The Gym Owners Blog/Podcast/Be Excellent, Not Average

Be Excellent, Not Average

Friday, May 26, 2023

CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML

EPISODE KEYWORDS

gym, people, owners, talking, clients, coach, unreasonable, average, business, money, day, tyler, point, understand, find, deliver, standard

OUTLINE

  • ​How to blow everyone out of the water. (0:01)
  • ​Being mediocre. (2:59)
  • ​You are the product of the people you spend most time with. (8:35)
  • ​Getting a bird’s eye view. (13:49)
  • ​Focus on what is making you the most money. (17:43)
  • ​The 8020 rule is a mistake. (21:20)
  • ​The importance of understanding the problem. (27:00)
  • ​The importance of setting high expectations for yourself. (32:09)
  • ​The importance of reputation and scalability. (36:58)
  • ​Conquer the board and the next. (40:48)
  • ​Playing at a level of greatness. (45:51)
  • ​How to get into the gym? (50:02)

TRANSCRIPT

Tyler 00:01

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of the gym owners podcast. I'm your host Tyler stone over there's John. Hi, John. Hello, Tyler, guys. This week we're going to talk about how to Okay, well, this week we're going to talk about how to blow everyone else out of the water, how to overachieve. How to really, really accelerate the thing that you do, not just for the sake of your clients, but for the sake of your business, your family, your future, all that stuff. So, how to take the shit you want to do, pass the point of mediocrity, past the point of things just kind of happening, and really, really have something really special on your hands. We're gonna get into all that today. But first, I need you to go to the gym owners revolution. That's our Facebook group. Make sure you join and follow us. I'm sure you're following the show at the gym owners podcasts on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler F and stone John, how do they find you,



John Fairbanks 00:49

you can find me on Instagram at Jay banks, f L.



Tyler 00:52

And if you want to check out the other services that we have, you can go to gym owners revolution.com There we got the gear Academy, our coaching our business coaching services where we take your business to the whole new level boy out to the stratosphere, do all the good stuff you need to be doing to get yourself a good solid foundation so that your business can not just achieve but over achieve. So that's our What do we get here? Less than a minute in? We're done selling? Yeah, let's go. Let's go. So is this subject we've been talking about a lot because so often with gym owners, I think I've mentioned many times that getting to be a gym owner and getting your gym open very often is a finish line. For some people, it's I want to have a gym, that's mine, that's a business. And that's a great goal. Just like as a kid, you grow up, you want to be a doctor, I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. Awesome bitch. But now you have to go to space. Like let's go you're not you you're an astronaut and others astronaut shit to do. So now you're a jeweler? And what do you want that to be for the sake of your clients for the sake of your family, what you're doing? Are you doing this to purposely earn yourself like an S below average income, while you achieve above average results for your clients. Because that's where a lot of Pete let the good people do that. And it doesn't need to be that way. But it can also be the other way. You know, there's a lot of people that are delivering below average results for their clients and receiving below average financial rewards for themselves and their family. But you can do them both. And I highly recommend you can do both, you can be on either side of either of those things. But I really think that what your system should do is deliver some top notch service, top notch results for your clients, while making sure that you are really, really, really taken care of on the business side. But that comes from two things. You need to excel at fulfilling the product that you have. And then you need to be really good at monetizing it. And so that's the stuff we're gonna get into today. Let me pull up here, John, once you take this first piece, John here some of the couple of examples here.



John Fairbanks 02:59

Well, this is so for me, like the difference between whether or not you are a gym owner that is going to do things, from a stance of like, you're mediocre at what you do, therefore you get a mediocre return, it starts to become a harder conversation. We've talked with a lot of gym owners over the years where they're struggling with what they want to do, and why they want to do it. And the fact of the matter is, if you want to make a lot of money as a gym owner, it has to be something that you want to do. Periods like this are now a discussion between whether you want to do something or you need to do something. And the fact is that you didn't need to open your gym either. You could have just stayed working as a coach or working at your nine to five or working whatever else that you were doing before you had this overwhelming, whatever call to adventure to then break out and do something out on your own. You could have stayed in H vac boy the whole time. This is where you stay. Because at the end of the day, you don't need to do a whole lot of anything. But there is an itch that you want to do something and that and that definitely that feeling where it's I got the gym open, the goal is accomplished. And now all of a sudden you get back into this mindset where it's like, well do I need to sell supplements? Like do I need buy need to be able to offer nutrition coaching do I need, like ends up starting



Tyler 04:27

to have members that seem to be if I can just kind of get them in? Is that okay?



John Fairbanks 04:32

Can I just clean in the back? And can I just look gloating, not ramming clean. I don't want to talk to anybody. I kind of didn't get into this because I wanted to interact with people that just wanted to interact with my people. But now like now there's lots of elements and you don't need to do anything. But this is now the difference between what is the difference between people that are great at what they do like the best and What are the examples you can take? What are the principles that we can take from them? What made them the best at what they did? And how can we apply this to anything that we do in our businesses? One word



Tyler 05:11

answer. Steroids. Always.



John Fairbanks 05:19

Quickly, the ones that people can't catch, you have to stay just say you have cancer.



Tyler 05:26

The thing that separates a lot of the excellence from the average is the fact that they absolutely desperately want greatness. It really is a thing like, not accepting less. That's the Michael Jordan thing. It's the Kobe Bryant thing. It's like Did any of those get cheesy? Got a ring? You got two rings, can you get it done?



John Fairbanks 05:50

Are you happy?



Tyler 05:52

By the way, some of that is truly not being happy in any of that is also maybe part of the formula. But even like, you know, as you go further, further, you can see this in any sport in powerlifting. You know, like Dan Bell, he's a squatter, well over 1000 pounds, a lot of times, you know, look at the total 2600 pounds. This is like it's the all time world record, this is the kind of the strongest man that's ever walked the face of the earth. If you're gonna be a big strong guy, isn't that the fucking big strong guy you want to be? Or do I just want to be a big strong guy that looks the part that doesn't have anything to back it up in this doesn't? Again, that's up to you. But what do you want out of this thing? And if what you want is to really have your cake and eat it too, can, you absolutely can. But you can't play the game that everybody else is playing. And one of the things that I see a lot is that most people in the world mediocrity is like a thing they'd strive for, truthfully, and it's okay, because some people maybe never get to average they never get to the point was like, you know, I got an okay house and yeah, I work for somebody else's alright. And you know, my wife doesn't hate me, you know, two days a week. And, you know, I get laid once a year on my birthday or whatever, you know, whatever that stuff is that that kind of sucks. Like, plenty of people never get that far and would kill for that. And that's, that's wonderful. But you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. One of the things this was at a Tim Tim Ferriss quote was like the fishing is best for the people who aren't. And really is one of those things where you're always surprised at how many people aren't trying to do it all, like aren't really trying to make something special happen. And then you realize, when you start doing things like oh, it is a lot easier to do that than I thought because there's so much out there to be had. There's so much of that out to be had because there's so many people willing to accept absolute mediocrity in their lives and their business and their relationships and their fitness and everything. And so once you decide that you're not doing that, the worst thing I hear from coaches and gym owners is when they're all this other business told me this, and this other gym owner told me this or my coaches group told me this was like, those people are average motherfuckers you're in a group with a bunch of other average, even your wonderful coaching, mentoring or whatever else it is this a bunch of average motherfuckers do an average shit, just trying to be grounded in this wonderful, but you're gonna get pulled into the median. That's how that works. You get in a group of 50 other people or whatever it is, are you going to float up to the top and lead and wonderful then you're the one. Okay, you're in that stuff. And you're and you're going to become one of them, which is just right in the middle of a bunch of boring people seeking. So I don't put a lot of faith in those things unless the pedal is to the fucking metal on those deals.



John Fairbanks 08:35

And it is tough. It is the age, right? You are the product of the five people you spend most time with, right? But what's really, really important about that is that the people you're spending time with are your men, especially if they're your mentors. Right, if you have a mentor, you need to have someone that is not content with anything that you're doing. Correct. My son goes and sees, uh, he wants to his goal in life is to play JV baseball, right? His goal in life is to play prep professional baseball. But right now he wants to get on the JV team, which is next year. And so he goes in, he meets with a coach that helps him with batting every week, we go and see this coach and the coach talks to him. And he's 12. So he hasn't had a lot of real experience with real coaches. And this guy's a real coach, like he played pro baseball. He's coached at higher levels, and he just happens to be here. Now, rice, kids are grown. And the guy goes, you are going to come to me, and I'm never going to be happy with anything that you're doing. He goes, but I need you to understand this upfront that I didn't want you to be my client. And so he's talking to my son about this right? The 12 year old because if I didn't want you to be my client, I would tell your dad that I was busy and I was full and I didn't have any spots available. He goes but you're huge. Do you like baseball a lot? He goes, so the odds of you being able to do something, if we can get you right are very high, which makes you very interesting to me. So he goes, so understand, I'm never going to tell you that you're doing great. I just won't get mad at you. And I think that that is where your mentors need to be. The people you spend your time with should stretch you and make you feel uncomfortable, and make you feel like and this is what's really important about being in a room with people. So if you do have coaching programs, you have people that your accountability buddies, right, accountable partners that are



Tyler 10:40

your peer groups and things like that. Are you in those things for market research and not much else?



John Fairbanks 10:45

But yeah, the only time that they truly are valuable is if everyone is unreasonable in the room. And if you are unreasonable, what once was unreasonable to normies. And to the average Joe, is no longer unreasonable, because that's the beauty is if you have enough people, and you and I have experienced this a lot Tyler where we've, we have odd, really audacious goals and things that we want to be able to do. And around normal humans, you've complained about this plenty of where you're from, and I experienced where I'm from, I don't get to have conversations about what I want to do in the business with average people that are around where I live,



Tyler 11:25

I can't even tell people what I do, because they don't get it or care.



John Fairbanks 11:30

But when you write it, while I'm sad, because it didn't take me longer to



Tyler 11:34

offer to buy me a heating and air conditioning company here, just so I like to stick around here for the long term. I'm just like, Yeah, dude, I don't want to do that. What do you mean? Like? No, what



John Fairbanks 11:44

Are you talking about? Mr. Right? The fuck? Oh, you



Tyler 11:48

make a lot of money? No, I need to make a lot of money and love what I'm doing and have built it and have it be mine. And so this is a thing that I think is difficult if you feel like you're on an island, or you're probably kind of right, right? And it's okay, it means it means you're thinking differently. And that is that part, right? Remember, fishing is best for people who aren't. And so you do get to know that you should be doing things a little bit differently than others. There are things of course, standardized best practices, there's a lot of those things that are absolutely worth seeking what other people are doing for but always do that on the filter of does this fit my big picture? Is this a pebble on the path? And if it's not, then it's gotta go. And yeah.



John Fairbanks 12:31

And your North Star has to be unreasonable. And so this is what's the first step. If you first have to establish whatever that unreasonable goal is, I'm going to be the best. And then everything you do next, needs to be in movement towards that direction, to where it's just like, No, this is this is crazy, dude. Like, why are you worrying about all this? Like, why are you bothering? Why are you paying? What do you pay for a mentor this much money per month? Why do you do any of these things? It's because you know why? Right? And so that's what you want to do. So how do you start to understand if you've had success as a gym owner, right, or you've been moving in the right direction, but you find as you have grown, it ends up being that your responsibilities have just grown along the way. And that's what we see a lot is that there are a lot of gym owners that are out there, and a lot of fitness professionals that are wearing a fuck ton of hats, you're getting stretched out way too thin. Right? You believe that every single time that if you just put a little bit more effort, and this is we talking about a shitty mentality that luckily, I feel like we're getting past the idea of like, teen grind and team hustle team, no sleep. Yeah, I'm hoping that that is starting to go away. But as this mentality of like, well, if I just want 10 times more, I need to put in 10 times the effort.



Tyler 13:49

Yeah, that David Goggins shit, it's not for your business buddy, probably ain't even for your fitness, if I'm being totally honest, there's no byton down bearing down and deciding to run 200 Miles tomorrow, that's gonna do you any fucking good in real life. So you have to be pragmatic and practical about this approach. There are things that you can do as a gym owner, that you cannot just simply do more of you do need to get better. And John's kind of has a bit of a process of what we run through here. Like what this is, and we'll get into this in a little bit, but that, that you can't just do more of what you're doing to make it work. And you can't just you can't just stamp yourself out over and over again, you're not going to hire a bunch of aces, and we're going to handle all the things that you do well, and they're going to do it great. There is just a there's more to it than just putting in more effort and more than just doing more



John Fairbanks 14:39

100% And a lot of times it's going to be first what the first step of the process of figuring this out is to get a view. The number one thing that we find is super common with gym owners is as we started to say it's what are all the things that you're doing in your gym. What are all the services and products that you offer? Typically all that they're selling is their monthly membership. But when we really want to break it down and ask, Hey, what is it that you do write down everything there is all of a sudden, it's like a fucking treasure trove of shit pops up. Yeah, of like, oh, well, you do a lot more? And how can we not talk about any of this. And so the first step comes down to is we got to get it all listed out, you got to list out everything that you're doing in your business, what are all the tasks, all the steps, all the things that you've done, as you've continued to grow from when you started to where you are now is what's all the shit that you are now responsible for. Because we have to be able to get a bird's eye view of everything you have going on. So that we can go through the four step process to start being able to key in on what's the most productive use of your time. Because the very first step we have to do is to list out all the shit that you're doing, and how can we get off your plate? What can we get you to stop being able to do as a gym owner? And I know like one of the things that was, it seems to be pretty consistent. How many of our gym owners are cleaning their goddamn locations? Like it's I remember talking,



Tyler 16:13

When you're starting it's a blue collar mindset. I get it. Yeah, right. It really is. And that's the, but I don't even know if we gotta beat it up too much like, delegate that out, just literally find someone to do that finds me to do that this week, I'm done. We can. Like that's the easiest, most low hanging is shit, like that's got to be done. There are services that will come in and change your bathroom floor mats and toilet paper and all this shit like, like get all of this stuff that is purely unimportant. I mean, purely unimportant. And that needs to become a line item on your budget. And then all you need to do with each one of these new things that you're starting to offload. Because you know how many of those things there are, if you don't start making a list? Do you need to offload and then just start like if you literally don't have the money, perfect, take a little effort and sell to fill that gap. Now, get one new client and cover that now. And then now just level up your operation. From there on out with all that extra time, you're going to have the next one. And it's a very rudimentary concept. But that's one example. And it's just the easiest example that like you should never be doing here too important for that. And if you're not, if you think that you as the owner are not too important for that, not just that, but that type of stuff, then you will always feel like you're not important enough to have earned all of the great, great, great stuff here. It's just there are things Kobe Bryant very often is not catching rebounds for himself, when he was going and shooting in those things. There's somebody there, because he just needs to be shooting, there is somebody there putting balls in his hand so he can work on the thing that matters. He's not chasing balls all over the goddamn thing all the time.



John Fairbanks 17:54

Well, let's use that example then. And there's one piece that is really important, because the reality is, if Kobe knows he needs to get so many shots, right per day, right? When he was alive, he got so many shots of her day that he only had a finite amount of time to make those shots. So he has to have someone with him. Or he has to have something that's now built, that allows him to be able to get the highest number of shots. So the shot is the revenue, it's the value of what he's doing. And so this is where the mistake that's made of the Goggins and the fucking tick tock warrior type people that are out there, right now, I'm talking about, you just need to do more, more, more, more, more, more, and we're going to assume that you're not a lazy piece of shit, we're going to assume that what you're doing in your business is you are doing a lot of fucking things. The problem is if you're going to make the next leap, right, if you're going to be able to get to the next version of yourself, you cannot continue to do all the things that you're doing. Because all the things that you're doing, what got you here, what got you to this point is what's going to keep you at this point, it's not going to allow you to move on. So we have to then identify, so you have to prioritize all the shit that you are doing, what's making you and this should be the list prioritized, what is making you the most money. So once you have your list, all the things that you're doing right now, what is making you the most amount of money. And those things that are now the top of that list, that top 20% of all the shit you've got going on whatever is making you the most money, that is what you now need to be focused on. You got to be taking shots, somebody else has got to rebound, somebody else has got to get the balls they're like somebody else got to do all those things. So you have to be doing that 20% from there on. It doesn't mean that the gym now all of a sudden is no longer getting cleaned. Because it's why I don't make any money cleaning the gym like yeah, so fucking go find someone. Find find someone find the WHO that can come in and fill that need to then be able to get to that point



Tyler 19:58

and it comes down to coaching falls. under that category a lot, I see a lot of generals holding on to coaching because my staffs not quite there or even, or even very much like just having to have your most valuable best aces doing all the coaching at some point as this whole process is about, there will be compromised when you plug someone else in. If you're doing your own social media, the day you hand that off to somebody, whether it's simply you do the creation, and someone else is doing the publishing and the copyright know that at some point, they're not going to be as good as you or not as good as you want them to be. And then you have to be able to coach that stuff up, or always everything that you're going to build delegate out is going to end up kind of falling into a spot where they're not, they're not you, well, good, good. And hopefully they can grow into somebody that can, because that is one of their main tasks instead of one of 4500 things that you do, that they do, or that maybe they'll actually have some room to grow in and be beyond what you could be with that task. There's so many I see so many gym owners that are at their limit, skill capacity wise, time wise with, with so many of the different hats they wear, they're capped off completely. So what are they going to do that you're not going to add? We try when there's gym owners DIY in their social media. So we try to make them more efficient and better copywriting and all that stuff. But they all get to a point where this is as good as you're gonna get as good as you need to be. Yep, that's just now this is efficient, this works. We'll run with this until it's time for this to not be yours, there's no reason to get because now you've passed that 8020 rule, to get that extra 20% Better than this is going to take you so much time that it's not worth it because it will take away from the things that are actually making you money, cover and move.



John Fairbanks 21:42

And the ability to make money. This is also where the mistake is of like trying to strive for that it's like, it's so hard to be able to find like really good people to come in and work with you, or to be able to even hire anyone when you're not making any fucking money. So when you're like, Well, I'm going to do these things. It's like, well, how much money is that going to help you bring in? Well, I'll get an extra $100 A month this month, it's like that is not going to move the needle in any particular direction that matters enough for you to be able to justify doing anything. So you have to be able to start going after it like know what's making you the most amount of money? And how hard can you go at that thing? Because once you start making more money, because you've now really focused your time, it's so much easier to be able to do the next step. Whether it's a you are you're you're trying to get rid of the tasks, you're trying to delegate the tasks and get them off your plate. So now only you're focused on things. And now the next piece is how can what can what is something that allows you to be able to automate, to be able to automate the process to where things are starting to come in. We work with a lot of gym owners that are still taking cash. When we first meet them, it is Venmo and cash only customers, which is a goddamn nightmare when it comes to collecting and tracking. I mean there's so many things and then immediately get eliminated and you know,



Tyler 23:08

as their gym owners are far beyond that point as well many, many right? But we want you to know for those of you that if you're still in the next capacity, it's okay everybody kind of starts there because if you did it right, you started just coaching people to get it right. You didn't start with a big fat bankroll, right? So very often you just start so don't I know a lot of when we bring this up, there are gym owners on the other side of that that are like, Who the fuck doesn't know that. That's a horrible way. But some are just in it. And in the middle. When you start, I've been there. And when you start you're just kind of trying to make things work and you get people to come in and they say, Oh, I can only pay a cash and you don't tell them no, go get a fucking bank account dude. or Yes, you do have a bank account figure the fuck out like, like you don't have the capacity to or willingness to be firm and tell people No, because you are holding value in the like the long term growth of your system that like you just kind of take accept whatever you can get when you get started. So I get us don't feel like we're talking way underneath you. If you're way past this point. And if we're talking to you don't you don't have to, like take that personally either. But it sucks, dude. I have seen. I don't know, I'm sure we've talked about this. But we just transition to Jim's over from that kind of loose thing to at least a back end system that's doing whatever software's out. There's a million out there. So we're not married to anyone. These are actually two very separate pieces of software. Anyone who requires you or consultants for saying it's this software over this one, they're charlatans, they're just getting kickbacks, so fuck them Fuck you. Fuck the software the software all fucking sucks some way the next one sucks in different ways. You'll hate the one you have. Now I was talking to a guy the other day and he was like, yeah, just having a hard time getting you know just not getting enough of my leads coming in to like schedule meetings and stuff with me or have a quick guide them all into close and so I'm gonna talk to this other guy because he was As a different account management software, I was like, oh, no, that is not the solution. And we've seen gym owners pivot from one software to another when they had much better things to do than that. So. But basically just, that is a perfect example, thinking of what you need to be doing is valuable, your time taking that task and leveling it up and going are like this function of the business literally just to essentially what accounts receivable, right? My money coming in, how is that being done right now. And if it's loose or laborious, then that needs to be streamlined immediately. Because if it's loose, you're losing money, you truly are losing money. And there's nothing worse than that other kind of loose membership stuff that's not automatic automated, that doesn't automatically withdrawal. Anyone that is not on an automatic withdrawal and EFT or just automatic payment credit card payments being run has a lower chance of staying within your business for the long term, they have of you are going to lose tons of money in these gaps when they're not in and it gives them a very low likelihood to come back. If they've taken a few weeks off, and it's past their renewal date. And then when they come back, they're just gonna pay you that day. And you'll be good for a month from that day. And then you missed out on all the time in between where you should have been getting paid because they are in your system. So know that that's a huge gap that has huge reward and solving for those you guys that are just starting out. Even if you're a personal trainer, there's a line where you have to stop letting all that stuff be done in one offs done without software. That line is a personal trainer is not near is near to you, as it is if you're a gym, because if you're a gym, you probably do need 5200 clients 50 to 150 clients at least, you know, I do think if you're a personal trainer, you can make a serious living off of 20 or less. So absolutely looking crazy good living. So keep that in mind that it's not for everybody.



John Fairbanks 27:00

No and and so we're always talking to folks that are like literally coming out of the starting line in the automation conversation. If you are a successful gym owner, the odds are you've been sold on software before, you probably have three or seven team software's that don't speak well to each other, and is a goddamn nightmare to manage. So there's a whole other problem that needs to be solved. And that is again, where it's really important to be able to understand what was the problem I was trying to solve? Because we used to work for somebody Tyler, automation was like a four letter word. Oh, yeah, it's like if it was like that, it just would have nothing to do with which principle was right. Which was like, there's not enough humanity. And I will tell you like that mindset of not going hard in the pain of automating every single piece and having AI and all that kind of shit handle it. It does save you, at the end of the day to make sure that your system is really sound. And you've done enough manual versions of it before you ever allowed, like something to just be like automatic to come out. Because we spend more time fixing that shit. When there is some amazing CMS system that gives the gym owners like no, we have every workflow imaginable available to you and you won't ever have to message or communicate with someone and they'll magically show up on day one. And then we come in and we're like, oh my God, have you seen that you're sending 37 messages in the next seven days? And he was like, Oh, no. Yeah. The last piece that I think is important, too, it comes back, you call it out earlier where it was like, What is your skill set as the individual in your business? Because it really does come back to you have to know we talked talked about this before you as a gym owner, you have to know well enough about every piece of your business to understand if you're getting fucked or not, if you're gonna hire somebody else to come in and help you and work with you. And this comes down to where you have to have done it enough. You have to have understood the concept enough to have either failed to come up with new versions of it and be able to really like to tweak and refine whatever that process is. You can't just expect all of a sudden a system to be functioning better or faster. And it oftentimes requires you to have put in the work to understand and let's use accounting. Yeah, I don't. I am not an accountant by trade. But I do listen to somebody that is an accountant by trade, who I'm not paying. And he goes, I don't do my accounting. I hired an accountant. Well, why do you hire an accountant? Because that is what they do. I can do accounting, and I can do accounting for our businesses, but I don't do it. Because where I make our money, my value for our companies is over here is elsewhere. But I have to understand that when I look at what the profit loss and margins and I looked at, everything gets broken down of what's my income statement, and what's all the pieces that come in, I have to know, is the person that I'm paying to do my accounting? Are they fucking up, I don't have to literally do it. But I have to have enough understanding to know what I'm looking at in order to be able to be informed. And this is super important for every aspect of your business as well. On that



Tyler 30:41

note, I saw a great meme this morning and said, said a guy was talking to his accountant. And they are talking to an accountant and the guy says, so he asks the guy who says What's four plus four, and the guy goes, can be whatever you want it to be, and the guy goes, I'd like to hire you as my accountant. So, it is like the skill set that you have, needs to be updated and you need to level up all that, of course, like your skill set does. But it is the same with your business as well. Like it's not just some of these things, you don't need to level up, you need to have just enough of an understanding. So you're not getting taken to court. Let's use the word getting caught. Right. So you're not getting got by your accountants, you're not getting got by your social media people. So you're not getting caught by your coaches. So you're not getting caught by anybody else that you fold in, you do have to have somewhat of an understanding, or you have to completely impart a ton of trust on whoever you do fold in, which can be risky. And it is the name of the game, there is some of that risk that's being dealt, you know, extended out there as you bring somebody in, but at some point you do, you are responsible to have enough of an understanding of the things that are going on in your business so that it can grow. And so that it's not getting taken advantage of by whoever you've delegated to.



John Fairbanks 31:59

And this is the process of this is how you start to continue to allow yourself to be unreasonable. It just is because it's and you don't get bogged down by the daily shit that you have to do. You don't get bogged down by the people you're spending the time with, because it ends up being a mindset that has a very clear set of actions that you can take, every single week, every single quarter, every single day of assessing, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? And is it moving me towards this level, this high standard that I expected myself to then be able to be successful in everything that I'm doing in the business? Because then if you hold that standard for yourself, your clients will benefit the services that you can provide. Right? It's like oh, man, you know, it's right now all I can do is body fat measurements with a Sowers measuring tape and some calipers. It's like, all right. And that's where we start, but boy, it would be sweet to have one of those fucking DEXA scanners in your facility. So that's the unreasonable standard, how do we get that?



Tyler 33:10

Well, I think if you met you mentioned that is very good, because that trickles down into the client experience. And it should write that expectation for what you want for outcomes needs to be the same for the value that you provide. Because you know, you can't just take right you do need to deliver value, you cannot just extract wealth from other people and not fucking deliver anything that ends up being very short sighted, right? It ends up not being very sustainable, you'll get figured out pretty quick. If you suck if you don't care if your clients are with you for years and look the same, like what, okay, right, at some point, the word is gonna get out. And then you're just maybe a place where people go to exercise. And you're not a place that is delivering something very exceptional. One of our Gear Academy clients, we were talking to you the other day, he got to the point where he was having trouble with his location, it was a franchise and he had a lot of coaches that were like, you know, before that weren't that great and not a good reputation. And so when he got rid of staff and he brought a new staff, it's hard for him to get new people and getting new people that he needed to like kind of rethink how he handled the whole thing he needed to understand going and getting testimonials from people that are available to be coached right now that have had great results have life changing experiences. He basically had to become the biggest hype man for his gym to his staff and the people. Yeah, and in doing that, when he was bringing in new staff, he got people instead of those who were looking for some stand around at a gym, be professional exercisers kind of gig by talking to those things and hyping that up making that be the standard. He was able to really get people who were stoked, like, like really stoked to come in and make a difference and now he's got a staff in there that are killers that sell that deliver great products that are passionate about it. And then on the client end, it rules like they're completely kicking ass And so that's the piece is eventually you're building an entire culture of this on both hands, the consumer end, the employee end, and the business end and in on the end of your pocket book as well, that, that needs to be top to bottom beginning to end throughout needs to be woven through your entire business. And if you get all of that put together, you can start to have something now that will nearly sustain and grow itself, because you're imparting all those same skills and all the same processes into your staff. And if you and that's the part of building some, and if you do that, if that's the way your business is centered, big time results, we really care and we do run a great facility, we're trying to do the best be the best, we want to be the best in our area. Like if you want to be I'll tell you this, if you want to be the best gym or the best coach in your area that is there to be fucking had very easily. I implore all of you where you're to make a list of the top five gyms in your area, what you would describe as the top five best not making money, oh, that might be on that list. But they're what would you describe as the best if from a consumer? If the consumer is looking at who is the best here? Who has the best reputation? Who truly is the best? Beyond the concern, just your understanding of who does the best job? What is that? And how can you do better than that, and you're gonna find that it's pretty fucking easy. It's very, very, very easy with just effort, empathy, and then this true, like drive towards not being mediocre. And you'll transcend everybody very, very, very quickly. Most people in your industry, including the ones that are quote, great in your area, they're just doing, they're still just doing they're not trying to constantly retool and become better, better, better level up, level up, level up, level up, they're just as good as they are. And that's a pretty easy thing to overtake. So keep that in mind.



John Fairbanks 36:58

It was when we were talking with a gym owner or the franchise owner, it was really something to be able to have them step back and identify it's, this is the weakness we have as a brand. Yeah, reputation was what I mean, it was what it was. And I never I never it full disclosure, like I never had thought about that reframe my mindset wise to say, not only is the reputation has always been really important to be able to establish like the clients that you're trying to attract. But the fact that was that switch of I need to make sure that our staff understands what we're all about, so that I can get better fucking staff and get people to stay and have it not just be this weird corporate, churn and burn mentality. And this is what drives us fucking insane is that this industry keeps trying to apply churn and burn large corporate fucking bullshit mentalities into you folks that have boutique style, small type gyms and small is relative, but you're, you're not just a fucking, you're not Planet Fitness. You're not these large corporate entities. And yet we're trying to like just violently shove these fuckin tactics that are common from just another world be like, no, no, like, this is how you scale. And it's like, no, like, this is how you lose your soul. This is how this does not have nothing to do. And so watching someone that comes from that world be like, No, this is how we're going to do it. And I'm gonna find these testimonials and these reviews and these clients. So we're not so I can attract other clients, but so I can attract the right coaches, and then I can attract the right people. And then from those people, then we can scale up. As soon as you brought it up I wondered if I grabbed my notes. It was he who went from I'm not going to get the actual numbers.



Tyler 39:02

Yeah, cuz you'll shit.



John Fairbanks 39:04

Because they were crazy. But it was like he goes, he went from once he got the right people in place. One of those guys was just like ready to fucking Excel and rose to the top. And then that gym owner was finally able to get somebody that he had been hired multiple times for, to kind of find that next middle management position that was possible. And they went from nowhere before what they were making per month, they're now making per day at this location, and it just was what in the last three months, maybe because it just was ruthlessly simplifying, breaking things down and holding that unreasonable standard. And most importantly, because this was the thing that we were working really hard with this gym owner on, which was he's not allowed to be the one to do it. Yep, he has to stay removed and has to be scalable. And this was and it actually came from. We have heard this on our end from our mentors, and then his business partner. He would always say to him, "Well, Bill, if we had 100 locations, would you do the same thing?" And that reframe mentally for what this audacious totally unreasonable goal, you don't have, you may not have a goal to have 100 locations for your gym,



Tyler 40:35

but this investor does, which means this investor is not going to accept some short sighted, incremental gains bullshit, right, as this investor goes, none of them like this is yeah, this is wonderful. I'm not I don't care to push this pawn of a chess piece forward, until it gets marked. What I care to do is conquer this fucking board and the next one and the next one and the next one. And that's a very different game, and most people are just trying to march their pond forward as the fuck and slaughtered you know, there's a, there's a book I had read a while ago was called conversational capitalists, like how to create things that people are excited about, right. And there's a lot about attention to detail. And it is about this, this larger vision of what really shouldn't be. And I think one of the things maybe I talked about this in the past way back, this will be a way through, but it was like Air France in their, like international flights in first class, they would have the flight attendants would have to wear separate different perfumes, it would be made, that would be part of the process. So that like, each person seemed unique, it seemed like a person who it just seemed like a more premium experience, you know, and, and that's like a little detail in there that may or may not be that important. But in the grand scheme of things, it just just matters just a little bit. But in that book, one of the things is that long term standard, that long term standard that you should be upholding. Every little piece needs to be built underneath that. And then when it is that way, now you have a conversation piece that how you don't your marketing now can be 10x, because your organic marketing or paid advertising, whatever that is, is going to be there. But then everyone who has experienced the experience that you provide, is going to go tell fucking everybody like these guys are great. I mean, these guys are really great. There's a difference between buying a cup, right? A cup of coffee from God knows what I got around here, to get an A cup of coffee that's made by somebody who cares, really is and I go in, and I know, I just I really know. And, and I can tell this because there's around here, there's not a lot of that there's not a lot of people trying to be great. There's a lot of people trying to just settle in and survive. And that's normal in a lot of areas. But I have a friend who never quite found his thing, right in all of his life, he never really found his thing. He tried a bunch of different things. Then he became an apprentice just randomly looking for a guy who was looking for help at a taxidermy shop. Okay, you know what I mean? Like putting fish and pheasants and birds. And it's a very popular thing around here hunting the whole deal here. And now it's been years. And it's like his pure passion, like purely you talk to him about it. And you know, who is this thing? Like he's, he really cares that it'd be done great, that like, every outcome be tippy top notch, and there is no accepting of any lower standard. But in doing that, once that fire has been lit, everyone else will be able to be warmed by that fire. Every client that comes in, it's going to get to the point where they go, Fuck this guy's the dude. And now what so busy yours. I mean, you're gonna drop some shit off there and be like, Yeah, I'll talk to you when I fucking talk to you. I mean, it's expensive. It's incredible. And there's such a waitlist, that it just doesn't matter. The only thing he could do to make more money is to just simply keep raising the price, which they'll just keep on doing until the demand falls off. But that's it. That's the thing that the unreasonable standard is, in my opinion. Once you find a thing that you're willing to deliver, with that unreasonable standard being baked into it, everything else will almost take care of itself because people recognize it. And now you need to acquire clients who are willing to pay big money. You're no longer going to nobody's going to him for some bullshit, nobody's going to him for nothing. They don't even they don't even bother. I'm not going to that guy. You know, for the same reason you're not going to go to a very high end Steakhouse and ask for a lot of chicken. You're just you're not going to ask for the chicken strips at Ruth's Ruth's Chris or whatever. Little average for the price in my opinion. But you're not gonna go if you ask for the chickens trips. They're like, Fuck you, you know what I mean? And I think it is very, I think that's, I think If that was like a really solid example of what you can really deliver, if you're delivering it with that standard, because in that book, they lay out the whole thing. And I do highly recommend it's a good read, it becomes a bit redundant because they're delivering so many examples on the same subject. But you get the basis pretty quick. And I think, I think that concept is one that I that I really, really live by, especially as on the content, we create the subject matter that we've covered in many of the podcasts, I've done all those things, we've made sure to make sure that the shit we make people talk about, whether it's good or bad, or whatever, but it is an experience people talk about. And if you don't recognize the passion or fire in it, nobody's going to be attracted to it. It's just going to be another average placeholder. And there's plenty of gyms out there, that can be an average placeholder for someone that just wants to go flex in front of a mirror stand on the fucking elliptical for 20 minutes and leave.



John Fairbanks 45:51

Well, it's a game. Yeah. And this is the idea where you start playing at a level of greatness. The people just like you said, the people, the relationships that you build can be great. Because somebody that wants greatness, you're going to start attracting people that want to be able to participate in that that's there and can't afford it. Absolutely. So therefore, they can afford it. So what happens to your money, you're chasing greatness, you start making more money. So now you're dealing with people. Because those rates are higher. I guarantee you those early taxidermy customers were whoever would show up. Yep. And as that greatness was chased now, it's people like, No, I'm willing, I know what I'm paying for, I'm gonna pay for this. So now all of a sudden, now your guys has the opportunity to fucking be talking to like senators, and fucking people that are really like, as far as status and shit that are going to come in and be able to pay for it, they're going to pay for it, because it's great. So your money gets better, the people you're rubbing shoulders with are better, you're now able to be like, no, just like you said, I'll get to you when I get to you. So now your time I'm not strapped, strapped for fucking time anymore. Because this is no, this bar is great here. I'm talking about like, if so many people that are poor, that we're working with, or that we have communicated with and talked with over the years, where they all are driven by deep purpose. They just know that they're called to do something more. Man, it's really hard to make a lasting impact on your community. If you can't eat,



Tyler 47:41

only do it part time, because you gotta have to shovel shit for eight hours a day. So



John Fairbanks 47:47

all of these things end up becoming really, really connected and intertwined. That Jen just led you towards. But it starts with that mindset.



Tyler 47:56

And one more thing on that note, I think out there, we talked about, you know, assessing, finding the who's the who the five best people in your area, reputation wise, who's the best? What's the best coach who's the best tomorrow? That's a great exercise. The other one is, I want you to just think about what is out there. As far as an average fitness experience, how many people go to their gym multiple times a week, and leave their gym, with nothing to say to their friends or family about it? A lot, a lot. And that doesn't mean the gym is doing bad. It just means that there's room to grow and that experience could be great. And people would love it. And if people love it, they will talk about it. If people like it, they will experience it and go about their fucking day. And I'll tell you this, this is one thing for sure. When I coach people as a personal trainer, they talk to everybody that they know about it, because I do care. I do push them harder, do things very differently. It's very different from everybody else. Same thing with megachurches. It's very different. People who work with her will tell everybody who they're working with what it's like and how great it is. If your people are not telling everybody, then maybe your standard needs to be raised a little bit. Maybe you need to deliver a better product. Maybe you'd simply just need to set your sights a little bit higher. Yeah, right. Don't settle for mediocrity, we that's one thing and the gear academy that we don't play with it all. Now we don't play with running towards the fucking things in the wrong order any of that stuff. But if your goals are average, I don't care. And I won't pretend I will never pretend to care about a problem that you have. If I don't actually care, I'll say this is not important. Solve it. Let's go, whatever this is, I don't care how difficult it is. But it needs to be behind us. For us to move forward. If we're going to dwell on this. We just simply cannot sit here. So it's very important. If you want to work with us personally that has to be your target. How can you have it all? How can you be the best? How can you earn the most? How can you have it all? How can your clients have the best experience? How can they get the best results? That's the only thing that matters.



John Fairbanks 50:02

And if you want to be able to get into the gear Academy you can't, right now. So the only way that we can we are working with folks in the gear and above is we have to help you first, we have to be able to work with you one on one, we have workshops that you can sign up to go to the link in our bio, and for at the gym owners podcast or Tyler mais Instagram account, you go to there and sign up to have us be able to come in, give you a list of things, what is it that you need help to be worked on, we have to be able to work with you and be able to provide that value for you get it? These are the results that we share with the franchise owner. That's not Tyler and I did. He got those results. We didn't. So that's why it's like you people like oh, well, you know, the fine print is that these results are typical and not all results are typical. Yeah, all right, because this whole fucking episode is about how many people we know. And you can see in your average in your daily life, that are average as fuck, that are not striving to do anything amazing or anything incredible. So it's, if you are hungry enough, and you want to be able to be affiliated and you want to be to have a network of people that are all reaching for something unreasonable, and you want to be able to have Tyler telling you that you being a fucking idiot, you have to stop talking to you about these things. That that is, right, that's the standard to then be able to move forward. But we have to be able to talk with you about your business and be



Tyler 51:33

a five never raised my voice to tell you that you're wrong and that you need to reprioritize some things, I don't give a shit about you know that. And that's how you know you're in the right room. So yeah, that's your piece and the stuff we're working on right away. And those projects, it can be first with social media, or some of your Google business profile stuff, we can help you assess some stuff with these kinds of it's free, we'll get you in and we'll give you will give you exact will tell you exactly what we think the good, the bad, and we're not here to shit on you. That's not what we do. You ain't paying me so aren't yelling at you. But we get into those things. And then if you take that and run with it, and you have success with it, then you want to come back to us and work with us in the gear Academy. That is absolutely something that can be done. Until then, we don't just take people who haven't really done or applied any of the things that we talked about, which is why we point you in the direction of doing some of these things for free. Cuz then I know you'll do it. And it's not a waste of my effort much like, I'm not gonna work with a client who's not going to get any results because they're in their own way. I'll do everything I can to guide them. But if the efforts not there, no, if you want to lose 20 pounds and you don't want to change the way you eat and don't want to exercise, no matter how much money you fucking pay me this is going to be an unsuccessful endeavor, therefore, no. And so if you're if you're done, if you're done waiting in mediocrity, shoot us a message. All right, that's what we got for today. Thanks for listening. Follow the show gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler and Stovall. John Fairbanks, FL the website is gym owners revolution.com Facebook group is linked in the description. Join this we would drop all sorts of good stuff. It's also where the video episodes are if you're concerned about how attractive we are not. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week.


































Untitled design (28) png

Gym Owners Revolution © 2023
Gym Owners Revolution is not associated with Facebook Inc.