Welcome And Why This Interview

SPEAKER_00 0:02

What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the FBU podcast. You guys know that I have spent the last h however many years I've been doing this podcast, it's like getting up there, uh, yakking into the bottom of my phone when I'm waiting for my kids at Jiu Jitsu. That's the we have created the number one fitness business podcast in the world. Not my words and not my mom's, uh, but the words of some obscure website online that gave us the number one ranking of fitness business podcasts in the world. And most of that's come from just me yakking into the phone. But uh as I do this more, I'm realizing that hanging out and bringing smart people to interview on these calls has really been a very insightful thing, not only for me, but for you guys in terms of feedback that I've been getting. So I have an unbelievable guest today. I've been super excited for this one all weekend long. We have Jason DeRose from I don't know what to say you're from. You're from Jim Subs, you're from like what like we're gonna talk about that. But I the the these podcasts are twofold. One of the things that I'm doing is creating a testimonial book for my mastermind members. And I am interviewing members that have had success in my SPF mastermind, and we're taking these interviews, uh putting them on a podcast, but also transcribing and creating a book out of it. So it's one of our projects this year is our testimonial book, but also it's going to be an insightful podcast for you. So today I have Jason DeRose on the podcast. Thank you, Jason, for being here. You're the man. Appreciate it, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Pumped to be here, Vince. Pumped to be here. You know that you and I can talk shop for hours, so we'll see how much we can squeeze in.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

That's for sure. Yeah, and I just saw Jason and his team. Uh huh. And that's one of the things. It's it's it's an interesting thing. And I can tell a lot about a business owner by uh their staff. When I they come to an event and they bring their staff like many of our guys do, and I shake hands and look their staff in the eye, like I can tell there's going to be massive success. And I see that with the squad, I see that with the people that you bring, not only from the gyps gym sub side, but also from the the side of your gyms as well. So I I definitely am seeing you're doing amazing work with the hiring process, which is we know is so important. Okay. So just start by giving us because you have a lot flying around, a lot going on, and I know there's listeners that that know you personally. You've been on the podcast before as well, but just give us the 30,000-foot view of all this the the the world domination that you have going on right now.

Jason’s Business Portfolio Overview

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Well, first, thanks for having me here today, Vince. Yeah, I got a lot of I got a lot of pots on the stove, so to speak. But, you know, I've been in the gym business for a long time. I started my own gym this April be 18 years ago, which is a uh a few years. And you know, like a lot of people, I started out as the trainer, custodian, bookkeeper, and everything else. And, you know, now I'm I'm I have three locations, and I if I do go into them, a lot of times they think I'm like the custodian or something because I'm fixing something, or you know, I don't really train or on the floor. But you know, faster is is my gym. And again, it started 18 years ago, and it's been the catalyst to a bunch of other things that I got myself into. One is Gym Subs that you mentioned. It's a private label supplement company where we make the most premium supplements, clean, high profit margins, and we train the gyms how to sell the product. So we're not just like, here's your supplements, go go get them, champ. We actually teach you and give you resources. Some that I stole from you. No, I stole some of your things from the SPF vault, and we have something like that. It's a members resource portal. The more tools we can give you and things like that, then you can have success. But long story short, it's an opportunity for gyms to have an extra revenue stream and add more value to their gym business. So that's something that we've done. Again, that business was was a was came from the catapult that my gyms leveraged us with capital and things like that. And then we have a commercial real estate company or we own a few commercial plazas and and things like that in the Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Ohio area. And then we also have the private real estate deal. We have Airbnbs and things like that in Florida and Pennsylvania. So that's that's the 30,000 foot view.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

That is absolutely amazing. And again, I was saying to saying this about Jason to him before we started the show. There's no chest beating. You're not gonna see Jason talk about the value of his portfolio online. If he doesn't even talk about it, you probably didn't even know he had commercial real estate properties, unlike a lot of others in the industry that we know. They're like posting how many properties I have and all this stuff. It's just like this, what I love about you is your humble nature, but you are a killer in business. And we're excited to learn some of that stuff from you uh today. So let's so you and I originally got connected through Gym Subs, right? I originally had you at one of our events as a vendor, right? I think you came and you know you were a vendor for GymSups to, you know, sell and you know, make aware to my clients about gymsups, which I am full disclosure, I am a client of GymSups. We sell gym subs supplements at my gym, Gabriel Fitness. And that's one of the things about my vendors. I only have a very I have a very small handful of vendors that I push. Okay. And all of them I am a customer of or have been a customer of before. And so it's it's not an easy thing to do to become a vendor of mine be because of that. And you know, I became a Gym Subs client, but something interesting happened when you showed up as a vendor. Can you kind of tell that story? Uh yeah.

The Event That Triggered SPF

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah. So I brought one of my operators of my uh one of my other locations to say, hey, why don't you come with me on this trip? You can help me facilitate leads and things like that. And I go, it's a gym owner conference. So like you're gonna learn some probably some cool stuff. You know, I'm like, they'll probably try to sell you a million things, but we'll just we'll see how it goes. And you and I just met at a million performed betters, but never really had got to know each other that well. So we're sitting there Thursday night, Friday, and to Saturday, and it's right around right after lunch. I looked at Anthony, my operator, and I go, Ian, I can't believe it. He's like, What's what what? I go, no one's tried to sell us one thing in three and a half days of being here. You know, this is very unusual. You go to these conferences, especially if they know that I own a gym and they're trying to sell me their software and all these, you know, even the presentations like, well, you can get you can make a million dollars if you email me after this, and I'll I'll charge you five grand to show you the way. No one's done that. I'm like, they're just honestly giving you good tactile things to make your business better. Like, I think I want to join. And then I walked up to you and you go, hey, how's the event going? You meeting some new people? I go, Yeah, I go, but honestly, I think I want to join. You were like, join what? I go, the group. I'm like, it's freaking awesome. You were like, really? I go, yeah, dude, we're joining. And that's how it happened. Um I had zero expectation of joining the SPF. I'm talking 0.00. And you never mentioned it to me. No one did there. No one tried to say, hey, you should probably get in this. And uh it was it was one of the best decisions I've made in a long time, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

So let's talk about that, like where the and and we're taking you know gym stops and putting it on the shelf for a second and just focusing on the gyms, right? So you own three gyms now. How many did you own at that time? Two. You had two. So you had two gyms at the time. You came to this SPF event not thinking about growth of the gyms, really of growing gym subs, but you ended up joining SPF. Okay. What were the things that were going on in the business in the two gyms that you had that got you to be like, hey, we need something like this in our businesses? What was the business framework looking like at that point?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

At that time, they were both healthy businesses, you know, profiting over 10K a month each, not amazing, but you know, um nothing to bat an eye at. And I just was content and I was putting all of my time and energy into gym sops, and those businesses were just kind of running. When I came out to Orlando, it was almost three years ago, and I met you guys, I got re-invigorated with that business. And it reminded me of so many things that got me to that point, you know, because at one point we were we were profiting in one location, 30, 40k a month. And I had gotten away from that. Obviously, the pandemic didn't help that process, and I was still kind of rebuilding from from 2019, and it just juiced me back up. And I'm like, well, every Joe Hashe was one of the first speakers. And I'm like, wait a minute. I used to do that, I used to do that. I'm like, why'd I stop doing all those things? So it gave me a re-energized feeling to get back into the roots of the business and and really, I'm a very competitive person quietly. I don't when someone comes up on stage and says and shows their PLs and how well they're doing, I'm like, you know, I should be doing that. Dang it. Like, why'd I get away from that? And then having Anthony there with me, he's young, he's fired up, and it just it was the right timing, the right place, and it put us onto a trajectory that, you know, I think we I know that we smashed our goals from that day until now, for sure. And I and we were on pace, like you said, just to having those two gyms. And now we just opened our third location today with 61 pre-sales. I'm pretty excited about that. That you know, a lot of that came from things that we had talked about in the SPF. But our new kind of model plan is to open five to ten in the next five years. So we're the the gyms are back, baby. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

So you didn't so you didn't have plans to open more when you joined SPF?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

It was kind of just like a thing on the side that you were not on the side, but it it was I mean, 10 grand a month ain't nothing to laugh at, right? For sure. But it wasn't something you you had all these other businesses, the gyms weren't something you were looking, you know, necessarily to to grow like you are now.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Correct. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Can you I I want to stick on the problem because I think that it's it's very interesting that you didn't have like some of the typical issues, right, of what a normal gym has when they join SPF. Normally they're like, oh, I can't get leads, or I don't know how to make sales, or I can't build a team. You actually had, you know, a good business, good businesses. So I'm not gonna take credit. There's some people in the master around I can take credit. They they came to me struggling and broke, and we turned them all around. I will not take that credit for you. Okay. But what were what were the things that you started to realize about your business that you're like, all right, we're not doing this well or we're not doing this right? What were some of those things? So I can highlight some of the problems that you solved in the last couple of years.

Reorganising Systems After Staff Turnover

SPEAKER_01 11:21

I would say the the one word captivates it is reorganizing. And, you know, for an example, we had a marketing calendar from 20 probably 12 up until 2021, a really good one. And it just kind of vanished. So it's like, wait a minute. All the things that got me to the to this point of success, I've kind of gotten away from in the gym side of things. I had so much focus on the supplement company that they just, you know, staff when staff turnover happens, that's when systems go by the wayside. Because that person that was responsible for the marketing calendar no longer works for your organization. That, and unless someone on top is in charge and overseeing those things, that goes away. And that's what had happened over the years. And being in the SPF, the biggest takeaway I got was pinpointing those things, making a list of those things, and now have actionable steps to implement them back into the business to make it better. It was very simple, but Anthony and I talk about this all the time. The SPF gave us an opportunity to sharpen the sword. It had gotten dull. And now it's razor sharp over the past two and a half years. We've done a lot of legwork, and I've reached out to you and Joe on a couple of things on some pinpoint ideas, but it wasn't like, you know, I'm training 40 hours a week and answering the phone and cleaning the bathrooms. It wasn't one of those situations that that you run into quite a bit. It was more of like a look, we have a good business. How do we get it back to that excellent level? You know.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Beautiful. And, you know, one of the things that I like to do on these podcasts is highlight some of the sex success. You you are one of our most frequent checker inners, which is like you got a lot going on, right? And the fact that you every Friday, so we do a what's called the Friday check-in on our private Facebook page where SPF members will answer two questions what's going well, where do you need support? And you are like consistently checking in every week, which I love and appreciate. And you got a lot going on. And every time I see one of your check-ins where you're like, plus five for the month, plus eight or delta, you call it delta, right? Delta eight, delta seven, delta, like you're always growing. Your oh your business is always growing. Uh and you're not even talking about gym stops. Like that's I I'd imagine that's like your biggest, most scalable opportunity is gyms for sure. Uh but you're not even talking about that. You're talking about as a member of SPF, you're talking about your gyms. There seems to be consistent growth. And so you you talked about a strategic priority, which is the reorganization and getting things cleaned up and organized. But talk us, talk me through some of the things that you've implemented that you've learned, you know, from from SPF. What are some of the things tactically that you could share that you guys you know have done at the gyms to be able to continue this plus this is it plus delta or just deltas?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Delta's what's the delta number? That's what we're left with at the end of the month. So if you have, if you gain 10 members and you have five cancel, you netted your delta's five. Delta's five, yeah. Nelted, you netted five people. So yeah. But you know, I think I think one of the biggest things that we implemented right away from a staffing perspective was putting the right people in the right seats. Because I was out of the business, I'm like, I would just be okay with sliding someone in to fill a gap. Well, maybe when I slid that person in, it wasn't the exact right seat for them. You know, if they're not a creative person, they shouldn't be making my my social media graphics and things like that. So that was one thing that was it that took some time. You know, when you move someone around and you're and you're talking pay changes and things like that, those are tough. And I have some long-term employees. I have 15-year, I have 12-year, a nine-year, I get some people that have been with me for a long time. And some of those folks have over overlapped into my other businesses as well. And and you know, now what I've learned from this was I had to separate them. They were both too big to share and go back and forth. So gym subs team, which is separate, and now there's a faster, which is my gym team, which is separate. So that was one big thing because now the focus is on the gyms only. Where gym subs, well, yeah, there's gym. Well, the gym's there, it's doing great. We'll just, you know, let it go. It's fine. Well, now these folks that are focused on the gym, that's their they breathe it, they bleed it only. That was a mistake I had made before. I had too much overlap, and they just didn't put enough effort into the gym because the Sutherland company was was doing and is doing really well. Um so it's kind of an afterthought, in my opinion, is kind of what happened.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

So so you had people working in both companies, and their kind of focus was spread a little too thin, and the shift that you made was you're a gym person, you're a gym subs person, and that's what you're gonna focus on.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

There's zero overlap right now. And when I met you, there was a lot.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. What else? What are the so org chart, you know, uh right people, right seats, accountability chart. That's something we work on, you know, with every business, no matter what the stage is, and it is like probably the most important ingredient, you know, for a successful business is putting the right people in the right seats. What other things, you know, sure.

Weekly Staff Meetings That Prevent Fires

SPEAKER_01 16:35

This is this is easy. This is really easy. These are easy answers because that was step one. Now, step two is how do I make sure those people are okay? And what I mean by that is it sounds like a time suck, but it will save you thousands of hours and sleepless nights. I promise. So I make it a point to meet with every single staff member, at least in my original location. Now I've hired Anthony to help me with the other ones. But we meet with them via in person, usually or Zoom, worst case, once a week. And it could be a five-minute conversation or a 25-minute conversation. And always starts out with, hey, how are you feeling this week? How are things going? Great, you know, awesome coach. Like, man, we're crushing it. Let's look at our numbers. Hey, how is it working with Matt? I know Matt's a little bit of a control freak freak on the floor. Are you okay with that? Yeah, he's he's we've had some good pre-shift meetings. It's going well. Or no, Matt's really open, it's taken over everything. And I can fix and solve that issue that week right now. If I don't, it becomes a problem that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then I eventually would lose that person, you know. So I think that the moral of the story is if you can get your employees to not feel like they're on an island and that you're on you're with them, you know, it might be something personal going on with them, might be something professional, something in the something I'm doing that has to be a clear communication point every single week. It has, I have it's helped so much, but it helps grow the gym too. Because then we look at our Delta board, right? That they're in charge of who's coming in, who froze, when are they coming back, who are the leads look like? What who are we closing this week? You know, and sometimes those meetings can be like, hey, how was your weekend? Awesome. It was great. Anything going on? Tell me. Like, and I always say, like, look, be flat out with me. How are we really feeling? You know, and those conversations, Vince, have, I think, have have really helped the trajectory of the business, at least in the past two years. I just don't have HR issues like I once had when I was on, you know, I left those guys on an island and I kind of did.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

So what when you when you say you meet with uh different people in the in the gyms, what who are because you have two businesses, soon to be three, right? And now, like, who are you having those meeting weekly meetings with? Is it every staff member? Are you personally meeting with every staff member? Like, how does how does that go?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

At my one location, I was doing all of them, that was a little bit time consuming. So I do at my original location, which is close to where I live, I'll go in there like two to three times a week and I'll just pick one of them off. They know their days and times uh before the sessions start, and then we meet for five to twenty five minutes, depending on what's going on that week. And I just say, hey, like we have those conversations. So we we have a GM and I have three full-time trainers, and those you personally will meet with the full-time trainers as well every single week.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, and then we have an all-in meeting on Wednesday mornings at 10 a.m. for all of them, me and my and Anthony, our operator at the other partner now at the other locations.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

He runs that meeting.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

He's he's is there a different meeting that you have with the GM that you have with the trainers? Like, what's the difference between those two meetings?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, the the the GM meeting has more of a templated structure, and we go through that, and it's like, okay, are all of the, you know, tell me about your deployment for the different location marketing content, the emails, all these different things. And it's kind of like a scorecard, but that was presented to her really clearly when I made that position for her. So she's our operations director for all three gyms, and then also still has her thumb on the pulse of our original location as technically the general manager. That will positional probably be absorbed into her operations, and we're going to promote from within the actual GM there soon.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

That's awesome. So we got two things very well, we won't call them tactically because those are very strategic decisions that you made. One is the org chart, right people, right seats. Two is how you're leading and managing them. Give me one more, one more thing that you have implemented in the last couple of years, you know, possibly from a sales and marketing side or or attention side.

Marketing Calendars And Better Hiring

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Having a, you know, it goes back to 2024 when we reinstituted it, but having a in a quarterly marketing calendar has been a has been gold for us. Because I'll now I can go back to 24 and see in Q1 what worked for us, what didn't in 25, and now in 26, like we have March Madness coming up. You're just not gonna forget it. You can't do it in March Madness? Yeah, you can't do it. That's amazing. You know what I mean? Like, but if you if you have a system for it, the system run your business for the most part. It's like, okay, it's Q3 coming up. What should we do? Well, we don't have to do that. We know what we're gonna do based on what we did the past two years.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

For the I'm gonna I want to explain this really quickly for those listening at home because March Madness is March Madness was created by I I believe it was created by Mike Mullen, who works at my gym, Gabriel Fitness, and we created a playbook around it. And what it is, it's an internal challenge for members. And it's a play on the March basketball tournament. And what you do is you put your your team, you you take your memberships, whoever signs up, and it's free. We do it for free. I don't know if you do it paid.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Uh we do a chat box so we can do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, we do it free, but I mean it's probably like a small ante. is participation, right? And so you get teams of three, and then there is there's like a first, second, and third prize for winner. And then people get points. It's a point system where people get points for posting, you know, on social media. They get points for bringing in a referral. They get points for certain workouts and things like that. And it's a whole point system around it. But the I mean we're doing it right now at our gym and it is like nuts. Like these are grown up people that are like obsessed with like we have this one woman that was could you get like uh uh points for wearing a hat like if you post a picture with the Gabriel fitness hat on and she we don't sell hats anymore and she's like begging someone for an old hat. She's like I'll buy a used Gabriel fitness hat if you just like it's just like crazy what people are willing to do but it gets people so like engaged and fired up. So I'm glad to hear you're doing March when when are you starting yours? When are you starting yours?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Next week.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Next week okay great yeah oh that's awesome. So yeah that's one of the what we have great playbooks that we have in our resource vault and that's one of the March Madison's one of the of the playbooks. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

This is I would say the other thing too Vince is just I think this is a good nugget for anyone listening that's that and based on my last trip to Orlando which was three weeks ago a lot of people were talking about hiring. I mean I I know you had like a lot of sidebar conversations you know at the bar everywhere hey and I'm ready to make my first hire you know I think that is such a crucial and I I don't have to tell you this it's more for the listeners but if you want to grow your business you have to have people right you have to invest in people to because you can get outside of your business start working on it to grow it because you can't do it can't do it all. But hiring is something that we got really back to we all we always we did continue our system but it's just better now than it's been before it's updated. As far as we do a one month mentorship I think the worst mistake a gym owner can make is interview John Williams that has all these degrees and he interviews great and you you lock him into this contract and he's moody after the week one he shows up late. You just don't know what you can't decide if you're gonna get married to that person on the first date. I'm sorry you just can't do it. We do a 30-day mentorship we pay them for it it's a dis it's a discounted rate that we're gonna pay them but we're very clear if this is a long-term job interview you're gonna learn everything you can about faster fitness at one point we may stop and say hey it's been great having you but I don't think this is going to work out we're gonna we're gonna discontinue this today we pay him under the table because we're not locked into any kind of employment stuff and then at the end of 30 days it's like hey this this has been a great relationship we would like to have you we have them take a written test which you got away from on all of our faster values our training philosophy if they can't pass that test they shouldn't be there. And we have a very very detailed week by week script that they're gonna go through as well but that I got away from again but listening to the internship stuff and all those things just got me back into sharpening that sword which is if we're gonna grow, you know you can't grow unless you have great people and getting them from the from day one is how you got to do it and doing it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah so question about the uh it's called you call them mentorship mentorship yeah so it so basically you're like doing interviews and you're like this is a possible person we want to move forward with when they actually are there for the month are they training sessions right away or are they more shadowing like how does it work week one they say they have to get three four hour shifts in per week and it's a six minimum six to eight week mentorship is what we do.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

So week one would be just as a client our best trainers at some point were usually clients. Really yes they've either they went to school got their exercise science and came back they understood our culture so we know how important it is for them to feel and experience what we're offering. So week one is they they experience everything that's part of their their curriculum that we give them week two they're starting to practice what they learned in week one with some clients hey we're gonna have you demo we're gonna we're gonna have you do the warm-up the you know whatever it might be. And then week three they're starting to do more application. And then we, you know, it's common sense too but you get you can gauge that person and get them involved on a you know a concrete level as as quickly as you're comfortable doing. If they're really awkward you're probably gonna have them say hey this has been great but I don't think this is the right fit for you. If they're gonna fit in they're probably going to move pretty quickly through your through your stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I have a question about the clients thing because I I it's funny I I originally said I've never done that before but actually our best trainer well I don't want to say our best trainer because I don't want to hurt any feelings on this podcast. Hopefully they listen they probably don't even listen but that so one of our one of our newest coaches was an athlete client of ours for many many years. I mean he started with us in like seventh grade was a client all the way through high school middle school high school and college and then has a full-time job and is killing it right now like just doing amazing runs all of our social media a full full-time trainer so when you say you a lot of your clients are you talking about like kids that you know trained with you in your athlete program and then went to college or are you talking about like hey they joined when they were 45 you changed their life and they became got a certification and became a a a trainer of yours we which one fits the description for you guys or is it both?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Well the athlete one yes like Anthony is a rock star trainer that you've met multiple times. Right yep he was in fifth grade got certified this is what he wanted to do. Amazing so we you know when they when they're in there that long they know everything about you they know more about your business than we do. And then we've had over the years usually in the younger demographic 25 to 30 man this is really cool I'd love to do this. I'd love to be a trainer well what kind of background do you have well I'm a I'm a nurse okay well look look we have this mentorship program if you were interested in doing it you can but you would need to get certified in which we put them through the mentorship program. If it works out then we pay for them to get like certified in NASA or whatever it might be and then we hire them during that process. But I usually don't go over 30 ish but not that I wouldn't but just the ones off top of my head that we have right now are probably between 25 and maybe like 31 32.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Okay. Yeah I don't think we have any clients in that age bracket but it's a it's it's interesting that and I forget some you know one of these business gurus said this it's like the key to winning in business is staying in the game long enough. And you and I have been in the game for 18 years and you don't have that what we just explained someone training with you in Anthony trained with you in fifth grade and now a decade later he's heading up your gyms and doing all kinds of great stuff for you I made him a partner in our other two locations so he's uh he's doing right that doesn't happen if you're only a year in business. And so some of the things some of you guys just listening to this you need to just hunker down be patient and run your business and sometimes the longevity it's like the guys that and you're you're a perfect example of this you built a successful gym before you built a successful supplement company. For sure no doubt that is like I really want to make that point home I built personally a successful gym before I built the successful mastermind. And I think a lot of people do it backwards. They and I've made this mistake too I've I've made this mistake myself where they you know barely get out of stage one where they hire a couple part-time people and they get bored of their gym and then they want to go do all these other things like you and I are doing now but we put in 18 years before we did all this stuff right yeah so I think listening to home run your gym make it the countable to everything else you're gonna do it's very possible you just gotta like you said you got to hunker down it's hard I mean I mean there was many nights I slept at my gym you know I'm training from five in the morning till nine at night I'll just call my wife and say hey I'm opening at 4 30 i'll I'll see you no I'll see him tomorrow you know I I'll be honest like we have two two two CEO groups right and the one CEO group most of them have been with me for a really long time they're almost all of them are doing well over a million dollars a year. Okay but I have another group that is in the 40 to 60k per month range. And I'm telling you even some of those guys they've come up to the front of the room and they've gotten too emithy where they're they're they're focused on removed completely removing themselves from the business and they want to build binders and systems and stuff like that. And sometimes that's the right thing but sometimes it's not and what I've had to do with several people is kick their ass right back into their business and just be like dude your business is not ready for you to be going on vacation you know 20 weeks a year and you live in this you know you you're not making enough money to do that you don't have a good enough staff to do that. So sometimes the the the answer is get back into your business and roll up your sleeves and get dirty. It's just because you get to thirty thousand dollars a month doesn't mean you're gonna be this lifestyle entrepreneur that that doesn't do shit all day. For sure you and I are doing shit.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Right like we're working talked about this you still have a pulse you have a finger on your business you know what you know what Gabriel fitness is doing. Yes um the worst thing and I've seen this I've met some people in the group and other gym conferences that I go to they put their team on an island oh yeah we're killing it well really what's your what was what was 8 February's PL?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Whoa you should know this right now like if you don't then you don't know the problems probably that are happening in your gym as well right now yeah for sure I mean I could talk to you about this stuff all day let's uh I I want to I want to go with the in the direction of well first first this can you give me some data numbers of where the business was at when you first started an SPF and where it is now and what catapult did you to open the third and now five to ten which I haven't heard before which I'm excited about. Give us some numbers and data on where you were at when you started and where you're at now.

Tripling Profit And Opening Location Three

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah like like I said both gyms were we're roughly making about 10,000 bucks a month comfortably you know and we've almost tripled that in for both gyms at this point. And you know Anthony is not even present in his gym that he was in when I met you he hasn't he hasn't been there as as a trainer or anything in probably three months. He's been working on opening our new new facility and it's continuing to grow. And we backfilled him with a really good person that you know we we've structured a deal for him really well but we've trimmed down and scaled so much you know with the KIST rule which we all know keep it simple stupid holds a lot of value. So we got rid of a lot of moving parts and even our new location is just semi private personal training. That's it. We're not doing the athlete performance and all those every all those different modalities so it's a little bit easier but no that the the success of the gyms has from a scaling perspective and a profitability perspective have have given us the confidence to do multiple locations. And then hearing all the folks at the SPF that have done that since I was there three years ago also is encouraging. You can start talking to these guys and say well okay you opened your second how did that go how was your how was your fifth one you know and then getting on calls with guys like Devin him him and I have probably had 10 phone calls in the past year about scaling and opening new locations. Devin Gage has been awesome an awesome resource super thankful he's a gym stuff's client so we we service all of his gyms I'm familiar with their model and then finding okay what's comfortable for you you know to and fits your you know your your beliefs and values and and how much time you want to put in and things like that. But no the SPF has since we've gotten in because of all of those things we talked about earlier in this call about systems and marketing calendars and employee meetings have gotten us to the 30 plus thousand profit range per location which is we're we're very ecstatic. You know we're using all this capital to open these gyms without taking a loan out which is also a lot less stressful than going to the bank and trying to give your business plan and all that stuff that isn't a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

So yeah that's amazing so triple profit start just launched your third location with 60 paying members on before day one.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

61 61 sir sorry 61 before day one before day one 61 pre-sales and we did that in five and a half weeks when did it open today today is on holy smokes today is day one baby day one 61 on day one 61 what are they paying per month average EFT on that business is a little bit more than other ones around 400 wow so you got 61 members paying 400 bucks a month yeah shit dude that's incredible six to eight people max in the facility at one time six to eight yep okay beautiful so he's triple profit in both locations launched a third location with 61 members at 400 bucks a pop and have a plan to open up five to ten in the next few years which you didn't have before yes we have the plan it'll all come down to staffing if we have the right people for the right seats and we'll do it it can't fit a square pig in a round hole we all know that that's true and we've all made that mistake yeah so you don't have like a a timeline you know it'll come down to in the way I look at it this is what happened with Anthony and when I open our second location is I'm only gonna pay him so much out of one if I don't pay him more or promote him or give him another opportunity he will go and find out by himself. I'd rather do it with him.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yes yeah so sometimes you your growth is protection of your best team 100% it's like no one wants to be on a ship that's parked at the dock. They want to be on a ship that's going somewhere and this this train that you're on is going somewhere and that's why great people like Anthony and that's kind of like I said opening up this podcast it's like I can tell a lot about an owner by the staff that they keep around. You know Devin when I you know I Devin Gage you know I I've been working with Devin's business since he started right and when Devin started he hired a game guy a part-time trainer named Jeff and this guy was just a trainer like he I didn't even know like I don't think he had any training experience whatsoever when Devin hired him when I talked to Jeff today Jeff is the the basically the integrator for the gauge empire right he runs the operations and when I talked to Jeff I'm like I'm talking to a real business person. Like I had a conversation with him at the July mastermind and I I like couldn't believe I was talking to the kid I knew that was a part-time trainer you know back in 2013 when I first met him you know part of that is credit to Jeff's commitment to growth but a another side of that is Devin's you know commitment to leading him and managing him and giving him the right tools and resources and it seems like you're doing the exact same thing with Anthony and many of the other staff members you know that you've got so well done well done what what let's talk about you personally I mean you were always like pretty relaxed chill dude so I I haven't seen much of a change in you it's not like you're a different person by any means but from bringing your gyms from$10,000 in profit to$30,000 in profit but what are some of the wins for you that have come from the growth of the gyms you know Vance that's a good question freedom is a big one you know the the I feel like the more success I have the the more freedom I have or at least the opportunity for freedom.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

We don't always take advantage of it probably as much as we could that's probably a big one. And then you know I've I forget what speaker it was but they kind of hit a pain point with me was you know because of my competitive nature I played I played hoops in high school and a little bit in college and I'm still a junkie of 48 my knees hurt but I still like to get out there and do what I can. But I think I'm competitive more competitive against myself. I used to think it was others. Others would inspire me like we all know Colby Shrickengoss when he would tell me his numbers back in the day I'm like man I want to do that. You know he was he was killing it like crutching it. And I I realized it really wasn't that it was like I just want to keep doing better than I'm doing now. Like it's that's the I'm it's always a chase you know and when you when you have a good handle on your business you can chase it because you can clearly see what you're chasing. And is there an end? I don't know. So someone asked what do when do you stop running I'm like I don't that's it I don't have that answer. But it keeps me moving forward for sure you know awesome man.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Well question for you last one to wrap this up if you've been very complimentary of SPF which I'm you know super excited and grateful for if you had a gym you know that was a gym subs client or just someone you know in the industry that was you know knew they needed help with the business and they were considering working with either us or even just it could be just coaching in general like getting help from their business in general. What do you say to that person that's kind of procrastinating on it? They're holding back on it. They don't think they can afford it. They don't think they you know need it. What what is what is Jason DeRose's advice to those people?

Freedom Goals And Staying In The Game

SPEAKER_01 40:17

I usually tell them you know before before I knew you I was in a group called the STS that disintegrated when the world closed it was ran by Rick Mayo and that was very similar there was no sales nothing like that but I'll usually tell them look I wish I would have gotten the STS as early as possible. I wish it was available in 2008 when I opened the longer you wait the longer you can potentially be a prisoner to your business. If you want to be a business owner and not an employee go see Vince and get their help and take action on what they teach you to do. If you don't want to do that then you're probably gonna be in the same position a year from now when I say hey how you do and how are things going to make a change go see these guys and you know they're not gonna they're not gonna wave a magic wand they're gonna show you the way it's up to you to do the work that they're gonna give you to do because that's an easy one. But you know I get on a lot of calls Vince with gym subs people as as a lead call and they I always want to hey tell me about your business and they start telling about their gym and I'll say look and I'm just honest with them. I'll just say look I don't know if this is the right time to add supplements to your gym. I think you might want to focus on fixing some things first. There's this guy Vince Gabriel I don't know if you've ever heard of him and I push them that way because I know that if they can go through your program and then come back to me now we can have a lot more success with them selling and developing new revenue streams. But if they can't if they can't get guys to show up on time they don't know how to answer the phone or or they don't have a a texting service or things like that then they have to you know they have to go back to square one.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Yeah and Jason did not ask me to to do this on this podcast by any means but I do want to let the listeners know about gymsups can you give us the elevator pitch of gymsups how does it work how does it go again this was not talked about I want I use gym subs the majority of the members in SPF use gymsups and I believe in what you're doing I believe I believe in supplements right and I think that's an important thing in general like if you don't believe in supplements you probably shouldn't sell them but personally I believe in supplements I think they're good for people and they help people get healthier but I also believe in doing business with really good people like you and you've created a really good company and you've created really good products. Vanessa takes your creatine every morning now I take your creatine every I take all your shit it's like my favorite is the cinnamon roll protein but I do I do the creatine I do the fish oil I do you know all the stuff and I know you got some some new products coming out all the time but give give tell us about GemSubs.

GymSups Private Label Supplements Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Sure. So GemSups is a private label supplement company along with my biochemist we've custom formulated every single product that we have we have over 40 SKUs. They're the products that our clients are already continuing to buy folks would say well if I put my own label on it you know how good are they? I would put our products in the very top 5% of all products available on the market. There's no artificial sweeteners, all that stuff. We are NSF certified we are FDA regulated, which is unusual for a lot of supplement companies we third party test all of our products those are things that you know are very important especially to training gyms like we have because we're our clients a little bit more I'm gonna use the word picky when they're spending 400 bucks a month on a gym membership they expect whatever you're selling to be very premium. And then we custom make all the labels for you and make them look you know Gabriel fitness labels look vastly different from I have a gym in Wyoming that has animals on on their label. So much different and then the customer service and support is what puts us over the edge in my opinion you know you're not on an island selling supplements you have Have a resource on how to sell them. If there's a marketing tool that we don't have for you, we will make it for you. We're fools if we don't. We're only going to equip you with the best marketing support and materials that we can so you can have the most success. And you know, we and we're hyper-responsive people. We ship out within two business days. We don't require minimums, which is a huge thing for us. Who wants 24 vanilla protein sitting under your desk? You know, they're going to grow dust or legs and they're going to be sitting there for a while. So you can order one or a hundred, it doesn't matter. And we help you with all those things. So yeah, and we have great profit margins. I guess that's pretty important. You know, 100% markup on almost every product. So you can, you know, you have something to stand by at the end of the month. You know, if you can put two grand in your pocket and use that for your, you know, your kids' sporting events and a vacation or something like that, or an employee that you want to pay, however it may be, it's our opportunity to grow your business and make each seat in your gym a little more valuable.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

And where do they go if they want more information?

SPEAKER_01 44:58

You can go to gymsups.com. There's a lead form on there, and all that all that information goes to me and my team. We just bought dot com, by the way. Used to be dot.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

I was gonna say, it's like I thought it was always dots.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I think that's the first time I've ever told someone verbally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

You're the real deal. You're the real deal now. You're dot com.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yeah, someone sent me an email and said, hey, how what how important would it be to you to have dot com? And I'm like, I don't know. Then they sent me a number on how to I could buy it. I'm like, dang it, they got me. I need that damn thing. So we bought it.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

The gymsups, gymsupps.com. Again, you know, this is a this is a supplement company run by not a charlatan like uh like some of the industry, you know, there's a lot of crazy garbage going on in the supplement industry, but you are someone that I trust. You're someone that I want my clients doing business with for sure. So if you're a gym and looking to you know do supplements, definitely check out Jim Subs for sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

You'll see your picture on there. We have you on there, and Rick Mayo. All the ballers are on there.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

I don't know. I you you can't put me in the same category as Rick Mayo, not even close. Um but especially after what just happened to Rick. Okay, so last thing, question for you. Yes. Above your head, it looks like there's a book. It's a black and yellow book. There it is, baby. Is that my book?

SPEAKER_01 46:30

That is your book.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Now I got a question for you. Now you gotta answer honestly. Did you put that book here for the podcast, or do you have that front facing all the time?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

I did not put it there for the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

That I my wife may have been reorganizing and just stuck it there accidentally. I don't know. I had to look.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

I love it. So that is above your head, front facing.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

That's quick vision. See, that's I mean, you still got it, Vince.

Book Talk And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 46:54

You can see the floor. Which is which is which is interesting because because I do you can't really see behind me, I have like books everywhere. But what I do is a lot of books I will put front facing. Like if it's a good cover or something like that, or a book that I want to be reminded of of that I read, I'll put it front facing so I see it. So you have the ultimate guide to small group personal training. The only book on small group group the only book on small group training that exists.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

So it's so important because a lot of people aren't quite sure how to do it. They just kind of wing it.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah. Yeah, cool. Jason, thank you so much. This was an awesome conversation. I appreciate all the work you're doing. I appreciate the amount of credit you give SPF, but at the end of the day, it's you, it's your great team that's that's leading the show. You guys are doing amazing work and creating amazing companies all around the Pittsburgh area.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

So awesome, buddy. I I really appreciate being on, and you know I love talking shop. And as I always say, to be continued.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

That's right. Thanks, Jason.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

All right, buddy.