SPEAKER_00: 0:00

What's up, guys? You're about to listen to an interview that I did with one of the clients in my SPF mastermind. And this story is really, really cool. He had a gym in San Diego and then he ended up closing it, got a corporate job, and then reopened a gym and went from zero to five hundred thousand bucks in less than twelve months. And he went through stage one faster than any gym order that I've seen before. And this was my interview with him on how he did it. So if you're looking to scale fast, if really grow quickly, this is a really great interview with Jason Maher. Enjoy. Welcome to another interview. As you guys have seen, I'm doing these series of interviews in relation to the release of my new books, the book the eight profit levers. That helps gyms that are in stage one, anywhere from zero to 25k, get through stage one and into stage two, 25 to 50k. And what I'm doing is I've selected, hand selected a small group of gym owners that I've worked with that have gone exact done exactly that, that have gone from stage one and have exited stage one into stage two, and life is now better over in stage two than it was in stage one. And today I am with Jason Maher from North Star Personal Training in Boston. Super excited to have Jason on the show. Jason, thanks for being here, brother. It's a pleasure. Awesome. All right, so let's kind of start. Now you've had a very interesting story where you have gone through stage one faster than I've ever seen anyone go through stage one before. But it's kind of like one of those, but it wasn't always this way. So I want to take it back, and I actually met you before you opened up your gym on the East Coast, and I had met and worked with you. We did work together. I think you did the surge program.

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

So I did surge, but you know, and we had a nice, we had like an hour-long conversation when I was running my first gym in San Diego, and we had a good conversation, but I couldn't I couldn't get out of my own way and know that this investment would have propelled me to where I am now, like eight years ago. So that's how we originally connected, and I basically told you I can't I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna sit through this sales consultation, which you did a great job, but I just couldn't figure out how I was gonna get my hands on the money to do it, and that just kept me stuck like right there. And then, you know, fast forward to to now, it's like okay, we we could have bypassed eight years if I just pulled the trigger.

SPEAKER_00: 2:46

So let's go over that, let's go there. Let's so we're not gonna start in where we'll I've started with the the other people of like you know, stage one and starting at zero in your current gym. We're going back to another gym that you ended up selling in San Diego. So tell us, take us back to that San Diego gym and give us the whole story leading up to you opening in in Boston.

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

Yeah, so that gym in San Diego was it was called Resilient Strength and Conditioning. It we were primarily an athlete performance gym. High school female athletes was kind of like our specialty, and uh I loved it. I loved coaching. It was amazing for me to step out from working for somebody to open up my gym. And the only reason I did that was because I started to have a family and I and I need to figure out a way to support that family. And if I wanted to stay in coaching, I knew that was the next step for me. So that's why I opened the gym. I did everything. It it stayed stuck because I was the only person doing everything for like the first three years of it. I did all the training, highly burnt out. I did all the the marketing sales, which I didn't know anything about. That's probably what part me brought me to into your your sphere. But I did everything and just stayed stuck for three years and you know, eventually ended up selling that business. But it was selling out of necessity because I wanted to get my family back to the east coast where we're originally from. But it was at also at a teetering point where I didn't know how much longer I could sustain that financial burden of running a gym and being burnt out and having like one coach to help me and really not knowing where to grow it. So I sold it. Fortunately, I was able to do that, move my family back to the east coast and you know, actually left the fitness industry for a couple of years and ran the operations for an oil company, oddly enough, but figured out that I hated that, so I wanted to get back into fitness, so that's when I opened up the second gym.

SPEAKER_00: 4:48

Got it. Take us, I want to take you through a little bit more of like what you were struggling with and feeling during those three years. What were the emotions you had? What were the challenges you had? What was a day like for you? Like, kind of because I think that's where a lot of people are right now, and I think it's important that they hear that successful people like you have struggled in that in that time period. So, like, paint that picture for me a little bit deeper.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Yeah, and massive burnout, right? Like, you know, get to the gym at 5 a.m., train a couple adults in the morning, all your personal training clients, run your errands from you know 9 a.m. till three o'clock, and then work with athletes until eight o'clock at night and not see my wife or my kids and wake up and do the same thing over and over and over. That was that was everyday life. It just it's just a burnout. It's like, you know, how long are you gonna sustain that for? That's where I was. I finally got out of my own way. It took me three years to hire my first trainer. When I did that, that freed up some some time, which the trade-off was then the financial hit because I really didn't grow the business too much. I just gave the trainer money and I didn't have to train as much, but I didn't really make any more. So I was stuck in that zone of like, I remember when we hit 30 grand that first time we hit that, I was like, Holy shit, I'm rich. Like, like this is amazing. And and I don't think it ever happened again. So it was like it was one weird thing, but we always kind of like harbored around like you know, 18,000, 20,000, somewhere around there. And it was just hard to make a living, you know, it was really hard. Southern California is very expensive. And it's like, okay, great, like maybe I'm making five grand a month or something, but that's not enough when you're when you're owning a company. That's kind of where the struggle was. It was just a lot of burnout, it was a lot of work, and there wasn't any kind of financial reward for it. It was missing my family. It's you know, that's the that's the picture.

SPEAKER_00: 6:49

What made you eventually hire that trainer? Well, why do why do you think it took you three years to eventually hire a trainer? Ego.

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

Ego. I just like couldn't get out of my own way. It was like no one's gonna coach these kids as good as I'm gonna coach them. And that's such a like that's such a bullshit mindset that kept me stuck. And it's still evolving. Like, you know, I was actually thinking about this earlier today, where I'm learning another lesson from the ego standpoint that now that I'm completely shifted to business owner and I'm really not coaching at all, there's an identity crisis there. And it's kind of like it's weird. Like I got another slap that was like, is your ego seriously that big that like the clients care if you're in the gym or not? Like they don't care that I'm there or not. Like they just want to get in there and get what's best for them, their workout. They don't like they don't give a shit that I'm in the gym or not in the gym, but in my head, I'm like, I have to be there. Like the clients need to see me. Like, what kind of ego trip is that? It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00: 7:53

Yeah, and and and I know when we had our consulting day, you brought me a Joe Dispensa book. So I know you've done a lot of good, deep unpacking of that. That's I that's why I love you know you guys. And you know, because you know, I love hanging around and spending time with you guys because you're learners and you're growing as as human beings, not just as business owners, to for you to even talk about that and recognize that that was the problem is such amazing growth right there. So eventually, what broke if for you that eventually made you hire somebody? Like what was there a break in the ego, or was that I can't take it anymore, I can't work all these hours? Like, what was it that broke that got you to hire somebody?

SPEAKER_01: 8:33

I I don't know if I can't like pinpoint if there were one particular thing. It may have just been the kid I hired was great. Awesome kid named Kyle. And he actually runs his own gym in San Diego now. When I sold the business, he stuck around with them for a couple months and then kind of went out on his own. And and it's too bad because I've recommended him come to this group like several times, and I can see him like stuck in that zone that I was, and I just know he won't come. And I'm like, come on, man, like get get in there. He's a great coach, he's a phenomenal guy, but he's just gonna be stuck as that single trainer. He came from Chicago, and and I I think he just he was pretty proactive in his in his reach out to me and me being so particular about how we were training, you know, he checked off a lot of the same boxes as far as the people that influenced you know my training and who I learned from. He had a lot of those same influences, so I thought the training would be a good fit. And and he wasn't like, I was like, hey, listen, man, I can't I can't pay you what you're worth. But he was coming from Chicago and just needed something quickly. So I I think it kind of lined up that way almost by chance. But I don't I don't know if there was like a particular point that broke me, but he kind of like fell on my lap. And after three years, it was like, okay, I think this guy could be like a really good fit for for how I do things. But but after him, it was like I didn't really after I hired him, we just stuck there. It was just a different stick. So it didn't necessarily solve the problem. That's why we're doing so much better now.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

Yeah, uh, and so let's now talk fast forward to the sale. Like you you you decided to sell the gym in San Diego. Was it mainly because you were burnt out in the gym? Was it that you wanted to move? Like, what was the big driver of all of it?

SPEAKER_01: 10:19

The a couple things. So, one, I I sold it in November of 2020. So deep in the heart of the pandemic. And in oddly enough, like we were doing great because I just I kind of refused to close. I was just like, I'm I'm doing this, and you know, I'm letting people in and locking the front door and shuttling them out the back, like I don't care. Like I'm gonna feed my family, so we're going. And all the big box were all the big box gyms were obviously closed, so like my phone wouldn't stop ringing. But mentally it was really hard on me because I couldn't, it was hard for me to conceptualize how to operate and how to market and how to do this without the fear of the health department coming in and shutting us down. So I think it just it took a toll. And then in combination with that, I got an offer to, you know, come back and and take over the operations for this this small home heating oil business, which is a family business, but there's you know, kind of like trying to develop a succession plan and like, hey, Jay might be good at running this. So I took that opportunity. I thought it was gonna be great. And it and it's another good lesson learned that I chased the dollars on that one, thinking that you know, my my family was gonna be financially secure, and then and it was a great opportunity. I'm very grateful for it. But after doing it for a couple years, I realized how much I hated it and how much I loved the fitness business. So, you know, that was a really hard conversation to have, and then go open up another gym. So twofold pandemic and a job opportunity that brought me back to the East Coast.

SPEAKER_00: 11:52

So, okay, so you move, you get this job in the oil industry with family business, you realize it's not for you. You even though you struggled in the gym space, you still loved it, you still had a love for it. And at that point, you decided to talk about the transition from having the job into opening, you know, what is now North Star, which we'll get into the the massive success that North Star is having right now. But like talk about that's an interesting transition, like going from like a I guess corporate is is what you would call it, right?

SPEAKER_01: 12:27

Coming up a corporate you know, it's it was a small, you know, family-owned business. Okay, so a small family business, 20 employees, you know, completely different fields, trying to trying to manage, you know, hard blue-collar type guys, you know, technicians, guys that work with their hands, truck drivers, you know, trying to take you know, leadership from a guy that's never done that type of work before, and just learning a completely new industry, lots of lots of state regulations, lots of federal regulations. It was great because it taught me a whole nother side about business, a different way to look at things. But it was just it was kind of like this isn't much fun. You know, like I like being on my feet, I like building relationships with people, I like talking to the clients. Being in an office all day long in a in an industry that was completely foreign to me with people that didn't respect me was like hard to deal with. That was a hard thing to run. And I don't know that I had the most I I couldn't number one, it was like I didn't have the passion for the business. I didn't have the skill set, so I couldn't see myself mi continuing on that business and making it be successful. Like it the the the pieces just didn't line up. I I didn't I didn't have those two items that I think is a necessity for being successful in businesses. Like you have to have a little bit of a passion for, at least the type of field that you're in. Like I don't have a passion for training people anymore, but I do have a passion for like being in the fitness business and helping people. And didn't have the skill set. It was a skill set that I just didn't take years to refine, and I couldn't do that in two years.

SPEAKER_00: 14:14

So you have this idea to start a gym and you got this job, you're gonna start this gym. What were the things that you carried forward that you learned from the first gym that you were like, all right, I'm getting a second crack at this? What were the things that you brought that you were like, I ain't doing that again? But like, what were the things that you kind of like the lessons learned from the first business that you didn't fail you because you sold it successfully, right? But it wasn't it was three years of a grind, it was three years that it wasn't didn't seem like it was making you fulfilled. What were the lessons carried forward from that to the new gym that you opened?

SPEAKER_01: 15:00

Yeah, I first big lesson we already touched on it, like get out of my way, get get like somebody in here to help you. Realize that there are people that can do it better than you and that they probably should. So, you know, first business took me three years to hire somebody, second business took me one month. So I knew instantly, like going in, like we're gonna get somebody like right away to come in here. So that was lesson one. Lesson two was the model. The model in the first gym, although I loved the athlete model, it wasn't a way for me to to make a good living and to run a successful business. So I knew that the model had to change. I did a lot of one-on-one stuff with adults, but primarily with the athlete model, it was like, okay, what am I gonna do to have a more profitable gym? So we changed the model. That was two. Three, this is where you come in. I needed to understand marketing better. And I I needed to understand the return on what you were putting out for marketing dollars. So in the first gym, it was like, okay, put up a Facebook ad, not understanding copy, not understanding the creative, uh, an offer, nothing, no, understanding nothing, just taking a picture and putting some money out and go, oh, oh, that didn't work, so I'm not gonna do it again. And and and that was the extent of my advertising dollars going out. So, you know, coming into the second one, knowing that we needed to put some money into marketing right away and get the leads flowing so that we could open up and be profitable within a couple months. That was like kind of like the that was the real game changer was understanding that you need to put money into it. And there's a there's a method to it. You know, the first gym was like, you know, referrals only. And we did a great job, but we weren't we weren't accelerating the growth because it was just it, there wasn't even a referral system. It was just if somebody mentioned something great, but I was never searching for it. So the marketing component and where this group comes into play, that's kind of one of the tipping points.

SPEAKER_00: 17:02

Yeah. So talk me through then. You you open the gym, you sign the lease. Now I'm gonna caveat this with saying that you've had success faster than anyone I've ever seen through a first year in business. Like I've yet to see anyone do as well as you. Yeah. Talk about what happened. Like, how what did you do? How did you open? And I know you I believe you joined you're one of the few people that joined the mastermind without a gym, right? Is that is that true?

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

Yeah, so that was that was planned. So I signed I signed up with SPF two months before we opened. Okay. But that decision had already been made long before that sign-up. So I had essentially a full year before we opened of planning. Once I once I had the conversation that, hey, this this position in the oil business is not for me, I'm gonna go do this. From that point on, I stayed working with the oil company, but I I had a a year until that sale of the oil company, which I helped with and and helped to transition there. And I stayed on for a little bit, but I knew I was gonna do the gym. So I had a full year of planning. I had a year to refine the model, refine the pricing, scout locations, do the negotiations on lease. And in that time, like I already knew that as we got close to signing a lease, I was gonna be in the group. And that happened because from the time we had that first conversation in San Diego, like I knew of you, I did the surge, and then from there, like every every piece of content that you put out, I consumed, right? So the the emails, the podcasts, like anything, the books, anything that you put out, I read and knew like, okay, this is the group I need to be in before launching. So that's why I joined the group, and we did it two months before we actually opened the doors, and the group helped me with the pre-sale, which the goal was there is I wanted to open up and within within three months be a profitable gym. I think we did that in two months, but that was why I already knew it. It was kind of like a domino, like already set up. Like I knew that this was the group to be in to make the gym be successful.

SPEAKER_00: 19:21

So talk about the presale then. Can you give us some some insights around what you did, what was the offer, and then how that went? I think it sounds like it went pretty well.

SPEAKER_01: 19:31

Uh yeah, so I think you know, when we opened up, I think I put like I don't know, I put like 15 grand into like tenant improvements of the building. I think we did like another 30 or 40,000 in equipment. And I will caveat that to say like the only reason I was able to do that is because I sold the first gym. So there was some benefit from those three years of suffering. It was like we had capital to like get going and build it as I wanted to build it, right? Like the first gym was like, get a client, get like a medicine ball, like get another client and get some ropes or or whatever. You know, like I had to piece it together. The second gym was like, all right, we've got this capital. Now I can make it happen how I want it to happen. So we kind of started at a little bit of an advantage there where I had some capital to get going. I wanted to get 40 clients before the doors opened so that we could pay off that the tenant improvements and the equipment from perform better before we actually started to like have our lease go. I also negotiated the lease so that I had I had a couple months runway before I actually had to start paying. So we I hired an agency to do our pre-sale or help us with the pre-sale, help us with the copy, help us with the creative. And then the offer we set was I think I had the first 40 members at a discounted lifetime rate. I think it was like 20% off what we wanted to charge lifetime for the first 40. And I think we hit troubling with the timeline, but I think we hit those 40 within like the first like six weeks or something, six or seven weeks, we had our 40. And I picked that number of 40 because that's what I knew it was gonna have us be profitable. And and we got there very quickly.

SPEAKER_00: 21:13

Got it. So you essentially opened open the doors with 40 members, or do it took about six weeks to get there.

SPEAKER_01: 21:21

We did like a um, we had like two weeks of hey, help me work out the kinks of the program with like and as people started to trickle in, we we gave them away. I gave away two weeks in June, and then they started paying on July 1st. So I always love to see like I always love to see like the first of the month because that's where all like all the money for the month comes in, which is great because like our retention rate is really good. Like out of those first 40 people, a year later, I still have 35 of them. Wow. So like on the first of the month, I see those 35 come in, and it's like, oh, that's a nice day, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 21:57

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01: 21:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:00

So what else? So you said you hired an agency to run ads for you. What else did you do to sell memberships in the beginning when you were opening? Like, what were the other ways that you got members to sign up?

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

Quite honestly, I mean, the the digital ads and everything that the agency helped me with, that was the prime driver because I didn't have any contacts, like no, no existing clients to work from, no relationships. At the town I opened the gym, and I had never actually been to until we opened it. I I mean I'm from Massachusetts. I've never been to this town ever. It just happened to be a good location. So I opened it. Nobody, I didn't know anybody. We we had a banner in the window, like a coming coming soon banner with a QR code that was linked to the offer, and the agency helped me with getting the website up because I'm not I'm not a tech guy. I knew if you know where your strengths and your weaknesses are, it's like the tech part. It's like I need help with that. So they did a phenomenal job, took all that off my plate and just let me sell. So once the leads start coming in, I could do all the follow-up, I can get them in the gym. I mean, I was selling people with like leaks still coming through the ceiling and equipment half arrived, and like trying to sell this vision of like, look at this, look at this nice pile of shit that I want you to pay 500 bucks a month for.

SPEAKER_00: 23:20

Oh, very cool. So for and again, we can mention, you know, I know you're using KISS Marketing, which was the agency that I uh used to own and now have sold to a new company, Jim Member Machine, which I'm super excited about the cum combination. But I know KISS, you know, when you were working with that and still are, did a phenomenal, you know, job at the pre-sale. So net with so that got us to around 40 members, right? You know, almost six weeks in, which is like amazing, right? Like we're already at 40 members. Where are we at today? Like, where is the business at right now?

SPEAKER_01: 23:55

So, right now, so we are 15 months in to the business. We've got 145 adult small group members and about 25 to 30 kids in our sports performance program. Uh and what's the revenue monthly right now? Uh I project that we'll do about 63,000 this month.

SPEAKER_00: 24:20

63,000 this month. And you sent me a very, very nice email, which I screenshotted and put in the book, I hope you don't mind, of the amount of money that you made in your first year of business. Can you relay? I can't wait. I can I can pull the screenshot if you want, but what was it?

SPEAKER_01: 24:36

I'm sure you remember. Yeah, it's quite amazing because I didn't think it was I didn't know that it was possible. So in the first 12 months of business, we did over 500,000. And I like couldn't believe it because in three in four years of running the past business, we never got close. I think my best year in my third year was like just shy of like 300, you know. So like to do to do 500 in your first year was pretty mind-blowing. And, you know, in the first actual full calendar year from like January 2025 to you know, the end of this year, a couple months away, I think we're gonna do probably close to seven. And I just didn't I it's it's almost hard to comprehend that type of growth and and how quick it went. And a lot of lessons learned in support of the group and and kiss and and everything leads into that, but yeah, it's kind of almost uh it's it's pretty unbelievable. I don't believe it sometimes.

SPEAKER_00: 25:32

That's awesome. So I wanted I wanted to paint that snapshot to show everyone like where we're at right now, where you're we're at, because it's it's incredible. And I want to start backtracking and leading us up to all right, we're at 145 members, adults, you know, 15 months ago, you were at 40 members, right? So you literally have added 100 small group training members, you've added, you know, 30 small sports performance, you know, kids and stuff like that. Take us down the path of like month one to today. What were the things that you did to grow this client base like it has? And I would say that the number one thing you've probably done really well from what you just told me is you've had monster uh uh uh retention, that you have had a very, very good retention rate, which makes it e always easier to grow, but you still have added a hundred new people, more than that. What were the things? Can you pinpoint some of the things that you did and used to grow the company?

SPEAKER_01: 26:35

Yeah, I that's the number one is that I yeah, attrition, we hover around two percent. Yep. And and so your program can't suck. You know, the program has to be great. You can't hurt people, you gotta have them feeling great. You need a big benefit for us was hiring the right people, staffing the right people that could could run this program without me being in the gym every day is is massive. So the program can't be terrible. Your program has to be dialed in, the attrition numbers have to be great. That makes the marketing and the sales side of things much more palatable for you to be able to do and do well. We originally had a goal of like five new small group members a month net. And obviously it's way more than that with with a hundred inside the year. Paid digital helps a ton. I think that's probably the main driver. Our second source is referral. We do a great job at that. What do you do for referrals? Different contests all the time. No, I'm sorry, not not contests, but like different like buddy months, stuff like that. Event event type stuff. Yep. Yeah, event type stuff. I I use the uh the black card system that that you've taught the group where you you know you give your members a metal black card.

SPEAKER_00: 27:56

That's it's funny you say that. That is one of the things in the book that I talk about is the black card. How how have you used it? I'm interested.

SPEAKER_01: 28:03

Yeah, so we send we send this nice care package to clients when they hit like a milestone. So like when our clients hit 50 training sessions, we send them a box of stuff, a really nice box with like crinkly paper in it, and they get like a t-shirt and a water bottle and some stickers, and then I I write this card, and inside the card I give them this black card, and I think it's important that you tell them what to do with the card. So it's like I have to tell them like, hey, here's a month of training on me. I'd be really happy if you gave it to a friend, a family member, or a neighbor to to use. You're hitting all the points, my man. Very good. Right. So um excellent. That's been a big one. And then also just I think it has a lot to do with the town that we're in and how many small businesses are in the town and how supportive everybody is. Like the town has been absolutely outstanding. The town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, small little coastal, affluent community. It's about 8,000 people. A lot of small, a lot of financial folks that travel into the city and a lot of small business owners that own these little boutiques around town. And we do like these little holiday strolls where all the businesses get involved and stuff. We're in a very awesome location, a lot of visibility. So there's you know, there's some walk-in traffic as well, and every business owner is always open to like help share like a lot of joint venture type stuff. I will share a very cool one with you that I did, which another piece of the retention is my members, those those 35 founding members that are returning, when they hit their one-year anniversary, I wanted to give them a card with like a gift certificate into it to like a local restaurant. There's this local restaurant in our town called Salty Days. It's phenomenal, like seafood place. Everybody loves it, the owner's awesome. I went to him and I said, Hey, I'd love to get my members like a gift card. And I'm thinking, like, hey, I'll give my members like 40 bucks to like this. This restaurant that everybody loves. And he goes, he's like, what do you need? And he kind of said it funny, and I was like, where's this where's this going? So I I explained him what explained to him what I'm trying to accomplish. And he goes, What could you do for me? Like, okay. He's a little bit like heavier, just heavier set guy and super driven, like tape type I type A guy. What can you do for me? Well, what do you need? I'd like to start training. Okay, great. So he's like, Well, what would a year be worth to you? I tell him our pricing. And he goes, All right, how about this? How about I come to your gym for a year? I'll give you 50 bus, I'll give you 50 cards and I'll put a hundred bucks on all of them. Wow. So I'm like, wow, like can't believe it, right? So number one, I've got this amazing local business owner that everybody loves and he knows everybody and he talks to everybody. Yeah. I have 50 gift certificates, all worth$100 to give to my clients for milestones. And then I've got this amazing relationship. And it and it cost me, you know, a roster spot for a year.

SPEAKER_00: 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:08

Incredible. So the joint ventures were that was another big one for like helping grow the business. Going back to your original question after I rambled.

unknown: 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:16

Yeah. Oh, that's a great story. Yeah. So you got so you you're really, you know, pulling right from you know the playbooks.

SPEAKER_01: 31:23

I wanted four thousand dollars worth of worth of gift cards originally. Oh, I'm sorry, no, I wanted what? I wanted 40, I wanted 40 gift cards of 40 bucks. So I went 60, I wanted to spend 1600 bucks, right?

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

I end up getting up spending nothing. And you got 5,000 and you spent nothing. And you and you probably got a guy that's gonna stay after. And tell everybody in town about me. Oh my god. Game changer. Yeah, I think restaurants, people don't do that enough. I have a really good relationship with a local diner where I've had food items on the menu for like over a decade. And like we always get people coming in, like, I ordered the Gabriel Fitness thing. Oh, the Gabriel Fitness thing. Like, yeah, so restaurants are cool. Good job. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

I'm gonna I'm gonna ask he does so he does seafood, he does like sushi rolls. I'm gonna ask him to get give me a role. Yeah, give me a role.

SPEAKER_00: 32:12

Get like a North Star roll. Yeah, yeah. The North Star personal training role or something like that. Yeah, that'd be great. Awesome. So give us a snapshot of the business. How many staff do you have? Like, what's your role? Like, kind of how are things playing out right now? Yeah. So we're we're and now that you are legit in, I mean, you're beyond stage two. I didn't even realize this, but you're really barking on stage three for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:36

Yeah, I'd love I I mean, I'm like, I I want to be, I know, I know I'm on the doorstep. I want I want to see what your qualifications are so I could just bypass two and go right to three.

SPEAKER_00: 32:44

Well, I'm I'm about to I'm about to give you the answer. So why don't you tell me the structure? Because revenue-wise, you're past it, but sometimes it's not always just based on revenue. Sometimes stage three is based on like your there are some people that get to stage three money, but they're still very, very connected with everything in the business. So your answer will will tell me.

SPEAKER_01: 33:04

Yeah, so uh so we're in we're in about 2100 square foot. We run a small group training model, we max out at six people per group. I basically run two coaches concurrently on different schedules. So, like, for example, I have a 5 a.m. group that starts, and then I have a 5 30 group that starts. Both 60-minute training sessions, but they're running, we kind of like overlap them. So, you know, we'll move one group from the turf down to the strength equipment, we'll move the next group in, and they'll just convey her belt on the half hour through the morning. So two, I have one full-time coach who does an amazing job. I'm gonna make him our head coach in the new year. And then I have two part-time coaches. One does about 30 hours a week and the other one does about 25. And then I have myself who in the last in the last five weeks, I've coached one session a week for the last five weeks. And that is a that is a private training client who's a very successful business owner, that I quite honestly get more value out of that hour than he does. So that's why I coach that one session a week.

SPEAKER_00: 34:19

Smart. Smart.

SPEAKER_01: 34:21

And yeah, so we uh we'll we'll do over 60k this month.

SPEAKER_00: 34:27

That's that's a snapshot. So you're so you're not burned out, you're not working six. You're not you're not doing sixty sessions a week. You're spending a majority of your time growing the company, leading the staff, growing the company in terms of sales, right? I assume you're doing still doing some the sales.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

I'm still doing, yeah, I'm still doing all the sales, I'm still doing the marketing. My responsibilities really right now are gonna be marketing sales and then leadership. I'm actually even from an education standpoint, we have a weekly education meeting with our team. And this week I gave that to potentially the new head coach to say, like, hey, you're gonna you're gonna be responsible now for teaching us, you know, about the X's and O's of training, but that's that's now your responsibility. I'm gonna attend it, but I want him to be taking the reins of leading our coaching team, and I'm leading everybody as a whole.

SPEAKER_00: 35:25

Awesome. Yeah. No, that's amazing. That's a really solid business. The fact that you have given yourself one, the amount of money you're making, but two, the amount of freedom that you've given yourself. That is where I know a lot of people aspire to be. So I want to end with this. I think you've done a really, really one, I want to congratulate you. I mean, you have done a phenomenal job of you know taking, you know, going from your experience in San Diego and navigating the challenges with the family business and then starting something from scratch and then growing something from scratch so quickly, you've really taken you know a lot of the wisdom that you've gathered along the way from all of what from everything and have created something really, really amazing, right? And then and I do know you just had a did you have a fourth kid? Yeah, it's right. Yeah, four. You just said your fourth kid. Like people people like you end up having like seven kids, you know that, right? It's just like they don't stop at four. Yeah, uh and so all this while doing this with a family, right? And uh a fourth kid, so I mean you're doing phenomenal, man. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01: 36:40

Oh, wouldn't be there without you and uh in and kiss and and the team, the the guys that you know you hire, amazing, absolutely amazing. Can't uh like like we talked about earlier. I'm almost like to the point where like wondering what's gonna break because it's just it's uh it's running a little too smooth for my liking.

SPEAKER_00: 36:59

Well, I think you'll be okay if it does because you're a fast action taker and you you get stuff done. So I want you to envision the gym owner listening to this, the gym owner reading this book. And I want you to remember back when you were struggling and doing all the sessions and burnt out and not making the amount of money you wanted to make and tired and frustrated. And I want you to know that there's a lot of people listening to this and reading the book that are at that moment, and I'm sure they're inspired by your story, but we can't make a magic wand and make it happen. They're still in that spot. What do you tell them? What is your advice to them to get cranking in in the right direction and make changes in their life?

SPEAKER_01: 37:48

Uh I think I'd probably go back to some of my biggest lessons is one, just get out of your own way, you know, get out of your own head, know that there are people that can do it better than you, certain things, and you need to find those people and have them help you. And then I think you need to surround yourself with people like like the SPF group, people that have done it before you, have more experience doing it that you can lean on and get their expertise, and then have some accountability. One more thing, too, actually I get comfortable with with understanding that you may not have the money at the moment, but you have to realize that you do need to invest in part with that money up front to to see a return on it. You have to have a little bit of faith in it. That's where a lot of my struggle was too, was not having any money. I didn't join the group in San Diego because I didn't have the money. I didn't do any ad digital ads because I didn't have the money. But if I had done that, we would have leapfrogged eight years. So those those are some big things to kind of take a leap of faith, a little bit of a leap of faith, and have some have some trust that you're gonna put some stuff out there with the right group around you and you'll you'll get something back from it.

SPEAKER_00: 39:00

Awesome. So I I heard an investment mindset, right? You know, from both standpoints, because you have to be able to have the investment mindset to hire somebody, right? Because that costs money to do it. And then the same thing with your marketing, you're investing in acquiring customers and then surrounding yourself with the right people, like finding you know people that you are doing what you want to do or have done what you want to do, and then getting their advice. That's really, really well, really well said. Any final words of wisdom from the great Jason Marr, who is like very quickly elevated himself into legend status in the SPF mastermind, you know, for probably the biggest first year ever.

SPEAKER_01: 39:46

So yeah, give us a I think you've I think you've blown my head up way too much as it is. I don't need to say any more. Just a just a thanks. Thanks for you know, thanks for running the group as well as it is, and you know, just a little extra push for me that got me to do it. You know, the group is responsible for a lot of this. Kiss is responsible for a lot of this, and I appreciate it. It's an honor to be here. Honor to help you in any way I can.

SPEAKER_00: 40:11

Awesome, man. Well, congratulations. Appreciate you and looking forward to seeing what you do this year.

SPEAKER_01: 40:17

Thanks, Vince.

SPEAKER_00: 40:18

All right, brother.