Fitness Business University Podcast

Speaker 1: What's up guys,
welcome to another episode of

business secrets for gym owners.

I am your uncle, vinny, and
back after a mini hiatus not too

long, but a mini one and I've
been busy selling a company and

I sold my marketing agency, kiss
Marketing.

We closed on that business on
Monday.

I sold to a company called Gym
Member Machine, which my friend

GR Hoff owns, and I'm really
excited about the venture.

I'm really excited that the
team stayed intact and GR took

on the entire team over at Kiss
Marketing and basically just

acquired the company for me and
is now going to make it better,

and so it's a great.

It's a win-win for everybody.

I'm super excited about it, I'm
super happy and, yeah, it's.

This podcast is not about the
details of that.

I probably will do.

I have a full, deep dive of the
whole thing, not doing much

right now for several reasons,
but today I wanted to share with

you a cool business idea that
came from it, and so, obviously,

when you sell a company, you
have lawyers involved, and so we

were going back and forth with
what we call the suits for quite

some time and you get close
with these people, and so my

lawyer.

When we got done, we closed, um
, I think we signed, I don't

know whatever, but recently and
right when we closed I I said,

hey, thanks for everything,
super appreciate everything.

I'd like to offer you to come
and train for free at my gym for

a month.

And she was like really, and
I'm like, yeah, no problems on

me, try it for a month.

And she's like right in the
perfect target market of my gym

and she was like super happy and
super grateful and super

excited and she came in.

This was like last week.

She came in today, actually, as
I record this, she came in

today, did her consult with Mike
and she's starting on Tuesday

and she's super happy and she'll
do the first month for free on

me, but likely she'll sign up
and it's a win for her, it's a

win for me in terms of getting a
new customer and it was great.

But it made me start to think
about these types of people in

our lives.

It made me start to think about
these types of people in our

lives.

I'm going to read you a list of
people that you have in your

life Lawyer, insurance agent,
dentist, doctor, accountant,

electrician, plumber, teacher or
tutor, accountant, landlord,

postman, general contractor,
financial advisor, owner of your

cleaning company.

I could go on for a lot longer
and at the end of the day, all

of these people are in our lives
right now.

And it's funny as I look at
this list because I just read

off the list right and as I look
at this list, almost just read

off the list right, and as I
look at this list, almost every

one of the ones and I didn't
pull this from past clients.

But I think back.

I've been in business for 18
years and I think back to this

list and it's like almost
everyone I named has been a

customer of mine over the years.

My lawyer in the past has been
a customer.

My insurance agent is a current
customer right now.

I've had my dentist in the past
become a customer.

We had my doctor.

He's not, he wasn't my doctor,
but he was an orthopedic surgeon

trained with us for many years.

My accountant was a client for
a long time.

My electrician is a current
client right now.

My plumber was a current
customer at one point.

We have had teachers in the
past, my landlord and my old gym

was a customer.

The postman was never a
customer but was someone I

actually helped.

I've had general contractors
become clients.

My financial advisor was a
client, right, and this is over

17 years, so some have stayed
clients for years.

Some have come and gone, but at
the end of the day, I was

thinking about this and I'm like
holy shit, there's a lot of

it's like it reads like a BNI
meeting, right, if you think

about it and like we already
have these people in our life.

You, if you're listening to this
, and you own a gym, you

probably have an insurance agent
.

You probably have a dentist.

Hopefully you definitely have
an accountant.

You have an electrician.

If you have an electrical
problem at your gym, who do you

call to come do that?

And a lot of times, when we're
in business long enough, we

start developing relationships
with these people.

Now, this is an interesting
list, right, because if you go

back and if you wrote down the
list, these are all like,

especially if they own the
company, these are all people

that are doing pretty well.

A lawyer makes a pretty good
chunk of money.

Insurance agents do well.

Dentists do well, doing pretty
well.

A lawyer makes a pretty good
chunk of money.

Insurance agents do well.

Dentists do well.

Doctors do well.

Accountants do well.

If we train adults, these are
all people that we can get into

our champs and become customers.

And the other part is, too,
it's like they become.

You become closer with them
because you see them more,

because it's all about proximity
.

If you see someone more and so,
then all of a sudden the

relationship gets better.

Then all of a sudden, when you
need something from your lawyer,

it's a little easier to get
because you have more of a

personal relationship because
they're a customer of yours.

My accountant was a client for a
long time.

His wife was a client for a
long time.

His kids were clients of mine.

I can call my accountant right
now at 3 am and he'd do whatever

I need.

So it's not just about getting
them in as customers, but

getting what you need, and then
vice versa, right, and then vice

versa.

And then there's also the
process of barter.

Right, you could barter.

I don't do this anymore, but
when I first started my business

, I didn't have any accounting
fees at all because I bartered

with my accountant.

For many years I did not have
any electrical bills because I

bartered with my electrician,
and so you could also use the

whole barter system in this.

That works well for both sides.

So think of all these people,
right?

They're already in our lives,
either personally or

professionally right, because
this works both ways with

personally too Like you could
think about.

So I'll give you an example.

So we have someone that comes
to our house to groom our dogs

and she pulls up at the truck
and she comes in, brings the

dogs Like that's a person I
could offer a free month or two.

So all of these people are
already in our lives.

They live or work locally.

And my lawyer, the one that
came in, she does not live

locally.

She lives about 30 minutes away
.

She would be outside of the
drive time of a normal client, a

normal customer, so if I was so
, my ad on Facebook would never

get to her.

Okay, but her office is seven
minutes from my gym, so she

lives 30, but she works seven,
and so she could come before

work, she could come after work
because her office is so close,

right, and so a lot of these
people live or work locally.

Especially if you're doing
local business your financial

advisor you might have a local
office, right.

As I said, these people make a
decent living.

There's a current, existing
relationship that you already

have with them, so it makes it
easy to ask.

And here's the thing these
types of people typically have

access to a lot of other people.

My electrician knows a ton of
people, my landlord is super

connected.

My lawyer has been in this town
for a long time.

So you almost got to think
about like this list of

professional people in your life
and start with the very

specific people that you work
with right, the already specific

people that you work with and
make them an offer, give them a

free month to come into your gym
.

And this does a couple things
right.

The first thing it does is it
helps solidify the relationship.

You see them more, there's
proximity.

And the second thing is you get
a new customer.

But what this does, this kind
of opens your mind to a whole

slew of joint ventures.

And so here's what came out of
this the lawyer that I asked to

come train at my gym.

She told me right.

When I asked her, she said it's
funny you say that because our

entire office is all
consolidating and we're moving

to one town over from you, which
is seven minutes from your gym.

And so what she just told me
was there's going to be four

different offices all around New
Jersey that are all relocating

to one office, so it's not going
to be 250 people in one

building, all seven minutes from
my gym, right.

And so now, all of a sudden,
what it did just opened an

opportunity to do a joint
venture with this law firm, and

you could start to think about
all these different professional

practices law firms, insurance
agents, dentists.

It doesn't even have to be
yours, it could be doing joint

ventures with these types of
people and even just reaching

out.

I have a whole cold email thing
I did to lawyers, where I would

send an email out to all local
lawyers with an offer to come to

the gym, all right.

And so you now have all these
different opportunities.

So you got to just start
thinking about and here's the

thing this idea didn't come.

I just it happened, right.

I didn't really think of it, I
just said, hey, monica's, she's

a perfect fit for my gym.

She's like, all right, let's.

I just used her name, I
shouldn't have done that, but

she's a perfect fit for my gym
and let's just offer to train

for free and see if it works.

And let's just offer to train
for free and see if it works,

and if it's, great, great.

If it doesn't, no worries, but
it just it's spurred this idea

so, which I now pass to you and
you can take it and you can run

with it.

So go to your lawyer, go to
your accountant, go to your this

, go to that, whatever it is,
and hopefully it creates better

relationships, hopefully it
creates new customers, hopefully

it creates more referrals.

And it's another good way to
think and use the local business

.

I think sometimes you guys try
to be these internet marketers

right when you want to just run
Facebook ads and you want to do

the thing and I'm all about it.

I run Facebook ads but at the
end of the day I also realized

we're a local business and a
local company and man, there's

so many resources right at our
disposal to help us with that

man.

Hopefully that idea helps you.

I think it will Just take it
and run with it.

Just start asking people to
come in for a free month for

your gym.

Let them try the gym out and
then see what happens from there

.

I promise you you'll probably
get at least one people to say

yeah, and then maybe some of
those people end up becoming

customers.

So there you go.

All right, that's it for today.

I just want to give you a real
quick one, that kind of popped

into my head.

I will be coming back and
giving the full details on KISS

Marketing, but I'm super excited
that Jim Ember Machine is going

to be taking over the reins and
taking over all the accounts,

and what I'm going to be doing
is focusing on the mastermind,

focusing on the SPF mastermind,
focusing on my gym, and I'm

super excited.

Whenever you take something
away, you get a lot of spacing

your mind back, and it's funny
because just in the past five

days I've been doing this, I've
written 15,000 words in my new

book coming up and I'm going to
get this thing out like in light

speed just because I've been
gifted some space in my mind to

be able to get going.

So I'm super excited.

The book is going to be geared
towards gyms that are doing

below 25K, so it's basically
gyms doing 5 to 25K and the goal

is to get them to 35 to 50K.

That's what I'm trying to do in
the book is for you to be able

to read the book, have your gym
viewing below 25K and then give

you the tools that you need to
be able to get to 35 to 50K.

And what I'm going to be doing
in the book I'm also going to be

transcribing interviews that
I'm doing.

So I picked three guys that I'm
going to be doing deep dive

interviews with, and these three
guys have both.

All three have absolutely
crushed it right.

They started with me.

I think they all started under
10K.

I think one started at seven,
one started zero, it wasn't even

open and the other one started
at 8k.

So they all started like below
10k.

They all have gone past 50k and
they've done it in around a

year, I think one one guy did it
probably in less than a year.

One guy took probably probably
about 18 months, but like

literally 8K to 50K in a year
pretty different business, right

.

And so what I did is I'm going
to be doing these deep dive

interviews with these guys and
then transcribing the interviews

and putting that in the book on
top of it, and what that's

going to do is that's going to
be like all right, yeah, I'm

teaching you these ways to go
from under 25K to 35 to 50 and

beyond, but I'm not just like
talking shit, right.

I'm not just saying, hey,
here's what to do and do this

and do that.

No, I'm just I'm showing you
how I did it with these guys.

And that's the other thing too.

It's not just me that did it.

I did do it, but I did it shit
two decades ago, right 2008,.

Nine when I started, right.

So I haven't gone from zero to
25K.

I have done that in other
companies, but in my gym I

haven't.

But these guys are pretty
recent, right, and they did it

based on the advice that I gave
them.

I told them exactly what they
needed to do it.

They went out and did it and
now they're in a really good

spot.

This book is going to be coming
out soon.

I'm super excited for it.

I'll keep you guys posted on
the release of that and, yeah,

it's gonna be great.

So if you're a gym owner and
you're doing under 25K,

definitely be on the lookout,
because that's a great resource

for you to read.

It's going to be a short book.

It's going to be probably
15,000 words of my writing and

then the transcription
interviews.

We'll probably add and make it
around a 20,000 word book.

So it's probably going to be a
45 to 60 minute read.

So it'd be pretty short, but I
think you'll get the points of

it from there.

So hopefully this was helpful
and I do want to let you know,

based on my last podcast, we've
launched our new accelerator

program, which this is.

Oh man, I'm super excited about
this.

This is where we're doing what
I outlined in the book and we're

doing it over the course of a
60 day coaching program.

So we already have 14 gyms in
the pilot program, which is

going swimmingly well, and we're
taking on about four four new

gyms a month.

So we're doing this slowly
because we want to make sure we

get it right.

We're taking on four gyms a
month.

So if you're doing so, this is
for gyms doing that are under

25K, that want to get to 35 to
50.

If you're under 25K and you're
interested in being one of the

four that we pick each month,
there's a link in the show notes

and there's like a form to fill
out.

Just fill out the form and then
we'll basically see where

you're at and make sure that's
the right fit for you right now.

So Jim's doing under 25 K, want
to scale to 35 to 50 and beyond

.

That is the link in the show
notes for you and hopefully we

can help you out to do that.

Super excited about that
program as well.

Lots flying around, lots going
on.

I got to get back to my day,
but hopefully that tip was

helpful.

Go and call your lawyer, call
your insurance agent, call your

dentist and invite them for a
month for free and hopefully

this makes you some money.

All right, guys, I'll talk to
you soon.

Peace.