a lot of education or they don’t and
Paden
and there’s a lot of confidence or fronting confidence and frustration and confidence will get you in the door.
Michael Hughes
So being certain of what I was learning, I could set up my facility to match it. So people look like oh, what’s that? funny looking contraption that looks like a torture chamber. Let’s just a true stretch, or is it just stretching cage? And I already purchased? One? How would you get in? It’s like one of those things like wouldn’t. The coolest thing is that the the more you get I use this term, the more butts and seats you get, the more conversion you get, people just have to feel it. So if I set it up, right, and I say, Hey guys, we’re gonna do a little bit longer warmup today. And let’s try this. Let’s try this. Yeah, and those little try things like, man, that’s, I’ve never felt a hamstring stretch like that before.
Paden
I’m gonna pause there, because that’s a huge behavioral science piece, which is you can get people because no one likes change. This is a great book called don’t move my cheese, which is basically do not mess with what I know and love. And if you’re going to evolve and adapt your training style at some point and your business model, you’re going to have to get people to adopt your new, the new flair and flavor, but the what you just described as critical. And I’m gonna pause you on that because it’s like, if you can get people to feel it, as at a trial, like you’ll do anything once. But if you feel like oh, we’ve changed our method, there’s resistance, there’s less resistance. If you go, I’m just gonna try something, what do you think and now they’re in the decision. See, they’re influencing you. In fact, they’re influencing you, they think it’s their idea, because they said I liked longer warmup. Now, when you do longer warm ups, they’re part stakeholders in the way your vision is unfolding. And that’s huge.
Michael Hughes
That’s one of the biggest pieces. Like we all love, to feel good. You’re Simple, right? Through real simple. So if you show someone, even the slightest bit of how to get there, it’s, it’s this trickle. So you want more you want more about more. And what I love about fitness is it’s been a long, a long, it’s been around long enough, where people have gotten used to the ho hum of Treadmill alley, weights and things like that. And what I also love about the fitness industry and dislike is that it’s a huge, trendy industry trends coming coming up all the time with be fit, whether it be equipment, whether it be this data, and in this timeframe. Crosta was just starting to
Paden
come up. Yeah, what’s the timeframe data for people?
Michael Hughes
This was the 2010 to 2013. Yeah, that’s I’m sure 2008 Nine, just 13 is winning this snowball. to kind of go, and it was was interesting is that people really started to love that type of group training, because the group training typically was like, you’d have this instructor on top of the stage with a mic, and they just do their thing. They follow along totally, totally onstage actress actors kind of thing. Don’t come off the stage. Oh, don’t do that. Yeah, walk amongst the people don’t do that. So seriously. So this was like, definitely like the whole spin. And this coaching the people on the floor in the mix, even if not doing like you do less the workout with them, you’re actually coaching like a basketball coach is on the sidelines. He’s not playing basketball, he’s coaching with him. So that was the kind of whole trend that was starting to happen. And it was interesting is that people still have aches and pains no matter what, you know, traditional fitness is a repetitive process. So the blend this mobility, stability, physical therapy notion into what I just started was warm, some cool down psych actually doing a thorough stretching cooldown, functionally, not sitting down and bring your, you know, the heels together and doing the butterfly stretch. But actually applying it in this new method of upright functional biomechanical chain reaction, movement, stretching, felt completely different, and therefore got results much, much faster.
Paden
They recovered faster, right, much faster.
Michael Hughes
Exactly.
Paden
Okay, so how did you get them to hurdle to is how do I get clients to trust you? It’s results. Sure. But how do you get them to trust you with their pain? Exactly. So that’s where it hits the road. Right?
Michael Hughes
So it was interesting, as I did both, is I took my one on one clients, and I helped them get rid of general aches and pains. And then I said, Hey, you know, I think I think I can save you some money. Seriously, that was the that was the hook. How could you do my group training? Because the program is really not that different. You can train more for less money.
Paden
Well, and something that we’ve learned in Gymnazo, that I think you were learning in this moment was personal training one on one is not where the best leverage for your time and dollar is. So as fast as you can use that to migrate people into higher leverage services, the better your time is and the businesses and they’re happier typically, I mean, there’s still people that want to get trained one on one, but I’m not discrediting that. But for the most part, if you can save them a buck, and they’re getting that social element and they still feel safe and cared for and you can modify, they will go there happily and
Michael Hughes
let’s not forget, if we do a little bit of math here that was during the The
Paden
recession recession the Great Recession.
Michael Hughes
Exactly. 2009 10.
Paden
Yeah, when personal training was on the ropes for a lot of trainers, because people were cutting
Michael Hughes
movement, because it wasn’t, it wasn’t an economic classes, crash was a housing crash, people saw jobs, it just was a different field. They wanted to save money it was. So to blend those two together. And then to get that one on one client to be like, Oh, I was Michael Michaels personal training client, now I’m in group and that their chatter, like, Oh, how’d you get in here? Like, oh, you know, Michael helped mine me. Now I’m gonna group training. That was one approach. Yeah, to get the one on one clients talking to the group clients from that standpoint. But then seeing someone do, let’s say, a lunge, or push up and shoulder pain, knee pain, etc. And be like, Hey, how about you just change your positioning? Here? That a slight tweak? Exactly, yeah, what we call it a movement tweak is essentially a modification of body positioning. And that literally the next rep, the pain is gone. And people are just like, well, that’s interesting. Well, you almost have
Paden
a built in audience. Well, yeah. And they got many audience everyday people from time and effort training.
Michael Hughes
So when those start to become more more consistent, and say, Hey, can I talk to you after the session? Maybe we can do something. So then I would take my personal training clients go into group data group clients go into personal training, I just had this cycle. And you basically you get this person could have a friend? Can they you know, it’s word of mouth? Yes. Where people will always talk about great pizza. And then they’re going to want to go to that pizza joint. And they’re going to talk about great sushi and sushi, and they’re going to do good things here. So that was a huge, huge, huge piece.
Paden
Okay, so hurdle three. And this is right around the time when I met you, which was, so hurdle three was okay, Michael’s doing something. And I know when we jumped on fitness career, masteries podcast, and we did, like an interview, or things I did with Barry, about how we hit seven figures. I told him how we met and he like, cringed because I wrote you off, because you were a personal trainer. And I was like, oh, there’s this personal trainer? Because he goes, Wait, because it’s sort of like this ego. Hey, what do you mean, you gotta wrote off the personal trainer? I was like, Well, I mean, at that time, my bias was, you’re gonna cancel clients, when you want to go on a four day weekend trip, your boots, kind of like figuring out your super social, like a new fitness, like, what’s your goal? Are you going to grow? I’m queen of ambition over here, like, probably there’s nothing here besides a good looking dude. And then we start talking and you have this vision, I’m gonna change the industry. And I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know what needed to be changed, right? And we kind of started talking about it. But this is where I started learning about you. We started working together on marketing, and then it becomes not about business and more about like, hey, like, can I? Can I date you? Yeah. And then those those fun times. Yeah. And so we start working. And I start kind of helping with the marketing piece of it, because you start realizing you’ve got something special, and you need to get the word out. And sometimes you’re so close to your own service. It’s hard to talk about your own service. So bringing an outside voice in to be like, Why should people care? But then I knew nothing about fitness, because all I do is surf and rock climb, and hate fitness. So it’s
Michael Hughes
funny, just the time to is like, when Facebook was starting to work business services, there was no Instagram back then there was no Instagram, but you started really like, Man, how do we do it all? Like, how do I actually be good at it? Yeah. So it’s really this, this cry of the solopreneur as a as a fitness, business owner, quote, unquote, whether you actually own your own business, or you’re just an employee for big bucks, and you just don’t have enough time in the day to do everything. Well. expecially now, yes. So many different opportunities. You want to hit them all. Yeah. And I realized pretty quickly, even then, it was like, No,
Paden
I just want to be Yeah, you always want to be really masterful in your craft. But you’ve wanted to build and scale and create impact. So it’s like, there’s the choice. And so often, that’s the choice. And that’s, I think, why a lot of trainers stay in one on one is because they just want to be really transformational, their skill set and master, they want to be really good. And that’s you. You’ve always wanted to be that person. But you also wanted this like I want industry impact. Okay, well, you can’t stay just masterful one on one forever. Because your business lives and dies by your time and your schedule, and that’s a trap. Like it feels cool to be booked out. But how long does that last? Until you’re overwhelmed, burned out and going I don’t even love this anymore. It’s
Michael Hughes
really funny to talk to these trainers, like you realize, oh, man, I got I got 10 clients every day. I’m like you’re doing half hour sessions. Now I do an hour Yeah, it’s
Paden
like not good.
Michael Hughes
How do you? I mean, eventually you just realized like, What? Are you making some bank? Wow. Then you realize, man that sucks. Like they have money, but what are you going to do with it? Yeah, life look like yeah, they burn out or they just become that soul sucking trainer that just is always doing what they’re doing. So happy to be so booked. And then.
Paden
So for you hurdle three really becomes how do I take the skills that I’ve developed? Because admittedly and here’s the best part, you still don’t think your skill sets as good as it can be and will be. Yeah, that’s that’s but that’s you I think as long as I’ve known you, it’s always There’s always more, there’s always the next skill. And I think that’s what keeps it energizing for your team to be around you is like you’re always going to want the best thing or the new thing and to keep evolving. I
Michael Hughes
had to come up with his with his new term, there’s no such thing as perfection anymore. Its pursuit of excellence. Yes. And then I had to pay some money to learn that. Yeah, pursuit of excellence, pursuit of perfection.
Paden
Yeah, but the constant can anyway. So that’s been you, but you realize I’m not. Even if you don’t think you’re good enough as you are, for where you want to be, you still are good enough to replicate yourself, so that you can get pushed to the next level, because now you’re leading people. And so I remember when I started to join you on the marketing side and help you because at the time, I was a small business consultant, young, green, trying to prove myself and here you have this business that I can help, like, apply what I’ve learned that days and start helping you grow this thing. But you sat there and said, I need to replicate myself as a coach, and you put together this internship program I remember and we were feeding off of the local university further, fresh, best kinesiology students, and we’re giving them college credit to be part of our intern week intern, or was it 12 week internship, I think, or is it what the quarter system 10 weeks, 10 weeks, two quarters. And I remember that you had planned it all out. You were so excited. And you had three interns. It was you and Trevor Trevor was your first hire. So you’d already figured out how to replicate yourself. And I cruise into the scene. You have three interns? And I remember Do you remember where I want to go with it before? Where’s the we’re sort of pseudo business partners, even though we’re just dating like there’s no, there’s no sharing last name is there’s no shareholder ship was more of Yeah, it was a it was very much a gentleman gentle woman agreement, if we could call it that. And you go, great, like, look at all these interns. I’m so excited for all of them. I was like, great. Which one? Are you going to hire?
Michael Hughes
Oh, yeah, high. And I was just as clear, confident answer. And I said, all three of them.
Paden
And I’m sitting there trying to wrap my head around the fact that one I’m working for free to you’re working for $36,000 a year and we’re happy sitting there in that first hole because you were just pumping. Like you just live you’ve always lived very like a practical life. And so there you were at that rate, and I’m sitting there going at some point, you’re going to make more money. And then we’ve got Trevor and now are three more and you’re going from a T O team of two trainers to five like that. And I’m going this guy’s crazy.
Michael Hughes
Well, here’s some interesting pieces that I want people to understand who are listening to this. There was some caveats built into that story that make it much more attainable.
Paden
Oh, that’s true. much. I’m glad you’re gonna inherit this.
Michael Hughes
Because though, I knew that I needed to live on fully 300 excuse me $3,300 That was my monthly burn to meet it live my life rent food, you know, bar night once or twice, twice a week, etc. I thought the better I could keep my business in a good money, the better I was even though I was paying myself. Well.
Paden
Yeah, cuz you could be you could be cashflow positive, you just wouldn’t pocket Exactly.
Michael Hughes
This is all about keeping the business looking. Yeah, this is looking good. And I don’t recommend that. Now, no ignoring that. But the key caveat, and where I want people to understand this, if you want to build a team, do it underneath someone else’s business. And what I mean by that is I was in a big box gym is kind of a club 2025 Fitness kind of spot. And this is a critical piece. But I was allowed to do it because the business the gym wanted more money. So I was bringing in 8007 $12,000 Not that yet, but close Close to close to five figures every month in sales. I said I want to bring in more people underneath this program. And they’re like, Yeah, that makes sense. Go for it. So they took payroll dollars. They took
Paden
Yeah, they took the hair. I took this
Michael Hughes
it was their employee. I just managed them. So what I realized is that why did that scenario work because the program worked. It was a win win. Yeah, it was really important that you understand that there’s are opportunities to grow your team came out there that are not just the traditional man, I must pay them, etc, etc. Be creative, use other people’s ability to make money to help you make to make money.
Paden
Well, and the other thing is those three interns that you hired as coaches were also full time college students. So you weren’t handing them a full time schedule. So that’s also a good thing to clarify. You were probably handing him I want to say on average, we said they had to at least do eight sessions a week, or something for them to actually get through, what is it the first 50 sessions till they finally hit some kind of stride that fits to the quality that you want? And then from there, you can progress them. But I was like, how quickly can we get them those first 50 sessions on the belt?
Michael Hughes
And that was probably because they did that they had class? Yeah, they’re not out two hours work.
Paden
Yeah. And they just said with one another, it was their responsibility. So like, yes, there was a team of five coaches. But you were still the lion’s share of the, of the coaching. But you had successfully figured out how to replicate yourself to be good enough, as a group trainer, so that you could continue to evolve and figure out kind of trial and error your way through it.
Michael Hughes
And once they became four trainers, in a sense, you know, group group trainers, it wasn’t like, Okay, you’re, you’re good. Like, that’s when the education really Yeah, it’s really
Paden
well, and then you have the awkward transition, which every coach, I feel like trainers are like, oh, shoot, because then you monocle having your clients that love you that are all high maintenance and wonderful humans, and they look at the schedule, and it’s not Michael Hughes on the schedule. It’s Stephen Thomas, or it’s Shannon Kelly. And their their names are and you sit there and go, I hope they’re gonna go with it. Again, it’s sort of like, just try this coach out. And I think he would say, Hey, guys, I think you started integrating them as interns. Exactly. Because you knew, again, it’s going back to the whole don’t hit your clients with some massive change. Let them feel like they’re owning the process. And to you did a great thing I thought early on, which was, Hey, guys, I’ve got some interest from Cal Poly, we’re trying to tune them up, get them excited about their careers. Where would you be, we’re gonna have them co coaching with me. They’re gonna lead the warm up only right? They’re gonna so you really like babies stepped them in? And then would survey the members formally and informally. What did you think? What do you think they could work on? Now their feedback is being applied and they’ve essentially hired their next coach
Michael Hughes
does the key phrase right there, we always say, I don’t hire you, our members do
Paden
Yeah, you would always tell the coaches you don’t have to impress me if to impress the members because trust me, they will tell me and then that bought in this sense of those are our new coaches. And it created this environment that I think is part of why we created such a raving fan base, was that we knew the voice of the customer was king or queen. And if we could evolve to meet what they wanted when they wanted it, they would stay because it’s enticing to stay with a company you feel you helped shape. That’s a huge piece.
Michael Hughes
And that was a big piece because it made us grow. Yes. Super fast. Yeah. Like to the point where we started to knock down walls in this big box gym. Yeah, and there was no more walls to knock down before we would go into their kitchen. Yeah, seriously, it might
Paden
go from like 100 300 square feet to 3000 square feet. And then it was like what do we do like there’s outdoor space like we actually
Michael Hughes
do that we actually laid sod Yeah. Bushes bought sod laid it out yeah.
Paden
All created a hot lap around the parking lot dragging tires
Michael Hughes
built and outside throwing wall yeah squeezing us in again. It was awesome because the gym was like yeah, we’ll pay for the equipment but the labor is the most everyone knows Labor’s are the most expensive part. Why did the labor for free?
Paden
Yeah, I remember. So I would. I lost many weekends. See you out there pulling out wires and I’m sitting there going What are you doing? Like how do you know what to do?
Michael Hughes
Right so yeah, for sure. So leaving was the harbor okay, but
Paden
hold on, because that is what is this hurdle for for how to open your own facility and could we afford and because at this point, we were what we call incubating within a big box gyms and I love that phrase because that but seriously, what’s crazy about it is they were taking 25% off the top, you would whittle them down from what started.
Michael Hughes
It started at 40% as a personal trainer, yeah, as a personal trainer, I
Paden
would I would get 40% I thought that that’s because they liked you and you were the top selling personal trainer
Michael Hughes
was and then they kind of realized it went too far.
Paden
Yeah, because no business FYI should ever give 60% to your trainers. If you have personal trainers under your brand, that is not a scenario you can win with. That’s my little business tip. Okay, but so anyway, so you had whittled them down to get the best deal that was like this hush hush deal. And then you had fought for other trainers that are neath you 92 clients that were having to pay for your gym fees, which were like 150 bucks a month on average on top of the club. membership, which was 65 bucks a month. So then we started to realize, not only do we have a ceiling ceiling on the square footage, so we can’t really max out any more client. But people aren’t getting double charge just to join.
Michael Hughes
We were actually charging 210 Yeah, that was our fee. 210.
Paden
Yeah. Which in our small town that’s like astronomical, like, why would I join this gym? I don’t want to join your gym that I do is also 10 years ago. Yeah. And so this is just becoming just, and then we’re trying to work with the clubs. They had multiple occasions or like, maybe we can span out their locations. And it just just like, that’s just too crazy. And then I remember we had this come to Jesus conversation where you said, Paden, what is the worst case scenario?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, I remember we had this little side office and they were married, you know? Yes.
Paden
I think we were married.
Michael Hughes
We were married at that time, we had this sort of second room. And we’re looking back and forth after dinner. And I said, Really, you know, again, listeners, like Paden was the spreadsheet business, you know, consultant, I’m like, This is not my space. Go to that computer over there. Get that spreadsheet and write down the worst case scenario that it still works. Right.
Paden
You know, you said worst case scenario that I get, I hit you back with this. Okay,
Michael Hughes
there’s a worst case scenario go beyond this point. It’s dead.
Paden
Yeah, I say, the worst point, the worst thing that could happen is you lose all of your equipment that you’ve been side hustling to buy, and we have no money. And the point to like, that’s it. We tried. And you look at me, like horrified that I have literally just voiced into the universe, your worst fear. And I’m like, well, that’s obviously the worst case scenario, you’re like, looking at me going, give me an worst case scenario where we can make it work. No, that’s different, that I put the spreadsheet together and I penciled it out. And I’m like, Okay, we need 90 clients to follow us. I think we had 92. So if we could afford to lose two of them in a transition to a space that we had figured out how much the rent would be and it was double the space. We’re sticking our necks out farther on this and I’m like, Okay, we need 90 clients.
Michael Hughes
No, no, no, no, we needed 86 clients we put the email out Oh, yeah, end follow. We emailed our
Paden
members to say we’re, you know, we’re making a pretty risky move in our business. We want to know if we leave Would you follow up?
Michael Hughes
It was very ethical. We did not say we’re done. He was like, who wants to come at you as an invitation? Yeah, it was really wanted to be very keen wasn’t stealing clients. Well, we talked
Paden
to the managers and said like if we leave like there’s a chance that we’re going to take members with us like we don’t want to we’re not trying to siphon your business at all but you know, we can’t coexist with this business model new agreed like that. But this is the best agreement we can come up with for you guys. Like we get it. We’ve lost other programs that have built up in our gym, and they’ve gone on to open other things. Thank you for like the third or fourth jam at this point. locally. They had ever done that through. Yeah, through their gyms. But they knew that gig. They’re like, sorry, we love you. Like we want to support you, but we just can’t. So we’re super transparent in the process that we had 90 Follow us and we needed would you say 86 Something if something like it was close, it was close. It was really close. And so we’re like, oh my gosh, we were we literally were never negative in the business. Like until COVID Hit
Michael Hughes
which was really interesting. Because that was just the way it was. Yeah, look at me like you never were in the red. Yeah, I’m like no, because most
Paden
business MacBook most business plans for US personal trainer trying to create from scratch, go, you’re going to be bleeding for nine months minimum. And you’ve got to be ramping fast. You’ve got to be you’ve got to have the whole marketing thing. It’s super stressful for the trainer that’s just trying to bring value being like what do I have to do with this online digital space? And now it’s even more chaotic. But anyway, so that was the big one was how can we go and afford it? And so we it was
Michael Hughes
interesting because we Yeah, always purchase my own equipment. The gym never owned it. Yeah, so leaving it was I just had to buy more equipment.
Paden
Yeah. And we had a moving parade or just fine where people literally picked up the equipment and walked the 1.9 miles from the big box gym with the equipment and like the bragging rights of picking up the heaviest piece of equipment and walk marching it 1.9 miles to the new location.
Michael Hughes
What are we been using?
Paden
Yeah, everybody felt like this moment like we’re you’ve graduated into high school or I don’t know what the equivalent is.
Michael Hughes
Leaving your house in a sense. Yeah. Oh, this
Paden
is real. It really it’s about to get real. You
Michael Hughes
have to clean the bathrooms, not the cleaning staff.
Paden
Yeah, yeah, seriously. So that was a big one. And then the last two hurdles. The fifth one is how to retain clients and sustain lifetime value. So So I want to mention this because hurdle three, four and five happened at the same roughly the same probably year and a half window. And I think that’s interesting in an entrepreneur’s journey. It’s not consecutive necessarily. Sometimes it’s just groupings of hurdles. So the ones that you had to deal with at first was like, how do you replicate yourself? How do you open your own business? And how are you retaining clients,
Michael Hughes
which comes with growing pains?
Paden
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Michael Hughes
And clients have a level of loyalty that has, you know, elastic limit to it. And so really, we knew that we knew that every time we would change or grow, they got rough, you know, just every business goes, yeah, it’s to fix it fast enough. Yeah. Not right away. Because there’s
Paden
always that window, the grace period will they’ll hang on and hope for the best, but you have to come through and deliver. Right. Exactly, exactly. And so the model, this is where the business model and the focus on you elevating your skill set faster. This is I think, when massage therapy came in, I think this is where, like you said, I need to be able to put my hands on people, I need to be able to, to do these different things and figure out one on one training, group training, is there something in between?
Michael Hughes
Yeah, because our space was built out to have different levels of group training. But we still have aches and pains. Like every gym has it, every fitness facility has it. And we knew that we could help we just didn’t have the business structure or the organizational heart like brick and mortar structure. Yeah, to make it grow. Because I was in between times are when this room is empty a room that room is empty, and just became this, like, how do we do this thing? Yeah, and basically build this completely new arm of the business, and still have everything else fit in. And that’s again, when another huge hurdle came up. But there’s basically figuring out the logistics of how it all goes when you have trainers coaching a G level one program that kind of our base level than our level two than our level three, and then still getting these one on one clients, and they you know, you can help you are helping, but then realizing, Oh, crap, I can only see one a day. Yeah. And that was that was that was really hard.
Paden
Yeah. So at this point, I think you start phasing out a group more and start doing one on one training and your skill. And your ability to resolve movement dysfunction starts skyrocketing and you start getting referrals from the medical community and you start getting word of mouth Michael can make you feel young again, Michael can help you with their your knee pain or low back pain. And you start getting this reputation around your skill, right
Michael Hughes
as a business if people didn’t weren’t coming in for fitness anymore. Yeah, I mean, they’re so worried. But it was like, yeah, pretty much Oh, my buddy, you know,
Paden
or they started coming in for pain, because they’re like, I’m willing to pay cash at this point. Because my copay of the physical therapy just wasn’t fun. The environment felt like everybody’s old and decrepit. Like, I don’t want to be there. And I never get to spend time with a therapist. It’s always the aide who’s a college student. I’m here to pay somebody to give it to care about me for the entire hour. And oh, by the way, now that I like and trust you, what do you have going on over here?
Michael Hughes
See the fitness gone? And yeah, and
Paden
they’re like, this looks really cool. And so what started happening is we realized, we could build this ecosystem or a flywheel where like, people come in for one on one training, they get resolved, they build connection, relationship and trust, and we just usher them into group training. And at the same time, we’re like, we’re kind of missing this intermediary step total. And so can we create something else? And that’s when we went and we’re huge fans of if you are struggling somewhere in your business, go find somebody that’s figured it out, and learn from them. So we flew to Austin, Texas, you did this a few years, and you’re like Peyton, I want you to come with me. And we go, and there’s this model, that great gym that we love called train for the game, Austin, Texas, we’re big fans of theirs. And they had structured it differently, where they had four clients to one coach and the coach had written four different custom programs, one for each one, and was facilitating four different workouts simultaneously in the same hour, but for a fraction of the one on one cost. And we’re like, that’s genius. And so we connected with them, learn from them, pick their brains, and brought back our own flair and flavor. But the format really came from visualizing it from them. Right. And that was really cool.
Michael Hughes
The big piece that we did, that I think’s a little bit different than the way that they did is we incorporate it actually more restoration.
Paden
Yeah, first performance. Yeah, because they were more sports heavy, definitely. And we looked at our clientele. And quite honestly, like, the sweet spot that we dialed in are baby boomers, because who’s going after baby boomers mean they’re literally going to walk in with problems even and most the time not even conscious of half the stuff that’s going on in their movement. And so they’re just waiting to get injured by a typical program. So when you build a model around this, and now you’re getting the one on one pain issue clients, they’re going into semi private and then they’re going into group now you have this ecosystem where it’s like if they’re in group and they get a little tweak, they can go to semi private. Yeah, and now you’re and now you can retain clients and your lifetime value, which is one of the key metrics you need in your business starts to go up when you realize gosh, if I Just keep this client that’s paying me, you know, $2,500 a year, if I can keep that exact client pay me for three, four or five, sometimes our clients are like here for 10 years with us, like, holy moly, that’s not a $2,500 climate, that’s a $50,000 client. That’s a big difference. And the low hanging fruit in sales is always someone that’s bought from you before. That is the easiest win back scenario because they know it. And so even if they’re cycling through different programs, and they come back to you, because they got broken somewhere else, but it without fad, whatever, you stay true, you stay good, you build that ecosystem, there’s a place for them. And anyways, that was like the big epiphany of of hurdle files. We can figure
Michael Hughes
that out and just growth it wasn’t we got new clients, yeah, with the same client.
Unknown Speaker
For more servers, we
Paden
doubled our business I want I want to and I figured out the data, and I should have brought it into podcasts, I’ll have to bring it in a different time a different story. But we I remember, we doubled the dollars in our business by only adding like 50 clients. Like we went to like 400, from 200. Like for? Well, we went from, like 350 clients to 400 clients, but we had doubled the revenue, because we figured this out. Just crazy. So anyways, a huge, huge breakthrough. And that brings us to the final hurdle, which was how are we going to scale and grow this, and it was this fork in the road, we were on opposite ends of this. And honestly, we had kind of been avoiding talking about it for a good year, because we just had our first kid. And it was crazy. And I was trying to figure out how to run a business. And if I want to be a stay at home mom. And that’s a whole different topic. But we were like we hired some consultant to come in for a strategic planning session. And it was this, I’m on one side of the fence, you’re on the other side of the fence. And we’re like, we’re digging in deep. And I was hardcore for brick and mortar and you were hardcore to go online. But you didn’t want to just go online,
Michael Hughes
I was different. Yeah. Yeah, to train to train a client to change the industry is really hard. But to train a operator of the industry to change the industry is much easier,
Paden
you can reach more impact, reach more people through trainers, right then repeat
Michael Hughes
taking because I was that trainer who got seriously impacted and want to install the light to solve the difference saw what the industry was missing, not was doing wrong, I want to be very clear about that. Not necessarily doing wrong, but missing. And that it allowed me to take that information and input it into my own style. Yeah, and that was the key piece. You know,
Paden
I mean, everybody wants that everybody wants to take knowledge and craft something they feel is theirs.
Michael Hughes
I think that’s what college education really shouldn’t be. Yeah, it’s Oh, I got this great knowledge. I’m gonna go do something
Paden
with it. So there’s all the elements you need, make your own recipe especially
Michael Hughes
in kinesiology, like, you walk out of it, and you’re like, okay, cool. I learn about the human body, what’s a job that I can do? Yeah, and you’re like, there’s crickets. Oh, it’d be a
Paden
personal trainer, or be a salesperson, because you’re really good at people. And I feel like that’s more of the career path. Which is sad
Michael Hughes
for salespeople in tech than our natural losing human
Paden
body. But you see that reflected in the fitness industry, when you look at like, who’s trying to pitch personal trainers, it’s how to be a good marketer how to be a good salesperson, because you have to get people to buy a feed yourself. So what trainers are starving for, in my opinion, isn’t so much just clients as a skill set that they can go and win people with for the long haul. Because there’s no point and I like harp on this all the time, there’s no point in getting 50 people through the door every month, if 30 of them walked back out the next month,
Michael Hughes
slot last effort
Paden
of effort gone, when you could just double down on the skills is gonna get 45 of them to stay true. Or even 25 of them to say you’re still five people better. And they stay for three, five years, six years and like it’s a better model. So where if we preach one thing on this podcast, so gear up, if we preach one thing, it’s going to be your your career, your coaches, that is the asset on the table to protect and cultivate. And your skill set will take you there.
Michael Hughes
It’s investing in it. Yeah, truly, I’m gonna say this real quick. It’s investing in a thing and seeing it through Yeah, versus investing in all things and dabble. Yeah, this industry is filled with the dabblers and that’s a cool fun industry. But there’s not very many masters not Yeah, they’re not the practitioners in the fitness field.
Paden
Okay, so we decided to in that moment, we decided no brick and mortar gone off the table. But I think I had an ego about I wanted the pride of having 10 gyms and other locations like they just wanted that for some reason.
Michael Hughes
It’s all suitable today. Yeah, for people in five years,
Paden
but it was off the table in that mall. My next step in that time you said paid and I want it when I envision my career, I want to be an educator like it lights you up, not just educating clients because it also lights you up. But seeing a coach go from awkward, uncomfortable, trying to be someone else trying to pattern their style off of their role model to actually owning their power in front of client with intelligent tweaks, writing a workout that’s killer and gaining the trust like that actually makes you prouder than the when you get with that client and to use it, if I’m going to navigate my career moving forward, it’s gonna have to be that way. Because I just want trainers to feel this.
Michael Hughes
I’m gonna do I’m gonna do a little side side picture guys, like the trainer of tomorrow is the healthcare provider of tomorrow. The frontline. Yeah, that’s where that’s the opportunity. That’s where it happens. And that’s what I believe that we can do. If we have the well rounded tool belt. Yeah, gotta have tools on all sides of our hips.
Paden
That’s good. No, that’s, I mean, that’s definitely the analogy that we’ve started to use. And we like it because it’s the constant like if you’re gonna build tools, or put tools in your belt, know which tools to use when and like, create the system that allows you to pull from them fluidly and intelligently. And not feel like it’s seasonal tools. Exactly. Strategic, like it’s a good tool. So use it when when it you should be used but gain insight to know when otherwise, it’s just something you got excited about. And you pulled the trigger on. And you abused and abused it and you’ve retired it and moved on. And that’s what we see happening so much. And instinctively. I know trainers want that depth. But it’s who to trust and where to get it. Yeah,
Michael Hughes
because it’s a there’s a lot going on in his industry. That’s for sure. A lot going on,
Paden
for sure. So here we are. We are 10 years in Yeah, that was it. Well, we’re at 10 years in our business. And we’ve already just articulated the initial six hurdles that we’ve faced. We’re not even talking about 2020 yet. And that’s a wrap on Episode One. I was super excited about it.
Michael Hughes
Hey all, I hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business sell, share far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. So let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a full 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought today’s episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until you see what we deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact and other people’s lives. So hope you do that. Keep sharing a passion. We’re Michael and Paden, and we’ll talk to you soon.
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