SPEAKER_00: 0:01

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the FBU podcast. I have a very, very special guest today on the show. It's on it's rare that I have guests. Uh usually just me yakking into the microphone talking about whatever's on my mind. But once in a while, I bring on some of the best of the best guests. And today is the legend. I I call him the term goat is thrown around a lot lately. And I think Tom Plummer is the goat of fitness business coaches. Many of us are where we are today because of all the years of coaching and advice and guidance and punches in the mouth that we got from Uncle Tom over the years. Many of us are not where we are today without his his advice and help and love at the same time. And so I I 100% can tell you that I am not where I'm at today without Tom, both in my gym and my consulting business. And you know, he's retired, but he's now still out there, still doing stuff. And I'm honored that he's going to be speaking at our event coming up in Orlando, the Jim Pranos event. So if you haven't gotten your ticket yet, make sure you get down there and get and grab a ticket. There's a link in the show notes for that. But Tom is going to be the keynote, he's the last time he spoke in Orlando was March 8th, 2020. And about you know, five five hours later, after you got you walked off the stage, Tom, and the whole world turned upside down. And the funny thing is that this is actually an interesting thing. We didn't even talk about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

No, it was already handled. It wasn't brought up in the lobby. They were already worried. That was my last. I had 22 more gigs that year, and that year was the last one I did. Everything after yours was canceled for the rest of the year. And it's just, yeah, three countries. I was supposed to be in Brazil that year, back to Australia, back to London, and then all the domestic gigs, every single one disappeared after that workshop. So what a way to end with Vince.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14

Well, six years, six years later, we're back, same hotel, same everything. And it'll be it'll be amazing. So I'm honored and and grateful that you're going to be down there speaking live. You're slepping down to Orlando. You'll be there in person, and we'll have a great I know if it's uh you're there, we'll have a great time. That's one thing for sure. But I wanted to bring you on today just for a quick podcast, quick discussion. The cool thing is, you know, we were just talking before we recorded. You and I got on the phone to kind of set up this podcast, right? To have a five the plan was a five, a three to five minute conversation to talk about this podcast. And that turned into a 97-minute discussion, the future of the world, and everything like that. And it was absolutely amazing. So you still have so much wisdom and insights, and I'm always grateful to talk to you. So I know you're gonna drop some some great stuff for us today. So, Tom, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:11

My pleasure, man. Always my pleasure with you. So thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00: 3:15

Yes, sir. So let's start. You have been doing this. How many years have you actually been coaching gym owners?

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

Uh I trained my first client in 77. Okay, so before our sports. Yeah, uh, yeah, before most of the guys were, yeah, it's uh and um so coming up to 50 years and uh sitting on 50 out on the road, taught my first workshop in 79, and I've surpassed way past 1100 workshops now, and every place you could possibly do a workshop. So yeah, I've been around for a minute or two. Yeah, it's been out there.

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

So you've seen a lot 50-something years, 1,100 workshops, thousands and thousands of gym owners that you've had conversations with, both in a coaching you know, format, but also just at on the breaks in the bar at the workshops, too. And you've heard some of the cries and the oohs and the ahs of struggling gym owners. And that's the big question I have for you. And it's there's a Charlie Mogram quote that I heard the uh recently, and it was the key to success in life is doing these three things. Don't do cocaine, don't race trains to the tracks, and avoid all aid situations.

SPEAKER_01: 4:39

And so by sharing I'm sad, I'm sad that it was history and that person, that's all they got. That's all you got. That's pathetic.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

But the point is knowing what not to do is very, very insightful. And so I ask you, what are the things of all the ones that struggled that you know spent their whole gym life struggling and you know, really tired and burnt out all the time? What are the commonalities between those gym owners?

SPEAKER_01: 5:13

When you asked me that question to set up the podcast, I've never framed it that way. So you really triggered some good stuff. Actually, it's making me crazy sitting up at 11 o'clock, pounding on my laptop, trying to figure out, okay, so what the hell did it mean? Where did this come from? What is if you got to put it down, and and there's a picture that kind of appears from that question where you you kind of look back and you can get it down. Kind of that's the essence of what I'm gonna attempt to do for your workshop is to bring it down into what is the problem, what is the solution, so to speak. And I'm looking at this, maybe the number one, these are no particular orders, but the big one is people don't know what they want. I'd like, you know, you open a gym, what is that business going to do for you? You open a consulting business, you open anything, and just and they they open it, but nobody often they're not sure why. And I tell people over and over again, never get in until you know how you're gonna get out. That business has to be something in your life. And many guys just end up opening and they buy themselves jobs. They they don't know that this understand, think about that. This business sets you up for the rest of your life. And so they and so when I ask people what they want and they open a business and then they screw the business up, they never master the parts of the business. That fascinates me. It's just you you own a gym and you don't know how to market. Take a marketing course. You own a gym and you can't read your own financial statements. My God, get some help. Have somebody sit down and explain it to you and learn. You staffing, we don't go to workshops on staffing, therefore we get frustrated and uh we yell at people, but we have no clue on what we're doing. So we own a business, we don't even know the parts of the business, and it's incredible. And so that we and we we look at those things, and it's just the business is simple. Uh, maybe the ultimate thing, and you do it's um, I'm worn you vintage, you got me warned up just wound up with this question, is possibly the biggest thing is every day you have to sell somebody something. And I see gym owners talk to them, they go, Well, I don't really like to sell. Well, then close the gym, you're gonna fail. You know, every day you sell memberships, then but they're so busy being busy that they're too busy to make money. And there's a their thing I use, I take a barbell and turn it sideways. And I this is how most people run their gym, the horizontal management method. And they they they train a client, then they go sit in their office for 10 minutes and then do a text, and then they solve a problem for a pissed-off member, and then they fire a staff, then they hire a staff, they train a staff, then they go try to do marketing. So they 60, 70 hours a week. I'm so busy, but they're they get stuck at$25,000,$30,000 a month, which is pathetic in this industry. And because everything is equal weight. Instead of understanding if I just got more leads, I could convert those leads into memberships, and I could get an average in a training gym world of 350, and I do eight to ten of those months, it's a million-dollar business in 18 months. But then we're so busy with all the other stuff that we just we can't we're too busy to make money. So again, I I'll go back to that the way I started that is you when you own a gym, why? What's it supposed to do in your life? It's a vehicle to get you somewhere, but we don't drive the vehicle, we don't understand what we bought, and we failed to run it, and then seven, eight, nine years later, we're pissed off because we're still making twenty-five thousand dollars a month and we close it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

I it's interesting as someone that has struggled with not knowing what they wanted, right? And that's the one of the first things you kicked me in the teeth with I don't know how many years ago that was. Yeah, it was it was a while, but it's interesting because I've thought a lot of that about that question. And why did I struggle with that? Why do other gym owners struggle with that? And I think it is I was just writing down notes as you're talking, and I think this can be very helpful and insightful, and I want to get your opinion on this too. I think people have struggle deciding what they want because when you have to decide what you want, in order to make a decision, you have to say no to certain things. And so, like in order to choose this, if you go to a restaurant, you if you choose chicken, you're saying no to steak. The same thing goes for target market. If you choose adults over 40, you're saying no to adults that are 25. And I think that's scary. I think that that's scary for people to say no to certain things because it shuts off possible possibilities. And when you take off possibilities off the table, that can be a scary place to be. And I so I've thought about that a lot of like it is not knowing what you want is all about the failure to say no, which is hard and which is scary. I wanted to get your thoughts around that. Is that on the right track? Do you feel like that's one of the reasons why?

SPEAKER_01: 10:35

I I think there's a layer under it, and that so I was wrestling with a client, he's got a nice space, he's topped out at about 45,000 a month, which is decent and 2,500 feet. But he's been wrestling with the year is should I expand this space? Should I move across the parking lot into landlord's other space? Should I build my own building, or should I just move the whole location? And this has gone on for a year, and I finally just like make a decision. And it's to go with the no, to take your point just a step further. When I say no, it also forces me to make a commitment, and that's the commitment where I have to admit what I really want. And I don't think a lot of people know that. So the saying no, but the subtle thing under it is the commitment. I have to declare. And finally, this guy declared. He said, I'm gonna do this. I'm like, okay. Now the next hour I spent with him was the probably the most productive we've had in a couple of years because we had a plan. It's just if you know where you're going, then we can build a bridge backwards to today. But if you have no idea where you're going, you with your 20-some years of experience, my 50 years out here, guys like us can't help anybody if they don't know where they're going. Yeah. So they they just sit there, and a lot of people, because of the fear of commitment, and one more layer under that, which I think is people they get caught up in the should, not the I want. I think a lot of people do know what they want. I think they're terrified to admit it sometimes. It's just I had a guy in a speaker school and he broke the second day. He was in the hall and he was crying, and he was leaning up against the wall and he had tears in his eyes, and he was not coming, you know, he was hesitant to come back with the breakups. I said, Matt, what's going on? He says, I I've always wanted to be a speaker standing in front of a room because I think I have stuff to teach. And I would never admit that to myself. And I probably have wasted 10 years of denying that to myself. And he says, This is the first time I felt confident enough to admit that's what I want. I've never even admitted it to my spouse. And here's, and so I think when we admit what we want, we have to commit to what we want. But we on your side of no, I also have to say, well, it's like your parents. Oh, Vince, oh, well, you know, if you do this, you're going to make your mother and I very happy. This is what we think you should do in college and with the rest of your life. And so there's a guilt trip, there's a should, or the spouse whispers, well, if you work less, we could spend more time with the kids. So that gym you're wasting all that time in, you know, why don't you just get a real job, honey, you know, or something like that. So we get caught up in the shoulds, we get caught up in the guilt, we get caught up in that. But I think it's just admit what you want and commit. And that commitment scares the hell out of everybody. Because once you declare it, now you got to do it. And a lot of people are that's where the hesitation I think comes in.

SPEAKER_00: 13:55

Yeah, no, for sure. I I guess it always comes back to fear, right? And you know, why people don't show up to your I mean, a lot of people do, but why more people don't show up to your public speaking masterclasses. It's scary as hell.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

Terrified. Yeah, yeah, it's terrifying.

SPEAKER_00: 14:13

It really is. It's like, and even me, like I, you know, it's funny, I you know, not nearly as many as you have, but I went back to speaker school last year, and I've spoken for a decade, you know, and spoken on many big stages, spoken in front of 500 people before getting back to speaker school and being evaluated for me was it was nerve-wracking. Like I was like, possibly also because we were in the SPF mastermind was there, and I'm supposed to be their guy, and it was a little bit like, all right, I'd better show up and not let any of these guys do better than me. But uh, and I think one of them actually did. John's already killed it, he did amazing. But yeah, those does so it all comes back to fear. Okay, so they don't know what they want, they don't sell, and we could add marketing into that same frame as well.

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

Any other course uh there's a terrible fee. When you look at the gym, we know the parts, so they fail to master the parts, which is senseless because if they had any other job, they usually have to learn all the components of the job. In the gym business, I just go in because I think I'm a good trainer and I want to train. And so I really it's like I again signing up for a marketing course. There's somebody online that would help you, and specialties and and the Facebook algorithms, how to use Instagram better, how to create YouTube. There's stuff out, nobody takes courses. So then I I you look at another layer under that, and one of the things I you know I'm trying to work into what I'm I'm gonna do for you is people are resistant to change, and why? And if you think about it, it's there's that person that doesn't know how to fix it, but they won't let anybody else fix it. I've got a a friend I've known for 35 years in this business. His business every year is mediocre. His wife runs the business and she's terrible, absolutely horrible. And he just wants to train. But she's so bad at it, but she won't let anybody else fix it. So she can't do it, but won't let anybody else do it. And I think there's a lot of gym owners like that that they just have that ego, that sense of ego. That's when I'm picking up on what you said while it goes there's that sense of ego where they've got to do it themselves. They can't ask for help. And then the second guy in there, maybe a level above that one, is they ask for help and then take you give them an idea, they take it home. And I always talk about the big dog. You got a truck, you go to the park, you let your gold retriever out. He runs all over the park just peeing all over everything. You know, he's marking his territory. So a guy like you gives somebody an idea, they take it home, jack it up so badly because they got to pee all over it, so to speak, and then they blame you because it didn't work. Dude, that's not the idea I gave you. So, ego, again, they can't admit that maybe you have that. So you work through, I've got five or six stages of that. I work with clients, but to get up in that level where you're willing to be coached and you're willing to admit that what you're doing isn't working, and you're willing to submit to somebody else to help you, that's what makes consulting so difficult for so many people is that there's very few people willing. How many, you know, you've got guys, I'm sure, sit in your workshops for two, three, five years and still do$25,000,$30,000 a month. They don't change. But the the text out there, the information's out there, the marketing advice is out there, they don't change. Why? Because of resistance to change, they can't change, they just can't admit that they can't do it, but they're not going to let anybody else help them. And so they'd rather ride that pig into the dirt than change it. Makes me insane sometimes with that, with those guys. And you just can't help them.

SPEAKER_00: 18:03

I have a question on that. And again, every time we talk, it's like I the the hardest thing to do today is limiting to this to 30 minutes. But how do you balance I I I we're gonna flip to what are the successful gyms doing, right, in a second. I'm going to guess that there's some ego in that in that group. And my question is like, how do you balance the part of the ego that is driven and wants to succeed and wants to win and the ego that is just destroys a business that doesn't, it keeps them where they're at? Where's the balance between the the two of those things where you use your ego in a healthy way to grow, but it doesn't get too crazy that you know you don't even recognize who you are anymore?

SPEAKER_01: 19:00

If I looked, I just taught a light planning workshop last week, just a whole day of where are you gonna be in 10 years, what do you want? I had four guys in this room that would probably be, if we looked at the top ten training gyms in in the in probably the world, they are probably four of the top ten by revenue per square foot. And it's weird, but the guys that are most successful have the least amount of ego. And they're because they come into it looking at the business as a tool, not as a child, not as something. They come in and look at it as they just they're they see it differently. One of my guys is doing 1.8 million in 1900 square feet. And he's he there's not a shred of ego to this guy, unless you play golf with him. Then you're gonna see a little bit of macho stuff because it's just some dude playing golf. But he's one of the most coachable people I've ever met because he'll just sit, ask ideas, and then he adapts them, but he he just he's willing to do that. And I've got another guy pushing two million and nine thousand feet this year, and that's a lot of revenue. And the difference between him and the guys that resist and don't want to change is ego. He has none. The the better you get, the more willing you are to let go of your ego and just kind of you learn, you you you set it aside, you become a self-actualized human being where it's okay to you develop relationships because they do help you, not because you're trying to outdo them, outmatch them. You're willing to ask for help. It's like my my clients, and I always laugh at stage four clients in consulting. Stage one, they're failure. Stage two, you help them, they start making money for the first time in their life. Stage three clients, they're like telling everybody. Stage four, they never talk to you again because now they tell everybody, oh, it was always my idea in the first place, and I'm really the one that taught Plumber everything. And you get a stage four client where they don't, they simply don't remember who they used to be, how they started. Why? Because their ego says, I have to be that guy now, I have to be the person. When you did speaker school last time, your body has changed, your voice has changed, your experience has made you a new person. Coming back to take who you are and let yourself evolve into the next version version, Vince, that's no ego. That was something just you you know, you you evolve every three to five years. You sit up there and say, Look, I'm different now, and I want to be a better speaker, even though you're very good. You just said, take me to the next level. You know what? That requires zero ego to do that. That's just I want to find out how good I can be. It's not about ego, it's about potential. And that's and how good can you be? And most guys never reach the potential because they're so just they're just trying to out macho every other guy. And it's it's just suck. It's just it's what a waste of your life.

SPEAKER_00: 22:02

One of the have you read any of Robert Ringer's books?

unknown: 22:07

No.

SPEAKER_00: 22:07

So Robert Ringer is one of my favorite unknown authors, but he has a concept that he talks about called the ice ball theory. And the ice ball theory is essentially in however many millions, billions of years, the sun is going to burn out. It's no longer going to exist. And then the world would literally freeze over and turn into a big block of ball of ice. And there'll be no record of anything in anyone that ever existed. So the point is don't take yourself too seriously. We're all going to be frozen balls. I like that one. Okay, that that was great.

SPEAKER_01: 22:53

I heard that same theory from one of the old motivational guys. I had some, I've got some ancient books on my shelf. I mean, my books are probably older than most of the guys you work with. But one of the guys was the he said, just anytime you drive by a seminary, peek over the fence because that cemetery is filled with people that thought they were totally irreplaceable. And so somewhere out there they are. And the gym business, we look at these things, it's just I'm fascinated by how many gym owners in their 20s up to their 40s just they fight everything because they again they don't know how to do it, but they refuse to learn how to do it, and they refuse to let anybody help them because the ego has to admit that I don't I don't know how to do this. But it's like driving it for our first time. You have to have you ask for help somewhere, dude. It's something I don't know. Teach me. I just it makes me crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 23:50

One of my favorite stories of you that you actually don't even might not even know about, and this shows you're no ego, but I have a buddy named Brent Gallagher, he's one of my one of my really, really good friends, and he's got a gym in Houston that absolutely crushes it. And he hired you for a consulting day. And in the first hour, you told him all the things he needs to change about his business. And then he says, Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm doing three million dollars in about 6,000 square feet, and our margins are off the charts. And you paused and you said to him, Forget everything I just said and don't fuck it up. It's like it's my favorite story. Like, I don't even know if you know that. I don't even know if you know Brett, but he's a really good friend of mine, and he tells me that story, and it just shows that like no, you weren't you were trying to give him the best advice you could, but then you realize that business was about a unicorn, and don't mess it up.

SPEAKER_01: 24:59

Sometimes that's hard to do. See that sometimes it's hard not to screw it up, and especially when it is an outlier.

SPEAKER_00: 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

Yeah, there's yeah, there's a there's a guy in LA that's he showed up two workshops and he sat in one of my three-day, the old business schools, and we used to get 20 people locked up for three to five days, depending on the time of year. And he had 6,000 feet doing about seven and a half million in LA. And he was telling me his numbers, and I'm just like, I'm I'm not sure, dude, I got anything that you need. I said, What are you here? He says, You're always going to find new ideas. And then I'm like, Oh, okay. But it it was very flattering that he was there, and I'm not sure I ever could help him because he was such a freak. But the funny thing is, he he took a he had to take a call right in the middle of the workshop. And you know how I like you know, people doing calls and workshops. And so he grabs his phone, runs out, and he comes back in. He says, That was my brother calling. He was in the space station, he's an astronaut, he was flying overhead and just wanted to make sure he could talk to me for a few minutes. Like you're a freak, dude. You're just everything about you is a freak. The whole family's a freaks, you know. It's just but he was very kind, he was very gracious. But there's sometimes where when guys get to that level of they still seek help. I'm not so sure they need help. But it's amazing that both of those guys, you know, your friend and my client, the other client, look at that, they ask for help, even though they're crazy successful. That says more about them than it ever would about the stupid ass consultant. You know, that they how how good you have to be where you're you're doing three million and you're still looking for opinion just to make sure you didn't miss anything. In today's world, that guy'd write 12 books, he'd be teaching 35 workshops, and he'd be selling you the hacks and all this. Here's a guy that's an outlier making three million dollars in a gym, and he's he asked for somebody to look at his business. That says, man, what does that say about that person? Their ability to let go, there's not a drop of ego anywhere in there. That just that's pure. That's why the guy's successful, that's why that guy's brilliant, the guy in California's brilliant, that's why the guys that make the most money, because I think they're all like that. They're humble enough to say, what am I missing?

SPEAKER_00: 27:17

Well, my friend uh that we're talking about Brent, he's a very, very loyal follower of the show and listens to every episode. So, Brent, there you go, man. We're talking about you on the call. All right, so let's let's switch gears. We talked about what screws it up. That we're starting to get into what are the things that make it work. 50 years you've coached all the big dogs, my friend Frank Nash, Greg Girab, who's actually an SPF mastermind member, uh, my friend Colin McGarty, who's I'm trying to get his butt down to Jim Pranos. He's uh he said he doesn't like to leave the state of New Hampshire. That's what he said. So what are the big dogs doing well?

SPEAKER_01: 28:02

I think there's not a there's not many traits. You can get them down to four or five key points with all of those guys. Uh you'll probably get Colin down because he's a Disney freak. He goes, so you're you're probably gonna you could get Colin down just if you guarantee he could go to Disney one day.

SPEAKER_00: 28:18

He's a he's a he's a big wrestling, he's a big wrestling fan, and he didn't come to Jim Business Raw last year. So I'm I'm starting to think he's he's just not gonna make it.

SPEAKER_01: 28:28

So I I look across the board at the people that make money, they're one, they understand how the business really works. These are sales machines, they have to be. You have to create a vehicle where somebody buys a membership. So a lot of gyms flail because they try to be everything to everybody, and their marketing's horrible. So if you look at all the gyms that are very successful, and I'd say all of them, they are all target specific. They have a very good grasp of who their member is, what their client needs. Like that most of the gyms now, when you training gyms, you're 90-95% of your people who are over 40, probably 70 to 75 percent are female. They're the top 25 to 30 percent by affluence in any given market. They're they're very target specific. And the guys you mentioned all have very target-specific gyms. You know, Colin's got probably in that, we we think New Hampshire, Dover, you know, how many clients can he have? The original Planet Fitness is there. He's probably got eight, nine, ten clients within that county. And he just, but he's different. He's separated himself. So the guys that are good have a sense of differentiation. They don't they're they don't try to be better, they try to show how they're different than everybody else. And you see stuff, my last workshop I taught last fall, I pulled up websites from like 15 gyms in Florida, Boston area places, and they were crap. They were just absolutely totally crap. It's like you know, we have professional trainers, certified trainers, and we're gonna design a program specifically for you, and we're that gym where everybody's gonna love us, and it's just and here's all our trainers, and it this it's worthless. But the other guys market toward finally a gym where you belong, or here's a gym designed just for you, or here's a gym for affluent people. You can see by the other people in the ads, testimonial driven, and they all do the same thing. They master their target market. But most importantly, on all this, that barbell I just described earlier, Vince, they turn it upright. They stand it on its end. And somewhere in there, every single one of them has come to that point where all they do is work on lead acquisition, lead conversion into visits, visits into either trials in my world, six-week trials for most training gyms, and then conversion into memberships at an average of 350 or higher. They do that. Everything else they farm out. And I can one of the thumbnail things is if you ask me if a gym is successful, tell me how many hours a week the trainer, the owner trains. The trainer's training over 10 hours a week in his own gym. I'm gonna tell you right now, without looking, it's a$25,000 to$30,000 a month gym, and it will be forever. You can't train over 10 hours and you just broke it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:29

You just broke some hearts right there, Tom.

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

Well, but look at your you know, if you're happy making 30,000 bucks, I'll give you the same thing that Brent, you know, just don't screw it up. If that's what makes you happy, do it. But if you're not making the money you want, it's you.

SPEAKER_00: 31:43

And the funny thing is, I think Brent does train more than 10 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01: 31:49

So does so does Greg Grab. But Greg Grab, one of the best things Greg told me is he went in one day and started training because he still loves it, not because he has to. Right, right. And that's the and that's one of one of the things I try to teach everybody to get a 10-year plan, seven-year plan, get that plan, next one with a bit zero on your birthday. The day you go to work because you want to, not because you ever have to work again, is the best day of your life in your gym business. You don't want to be going to work when you're 57, your back's torn up, and you're you've got$5,000 in the bank. And if you don't make money this week, you can't pay your rent. That you don't want to get to that spot. But yet I've got clients that come up to that because they just they've been real happy training 30, 40 hours. I love what I'm doing. They make$50,000 a year, and then they get old, meaning 57 and damaged, and they're they can't go to work. They're just they they don't love it anymore. They've lost the passion. It's been 25 years of sweaty people. You know, they just they're done, but they can't be done because they've never learned how to do the business. So the guys that do it all well, they they they only do a few things. They focus on sales, they don't train in their own gyms very, very little, or unless they have great managers like Greg Drab, that people that can run the gym and sets him free. But you and you look at that and then you look at the focus, the ability to farm everything else out. You get a good lead trainer that can manage them, manipulate the process. And one thing I would say, one common thing we don't talk enough about, you know, even you and I should have that conversation sometime, is they they're willing to evolve every three to five years. Now, how many guys left over from 2005, first generation CrossFit guys just keep clinging to the technology? You know, Greg Glassman was a genius. CrossFit was absolute genius. I I that's one of the few things in my 50 years I've looked at this and go, man, that was magic. He was so right. He committed, he invented community, he brought that into the gym world. The guy, he his certifications, everything he did was just a stroke of genius. The guy never gets enough credit, I don't think, for what he created. But the world has kind of moved on. And can you evolve? If you're an old team guy from 2010, can you evolve? And how many of these guys don't evolve anymore? So you see these team natural franchises, and they're mostly all not doing very well. How many of them are those guys that own them say, I need to evolve, I need to reinvent my business and move on? So, one of the things is we cling to the past too long. We cling to old methodology, old technology, and then you see the guys that are good, man, they're willing to just break their gym every three to five years. They're willing to, you know, a couple of my guys are just completely gut their gym and put the pod system in because that's what you need now to be effective. Then other guys fight it because they still want to train like they used to. One big gym, and I just take my clients all over the gym, and oh, that's the way we always did. Good, you're gonna be$30,000 forever. So, are you willing to evolve and re and reinvent yourself? That's why it margin you going to the speaker school, is there's another level of vents. You were willing to evolve and get shoved to that next level. And you know how many speakers out there, Chris Poyer sees a performer and he goes, Oh my God, they're teaching the same stuff for five years. They don't even change the damn slides. And yet here you are with all your experience saying there's another level of play, shove me. And so that willingness to evolve, we don't see that much in the gym business. The best guys evolve. They're willing to look every three to five years and let go of old technology, let go of old methodology, and take what it is. Nobody cares if you use a kettlebell, a barbell, a dubbell, a medicine ball, or a band. They care if they get results. So, what's it going to take this year with this client to get the results? Don't cling to methodology. Just who's your client and how do I sell them and everything else? Get the hell out of your pod, give it to somebody else, let somebody else manage those parts. You, owner, bring in new sales and you sign them up.

SPEAKER_00: 35:53

Amazing, Tom, for those on the fence for coming to Jim Pranos, which I don't know how they would miss dressing up as a as a mobster for the weekend. Can you give us a little trailer on what you're going to talk about? You know, what you're preparing for us. And I know you're everything you do is always you you always put so much time and energy and effort into whatever you do. You you're always asking questions about how it relates to the market. Make sure you you that's one thing is you as a speaker really understand is like who's in the seats and who you're speaking to. And you've asked me a lot of those questions about my guys, but give us a little bit of a the commercial before you wrap of what you're going to be talking about in Orlando.

SPEAKER_01: 36:38

As I hit the 50-year mark and start to kind of fade out and leave this industry to young gurus like you, there's still lessons, I think, left that need to be said. And what does make a gym owner successful? And how is that gym owner different than the ones that struggle and are frustrated with their business? There is there's things that we should think about in our own behavior, why we are doing what we're doing and why we don't change. And maybe if we understand that process, we will change it someday and be able to accept help and advice and grow this business. And maybe if we understand what this business means, it's a vehicle to create wealth. And you know, I I don't care about the million-dollar this, the million dollar that, the million dollar this. What I care about is money. If you've got enough money, live life on your own terms. Money is freedom. That gym is just nothing but a vehicle to create freedom in your own life. But we don't understand that. We don't understand what these gyms are about. So what I'm going to try to do in 90 minutes is for you, it's just like, okay, man, here's what I've learned from 50 years working with guys all around the world, and here's what works. And I will tell you the a funny thing, at one point, the top seven gyms in Poland were guys that went to my workshops. The number one gym in London for over a decade, 3,500 square feet to about 1.2, was the guy that we've done, I've done workshops. There's a consistency with the guys that play, and I've been very blessed to be able to see these guys in motion. But all these guys, the guys in South Africa that were scoring, my guys in New Zealand, my guys all over the world, they all have commonalities. They all do the same thing. It's amazing when you get down. If you get the top 20, 30 guys down, they're like a brotherhood. There's no egos, they exchange ideas freely, they reinvent their gems every few years. They're not resistant to change, they know what they're trying to get done, they've mastered the sales process, all these things. And you know, just as I kind of head toward the door these days, I'm that's when we're gonna try to share with people. And we do it there, and we'll probably do over a few glasses of wine in the bar later. And that's uh that's just the way it works. But there's just there's got there's what whatever time I have left out here to teach, man, I'm gonna try to share what I've learned with these guys and what I've seen with the successful gems, and just you know, as I hand the world off to you, and you know, that whole generation of guys are trying to change the world next. It's just there's some still some lessons out there that would be worth sharing.

SPEAKER_00: 39:14

Yes, sir. I'm excited for it. I know everyone coming down to Florida, super excited for it. If you're listening to this and you want to come down to Florida or get a virtual ticket, which you can just click the link in the show notes and all the info is there, or you can go to jimprados.com.

SPEAKER_01: 39:30

Can I throw one more that like now?

SPEAKER_00: 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:32

Go live, come to the event. Oh, yeah. There's something about the brotherhood, and I call it the brotherhood of the table, where you get people together like for dinner, you people sit at lunch, you sit on breaks and talk to people. Live workshops, we've almost given that up, the human touch. You may you sit there on a break and have a cup of coffee with somebody, and he's got a successful gym and he shares a couple things, that's worth the whole trip. You know, you you walk to dinner with somebody, you have lunch at a table, guys are throwing ideas back and forth. The information in your workshop is always good, but it's the brotherhood. It's everybody exchanging ideas for three days on breaks at dinners, having a drink afterwards. There, we that live touch, that's what drives it, man. You guys do that so well. They I the virtual, you do a good thing with that, but man, get your butt. It's a land though. Just come down and hang out. It's worth every penny to come and see the speakers and exchange ideas with people that know how to make money.

SPEAKER_00: 40:32

Well, it's funny you say that. We built out a conference room in the back of the gym. And so we now do regular meetups in person. So we have our regular big meetings like this. But now as a mastermind group like yesterday, I had about 12 gym owners come in for like a half a day, and we just sat around, you know, had lunch, talked ideas, and it was great. It was such a good time. Lost art. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:55

Lost art, yeah. So yeah, I mean, they could sign up online, but they need to get their butts for Orlando. It's going to be worth it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:01

Awesome. Guys, thank you so much, Tom. Always appreciate it. Always learn. I've got a couple pages in notes here, as always. And thanks so much for doing this. And I will see you in Florida.

SPEAKER_01: 41:13

Thanks, my friend. It's always an honor to be working with you. Thank you so much, Vince.