What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode. This is Business Secrets for Gym owners. I am, of course, in the jujitsu parking lot recording this podcast, dropping my young boy off, getting there and getting after it. So it's good stuff. It's a great sport. If you have kids, get them into jujitsu. It's one of the best things you could ever do as a parent. Couple things. We just finished our annual plan event last week. We had a really, really awesome day where I brought in about 20 people in person and then another 60, 70 people on Zoom to do the annual planning event. We did a five-year vision. We set one-year goals. We said personal goals. We decided upon a Masogee, which is like a big challenge for the year. All really, really great stuff. A lot of people left with a ton of clarity and a lot of energy. A lot of energy and excitement. And sometimes it's you know, it's interesting. Sometimes you don't need to change your situation. You sometimes you don't need to actually change your situation to feel better. Like you can, you know, be really frustrated about your marketing, right? And you could come across a new way, structure of how to send an email to your list. You could come across a new offer that you thought of. You could find out about a really good success story that you can use in marketing. And instantly you'll feel better. You'll feel like a little bit more energized to do it. And it didn't fix the problem, right? It didn't, it didn't change the result. Like you still you haven't brought in another customer yet, but you're hopeful, right? And that's hope, right? And that and that and what it is, is it's one of my favorite quotes. It's action cures fear. And when you do stuff, you're gonna feel better. And so that's what it's always trying, and I have to remind myself of this because you know sometimes I have to move myself, right? Move myself into action. And if you if you sit around and you wallow, you're always gonna feel helpless, really. But when you're moving and you're active, like you're moving towards something, you're you're you're gonna feel good. And it's that energy that keeps the momentum going. And then eventually, you know, when you start putting things into place, that you know, you start seeing the results. But you don't you don't don't wait to feel great about your business to get an actual result. Get the feeling from the action and the movement that you're actually taking, right? So we had that. We had the annual planning day, and then I had a great guy come in, Jason Marr from he's up in Massachusetts. He's got a phenomenal business. He did half a million bucks in his first year, in his second year, he'll do 720K. He's in my elite program. Elite is where it's a regular he's in regular SPF mastermind, but we have about 17 people in our elite program, and they meet with me or Joe out in Colorado two times a year uh for three hours, and they come, and it's like a consulting day, but we split it up into half days, and they do that twice a year. And then uh so he had a a great, great fit great, great finish to the year, bought uh bought a nice car for himself with all the profits because his accountants yelling at him. We actually had a bunch of people in the group, their accountants like, go buy something, go buy something, because they made a lot of profit this year, and we don't want to pay all that tax. He said, Go buy something. So all good stuff, not all good stuff, definitely you know, it's challenges and frustrations. There's challenges and frustrations in some of my clients' lives. There's challenges and frustrations in my life, nothing's perfect, but overall, I I I definitely think as I go through life, I I I definitely used to hang my hat and hang my happiness on my business and how I was doing. And you know, and and there are certain circumstances where sometimes it's not where I want it to be, and I found myself getting really frustrated and shit and feeling not great. But then the other thing is I remember that that's not the only thing in my life. Right? I have a great wife, I have three awesome kids, I have my health, right? I have really, really a good group of friends, you know. I have people like I work with that like I just are my fri my the people I work with are just awesome people and they're my friends too. And I get to hang out with guys like Joe Hashey all day, like it's man. So I think that sometimes we we do this, I forget there's actually a term for it. I can't remember what it is, but it's where if one area is in your life is going poorly, you deem your entire life like that. So if like your work is bad, your everything is bad in your life, and that's usually not the case. And so you gotta find, you know, the overall approach to how things are and how you're doing in life. All right, I'm I'm rambling. What do I want to talk about today? Today I want to talk, uh tell you a couple stories and then lace some of these lessons in with the stories. I've told the story before, but if you're a first-time listener, it's worth hearing it. So I hired a consultant to sit down with me for the day, and she started asking me all these questions about my numbers. What's your cost per lead? What's your lifetime value of your customer? What's the margins? What's the CAC ratio? Like she gave she started spitting all these numbers on me. And I was like, I have no idea. I don't know any of those numbers. And she basically looked at me and she's like, I'm sorry. And you know what the embarrassing was? She was a client. She was a client at GFP, and she had like she was a consultant too, and she was a client at GFP, and she played hardball with me. She got up and she was like, GFP is my gym, if you don't follow. And she's like, Sorry, Vince, I can't help you. You don't know your numbers. I was like, and she's like, we can you know reschedule at another time, but you gotta get this stuff down because I really can't tell you what to do if we don't have any of this data. And she like left, gangster. I was like, damn, that ladies, that's why she she told she ended up selling her company for like a bowlload of money. But she's a baller, right? And she was right. She did, she and and she taught me. And here's the think of this is uh taking a detour here. This is the difference between being nice and kind. So being nice is oh Vince, all right, well, let's look at the numbers. Let's that's the nice thing to do because it didn't hurt my feelings. The kind thing to do is to tell me the truth and to be like, you don't know your shit, dude, and you ain't gonna ever learn and know your shit if I don't walk out of here and make you feel a little bit weird. And she was being kind to me. And sh she might have changed my life. It might it's literally like it, you know, from that day forward, it's like I am going to start getting a grip on this finance marketing data thing. Because I didn't have it at the time. And so my best friend at the time was a hedge fund guy, and he was in the hedge fund space, but he hated it, right? He was just, you know, dealing with idiots all day. Well, not idiots, but people that he didn't like, right? And he hated it, and he's like, I told him, I was like, dude, I got this lady, she left. Like, I need to I gotta understand my finances, and he's like, all right, dude, I'll help you. And he started doing my books, and then he started teaching me about accounting and finance and taxes and all these different things. And, you know, since he was my best friend, like he spent a lot of time with me, and he's really patient because he knows his friend's a big dummy, and it's harder for him to understand these things. But he spent a ton of time with me, and he gave me-I mean, literally, he's been doing this with me for I think it's now like 15 years. So for 15 years, he's been in my like back pocket and has taught me everything I need to know about finance and accounting and investing and taxes and all this stuff. And I I I can tell you that I'm not where I'm at today without the education that I have on not now, I'm not like the best in the world at it, but I understand I can look at a P ⁇ L, I can see what it means and doing everything like that. Very, very all my companies follow very, very specific processes in terms of the data and what we want to look at and what we want to how we want to make decisions and everything like that. So it's it's a really, really important piece to me. So one of the things and and it's interesting, I talked about the CEO mastermind before, but one of the one of the things that people that join my higher level programs, the reason they tell me they join the higher-level programs is because I want to know my numbers better. I I I feel like I don't and it's almost like this, you know, you know, we're embarrassed about it or whatever. But it's it's it's it's not something that just comes to you for some but for most people, this is a difficult thing and a difficult thing to have. And so you need people in your life that are going to keep it simple and and and make it clear, you know, for you to follow. Right. And that's what Mike does for me. And honestly, that's what Mike does for hundreds of gym owners. He's got like a hundred-something clients from you know gyms all over the world where he helps, you know, do this numbers thing. And the funny thing is, is Mike is he's a bit of a what I call it, I call him the spotted owl. So he's like, he never, he's not on social media at all. He, if you Google him, like one picture comes up, like there's no other pictures of him. He never is out and about. He's always he's he lives in Cali, so he likes his hangout in Cali. He likes the weather, he doesn't like to go, he hates the woods, he doesn't like to go, he hates the East Coast, that's why he left. I always yell at him for leaving. I was like, my best friend left me, bro. Went back to Cali. But he he very, very rarely is out in public, so it's hard to get a hold of him. It's you know, the only people that are talking to Mike are his customers. Right? That's it. You're not gonna see any YouTube videos from him, you're not gonna see any podcasts from him, you're not gonna see him on stage until now. Where I bribed Mike with a case in Addy Light to be able to come to the event and speak on stage with me. He's like, I'm not doing a keynote or anything like that, I'm not doing PowerPoint, and it's gotta be you and me talking. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna interview him on stage and basically structure and ask the questions that I know need to be asked so you can get as much insight about money, about data, about numbers as possible. Like this is going to be incredible. It's not a guy that does this very much, if at all. And to hire him is a good chunk of money, and you know, the advice that you're gonna get at this event is gonna be absolutely amazing. So I'm super excited that he's gonna be there. He's going to be you know hanging out at the event and and everything like that. He's gonna bring his family out as well, and they'll probably hang out at Disney and stuff like that. So really big stuff. But the the important thing is that we gotta get a grip on these numbers thing. We we gotta understand and not just you know knowing the numbers and know what they are, but then you have to understand and learn the thought process behind what do you do with them. And that's really what I'm gonna probe him on. That's really what I'm gonna push him on is like, all right, now I know my payroll relative to revenue. Now what? Now I have my profit percentage, now I have my rent relative to my top line revenue, right? What do I do now? Like, what do I do with all this information, right? And so that's really what I'm gonna get him, I'm gonna pull out of him, right? Is is is what to do. Okay, it's one thing to look at. He will tell you what to look at, what statements. There's three statements to look at that you get from your accountant. There's your scoreboard metrics, which I talk about all the time, the things that you're tracking weekly. These are things like your leads and your trial, like how many consultations you had, how many new members you signed up, what your retention is, and and everything like that. So that's your your what's called your leading indicators, but then your finances is a whole separate piece of it. But he's the expert in all of the data and he knows gyms inside and out because every one of his customers are gyms, believe it or not. It's crazy, right? There's very few finance people that are working just with gyms, but it's really cool that he's doing that. So yeah, that's the the the first thing, and you know, I'll tell you how you can get a ticket to the event for a 90% discount if you're listening to this podcast. Second story. I have a mentor, and his name's Tom. And Tom is a probably the known as the most legendary person in the fitness business space. And he's been doing it for I don't know how many years. And I think back to the time where I first met Tom, and it was at a Perform Better seminar when I was a trainer out in San Diego. And I went to the I went to the seminar, and I sat in the seats, and I was working 50 hours a week at the time. And I'm just like burnt and tired, not knowing what's next, and I didn't even plan on at that point. I don't even think I had in my head that I needed to open up a gym. I was just training people. And, you know, he talked about, you know, making money, and he talked about developing a career, and he talked about having freedom, and he talked about, you know, owning something and how important it is to own something, to build wealth. And I wasn't even thinking about any of this stuff at the time. I was just wanted to train. But it kind of hit me, and I was just like, man, that that's this is my next step. This is where I need to go. And I think in that seminar that he gave me the permission to to do something like that. And so I, you know, said I'm going to I'm going to do this, I'm going to open a gym. And I ended up, you know, moving to New Jersey from where I was in California a few years, I think it was a few years later, after this. And I I opened the gym and soon after I, you know, you know, did okay in the beginning and then had my struggles, right? And I was like, I need some help. And he was, you know, the guy I called. I was like, this is the guy that got me into it. I'm going to see if this guy, you know, can help me. And I remember at the time, I think it was like 200 and I think it was like 250 bucks for the hour. And I was just like, holy shit, how am I paying this much money for a one hour of anything? Like this is like absolutely crazy. And the funny thing is, I paid Dan Kennedy$4,000 for an hour not that long ago. Right. But back in the day, I was like,$250 for one call for an hour? Like, this is crazy. But I like bit the bullet and got on the phone, and he, you know, was as real as real gets, and he was the he was just in your face and told me what I needed to hear, and he told me a, you know, being you're little being a little baby, and he was, you know, where everyone around you is dancing around you. You know, Tom gave me the brutal, honest truth. And it was really, it was really what I needed at the time. And one of the things he asked me was, he said, you know, where do you want this thing to go? And I was just like, I don't know. I don't really know. I'm just kind of like, I'm here, I'm working. I'm like, I you know, he told me to open up a gym, so I did, and here I am, I'm doing it. And he's like, no, we need a direction. We need a direction. And I was like, well, can you help me find the direction? I was like, because I don't know what to do. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what I want. So now I need help figuring out what I want. And so what he did was, and this is really interesting, he started asking me, not about business, but he started asking me what I want in my personal life. He was like, What kind of home do you want to live in? How much wealth do you want to leave to your kids? I didn't have kids at the time, but do you want a kid someday? Yes, I do. Do you want to leave the money? Yes, I do. Do you want to have this? Like, how do you want your life to be when you're you know? And he started asking me all questions about me as a person, not about my business, about me as a person. And he told me this, and I'll never forget it. He's like, Your business is the vehicle to give you the life that you want to live. And so once we figure out the life that you want to live, now we have to build the vehicle to go get it. And I guess I told him some big stuff. And he's like, You want some big stuff, buddy? So we got to build a big vehicle. So let's get moving. Right? And I remember him saying that. So he he he he helped me build a big vehicle and ended up building a pretty big vehicle. And Gabriel fitness my gym. I think the the peak of our revenue was 1.6 million, which you know, back you know, in 2014 was like unheard of. Like unheard of to have be making that kind of money at you know, a single location, you know, gym. Now some guys I got guys in my group doing way more than that. You know, so it's really awesome to see. Um, but at the time I had built something that was a unicorn, and you know, he was behind a lot of it. He was behind a lot of it, he gave me a ton of advice to help me get there. But one of the things that I got from Tom was always the life stuff. Like he always helped me with business stuff, but he always hooked he was old a lot older than me, so I always looked at him as like a mentor and a father figure, and I really I really got a lot of value out of the life stuff that that he he taught. And similar to Mike, I have invited Tom Plummer to speak at our next event, which is coming up. And one of the I I said, I don't want you to touch fitness business. Okay. We got that. We're gonna talk about a ton of stuff. I got Waldron coming, I got Joe Hashi speaking, I got you know Carly speaking, we got the fitness business thing covered. I want you to make us better people and better human beings so we can build the business that gives us the life that we want, right? And then enjoy it and then be able to enjoy that success. So I asked him to craft, you know, a very specific presentation that's gonna help us live our lives the highest possible level that we can live. I'm super excited about that talk, and it's gonna be it's gonna be great. It's gonna be an amazing event. I'm super excited, it's gonna be in Orlando, Florida. It is on February 27th, 28th, and March 1st in Orlando. Now, the theme, let me tell you about the theme. This is gonna crack you up. So last year I told you guys we did Gym Business Raw, which was a wrestling theme, right? And this year, I have decided on a theme called the Gym Pranos. Okay, so one of them from New Jersey, one of my favorite shows was The Sopranos. So we are doing a Sopranos themed seminar. Now, understand this if you don't know me and you've never been in my world before. And you're like, I'm not going to a seminar about the Sopranos. It's not about that. That's the theme. That's where we have fun. That's where we laugh. Right. But it's going to be all about helping you make money at your gym and helping you live the best life that you possibly can. The fun part is going to be there's going to be some shenanigans. There's going to be some things that we're going to do that's going to make us going to make you chuckle and laugh and have a great time, right? Because that's the way they go. I don't want to go to a seminar that's boring. Let's have some fun while we're there. So that is the event theme is the gympranos. I'll be dressing up as Tony Soprano, of course, and then we'll have that. But one of the reasons why I picked Tom is Tom's the Godfather. Tom's the godfather of fitness business. So I have Tom, you know, there as well as my good friend Mike, and we have a bunch of other speakers coming that I'll be announcing as we move forward towards the process. So I am very, very, very excited. We are, you know, I think 70 days away or something like that, and maybe even less than that. And it is going to be epic, just like Jim Business Raw was. The last one was epic. This one's going to be even more epic. And I cannot wait for it. But I really think that those two stories, you know, will hopefully, one that hopefully gives you some insights on how important some of this stuff is. One, knowing your numbers, two, knowing what you want. And then you can take those two things and you can be like, okay, I don't know my numbers. Okay, I don't really know what I want next. You know, and and knowing what you want is not just like a rookie business owner thing. There's a lot of gyms that are doing really, really well and they're making lots of money, and they're like, I don't even know what's next. And it's a really good thing to be able to decide. So yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be epic, it's gonna be great. I cannot wait. These events, we put a lot of energy and effort into planning of these events, and we're gonna have some fun, but we're gonna learn a ton. I'm gonna have some really good speakers there for you, and then you're gonna connect with hundred, a hundred gym owners. You know, like think about this, like other gyms that are doing what you're doing, you know, and some of them are kicking ass and doing really well. Man, what a what a room to be in. So it's gonna be it's gonna be great. So that is the the show for the day. Now, I here's the the last thing I'll tell you. The normal ticket price. Now, this isn't a private event from my mastermind, but we allow, one of the reasons why I'm talking about it is we allow a certain number of guests, the people that are not SPF members, that can attend the event as a guest. The ticket price for the normal ticket price for the event is 997, 997 bucks. If you are listening to this podcast now and it is before, hopefully it is before January 1st, as I record this podcast. I think it's like mid-December. We'll be releasing it soon after. If you listen to this podcast and it is before January 1st, 2000, it was before January 21st, 2026. I'm recording this in 2025, and you want to purchase a ticket for 90% off, meaning$900 off. So you can purchase a ticket for$99. We are only making this available specifically to you podcast listeners to on uh by January 1st. Okay, so once January 1st hits, the ticket prices will go up to 997. So if you're listening to this and you're interested and you want to come to the event, there is a link in the show notes. All you gotta do in that link is book a call. It's probably a five to ten minute call with my guy Tom. He'll tell you a little bit more about the event, and then you know you can decide if you want a to purchase a ticket, but do that before January 1st. Super excited. I really hope you can make it. We love what we do, we love working with gym owners, we love helping gym owners grow the business, and I'm super excited to see you. Hopefully, see you there. Thanks for listening. Peace.