Welcome And Gym Background

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the FBU podcast. Many of you know that I've been doing this podcast for almost a decade now. And most of the time it's me speaking, yakking into the butt of my phone while my kids are at jujitsu in the parking lot. And we've been able to uh acquire the number one spot in the fitness business podcast space. We are the number one ranked podcast in the fitness business space. And that's not by my mom, and that's not by my wife Vanessa. That is by some very obscure website that probably found some algorithm and spit something out. And but at number one spots in number one spot. So we'll take it. But one of the things I really enjoy doing is interviews, is sitting down and talking to people, and not just you know gym owners in the and you know, um that are like my colleagues and friends, but clients of mine, clients uh of mine that are in the SPF mastermind, and that's kind of what I'm doing today. And I am here with Anthony, I'm gonna get it right, Dostoce. It's like I there's a few people in my group that I've been calling them the wrong name for like five years, and finally one time sheep asleep, they'll come up to me be like, you know, my name is spelled, and you were the one that was like, I was calling you like Diastis the whole time, and you like, you know, five years later you said no, it's actually Dostoce. Is that French or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Like, how do you it's it's actually Italian, but I just found out I'm a little Greek too.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So you're a group, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, Greek and half Italian. Yeah, so it's a good mix.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Well, we have Anthony Dosice, he's a phenomenal gym owner from Chicago, he's been in our world for a really, really long time and has a really cool story. We, you know, if you listen to the podcast with Caesar Hernandez, it was it was a big turnaround story, and Anthony has something similar that he's gonna unpack today. So, Anthony, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

What's going on, Vince? I'm very, very grateful to be here, and I'm looking forward to sharing whatever knowledge I have for your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Awesome, brother. So just give us like the background of your gym, of like, you know, where you're located, the type of gym you have, and you know what things are what's going on, what's cranking.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Awesome, awesome. So I run Hustle Strength to Performance. We're um we're a small group personal training gym for athletes and adults just outside of just outside of Chicago. We're in a town called Addison. And we also just expanded and opened up our second location about 15 minutes away in Glen Ellen. I mean, it's serving the same the same model over there, working with athletes and adults. And you know, we're we're grateful to be in this position and wouldn't be here without you know the the the guidance of Vince and his group.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, and we're gonna get into like what you have going on. It's a lot of a lot of cool things. But you know, I've known you for you know a while now, right? I mean, it goes back to you know, probably over a decade of kind of been you know, been circling around my stuff. Yeah. And you know, you're doing really well now and things are going good, but it wasn't always that way.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah, right.

The 2022 Consulting Day Wakeup

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And I think one of the things I like to do with these podcasts is, you know, Anthony, I think a lot of people they see a guy like you that's doing well, they see, you know, people like someone like Caesar that you know we interviewed before that's doing well, and they think that like you were always doing well, right? They think you always know you must have been born with two locations, or like you were born with and I think that these stories are important for for for people to hear. So why don't you take us back? You know, I know we were discussing before we got on of like where we want to start, but why don't you just take us back to that consulting day that you you know had with me and let's talk about where you were at that point, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Absolutely. So thinking about it just right now, getting like I just had flashbacks to it. And it was, I was a I was a nervous morning. I flew into New Jersey and I think it was 2022. It was a few months before my daughter was born. And that was a big turning point for me, just realizing, oh, oh crap, I really got to start to figure it out. I can't be playing business, as people like to say. And it was it was a big turning point in the eye opener when I realized that hey, I was gonna be a dad. We were about to buy, we wanted to buy a home. Me and my wife sat down. We wanted to, we had some goals that we needed to put in place. And I knew that something wasn't right, not only with myself, but also the business. And the that consulting day, the first one in 2022 and late 2022 was a big turning point mentally for me. I remember, you know, we sat down and spent the first half of the consulting day was spent more on my mind than anything in the business because, you know, that that kind of solidified a lot of me and you know, the success of the business, wherever it can be, is is based off of me and my head and my mind and my emotions. So dialing in on that was a big turning point for me. And then, you know, we then we got into the market.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Let's let's stick there for a second. Like, what were some of the things that you know? I I often say I have this quote all the time that, you know, the number one chokehold on a business is the psychology of the owner. Right. And I can address marketing and sales and operations all I want, but if we don't address the mind, you know, we're we're not gonna get where we want to be. And so what were the things that you were struggling with relative to to mindset on that day?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

In all honesty, it was probably my the lack of confidence and the belief in myself to actually go out there and grow the business. Because I see, I mean, in in your group and stuff like that, there's so many different people with the same level or higher levels. I mean, it was you can get a little discouraged easily, but it I you kind of helped change the mindset of, you know, this is more, this is inspiring. This is more of this is an opportunity to grow. And if things are gonna go bad in business, you have to, you know, and like the recently the book you recommended at your mastermind, the CEO sees around the corner. You know, I would now that is, you know, that's something that I really take take into consideration to kind of see what might be happening down the road and to kind of expect it. But from a mindset standpoint, it was more of just you know, just working on myself, number one, and working on my my confidence and the belief and you know the the programs and everything and and and all that.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

What were some of the things that we did? You know, this is a while now back, but what were some of the things that we worked on blanking on it? But I believe we did like a theater of the mind, but what were some of the tools and I have all these kind of tools and tactics and stuff that I use on these days, but what were some of the ones we used for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

The big thing was you you recommended a book. I don't remember the book. I have it at home. It's on my uh it's on my it's on my bookshelf. But we did we put a five to ten year goal plan in place, and then we kind of prioritized things that it was all personal stuff too. And it was, you know, just we kind of we prioritized those things and put actions in place to help get there. But I honestly don't remember the the exercises we did.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah. So I think one of the things if so one of the things I like to do with people is uh to create these uh rules for how our business fits into our life, right? Deal breaker rules for how we want business. Because I think a lot of times people can get like mad at their business or angry at their business. And one of the things I try to do is for you to realize that your business is the vehicle to give you the life that you want, right? And so the first thing we do is design the life. Like, what is the life that you want? What is the house you want? What is the family you want? What is that? Yeah. And then when then we reverse engineer it. What's the business we need to create to do that?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah. And that's exactly what you did. And you, you know, look now. I'm getting more flashbacks to it. And I remember that, hey, we sat down and we said I wanted to have one rental property in the next three years. And look, and looking now, I just got the chills thinking about it because we do have one rental property. We did buy a house, we we, you know, and we did grow the business to where we wanted it to be at that point. So the actions and steps, you know, were were clear, and I just needed to focus and prioritize and execute on those.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, and and for those listening at home, I didn't give him the book, The Secret, which is what you sit down and you, you know, think about all the things that you want, and then magically they come into your life, right? That that that doesn't work, right? What happens is you need to decide what you want, and then you need to go take action and actually do the things that you want. So that so that that was like the first part of our days. Like we need to really shift around some some limiting beliefs that you had about yourself and about your ability to run a good company, right? And I think the other thing is too, like confidence is like uh it it it really comes down to you know, I always talk about my four cornerstones of confidence, right? And that is one is that you have to manage you're not gonna be confident if you can't manage the voice in your head. I know we talked about that, right? It's a and again, it's something that you know I've worked on myself, but like you're not gonna be confident if you always have this voice in your head telling you what a piece of crap you are, and that you can't do it, and it's like you never you never so you have to learn to manage the voice in your head, right? The second thing is confidence is really all about uh skills and abilities, right? Skills and knowledge, right? If you are uh don't know anything, so I like the other day I went to a neighbor's house for a party. And like all of a sudden the conversation went to like deep, deep, deep economics, right? And I understand the basics of economics, but like these guys are this is what they do for a living, so they're talking about this stuff. And it's like I didn't have any confidence in that situation. Of course. I you put me on stage in front of 500 people talking about a gym march, I'm as confident as they get. But you put me in front of that situation, I'm like, I don't know what the other these guys are talking about. Right. I wasn't confident. So confidence is very situational. So really the second two things you need one, you got to manage a voice in your head, two, you have to get skills and knowledge, right? And the third one is, and this is a big one for you, and this was a big one for me, is you have to learn how to relax. Yeah, talk about that for us.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

That's that's a that's a work in progress. Uh still, still to this, still, still to this day. But looking back in at those times uh in 2022, I didn't know how to react. I mean, relax. I was more I was more reactive to every situation and kind of wasn't proactive. And it was quite simply the first two things you mentioned was I didn't have the reps to and I didn't have the reps to g to earn the confidence. And I knew with the goals and the the the level of business that we wanted to grow to, I needed to get a little bit better, a lot better on all those. Because I didn't know, I didn't know anything about marketing. I didn't know anything about sales. I just wanted to train people. I thought I was just gonna train people all day and people were gonna line up. And you know, that was I thought that was it. So I didn't have reps to to actually grow, and not to mention trying to lead a team at that point. Like it was, you know, that it was a whole, you know, it was a a long, a big staircase to climb.

Building Confidence And Responding Calmly

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah. I think you said something important there. You said you were reacting a lot, and I think that what we really need to do is learn how to respond versus react. Right. Because when we react, we usually don't make decisions. All of our lives are pretty much shaped by the decisions we make. Yeah. Right. And if we can learn to make better decisions, we're gonna have better lives, right? And so you said something important where you started to you were reacting, and then we as the work we started to do helped you more respond, right, versus react, which is which is much more thoughtful and effective. Okay. So I know that I know we and I do this with everybody, right? And I know we dug into some some numbers. Yes, right. So that was kind of our next step in the day is to talk about that part of your business.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I mean, coming back in 2022, we weren't really, you know, tracking many, we were tracking leads, we weren't tracking any conversions, leads, trials, all cancels, all that stuff. Like I said, I was kind of playing business at that point. I mean, we really just dialed in on you know, the simple tracking of what numbers you need to get tracked on a weekly and monthly basis. And when it came down to it, I I have it, I I was I was looking at the notes a few a few weeks ago, and it was more about, you know, you told me to just keep doing what you're doing. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was. And I think when you really peel it back and look at numbers and stuff like that, that gives you a lot of clarity. And I felt good on that. And I still use that to this day, and obviously we should, but you know, even looking at our new location and our current location, if we have a down week, is it, you know, in three years ago I would have got emotional about it. But right now we're looking at, okay, well, why is that? What are we gonna do? What's the plan in place to help get some more revenue this week? So it's more about just being putting a plan in place to get clarity on all the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So you were like almost the opposite of a lot of people where you were actually doing better than you thought from a financial standpoint, but you didn't know the numbers, so you didn't know that you were actually doing pretty good. And you were telling yourself you were doing bad, but you were actually doing good.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Correct. And I remember you said it was, you know, it's you said we the number was three. So it was get three a month, get plus three a month, plus three a month. And that's kind of what we were doing leading up to that. I mean, I really didn't know where where I was at, but it was you kind of simplified it down to just hey, just plus three. You need to get this many consults, you need to sell these many people and go plus three on them.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

See, this is all coming back to me. Uh this day same here, same here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As we talk about it more, but I remember what happened because I remember I looked at financials, like, okay, things are looking good. Your leads were on track, your trials were on track, your attrition was on point. So, what's next? We raised price. Yes, and so let's talk about that, right? Yeah, I because that was the that was the the next thing about that we need to do. The numbers were on track, right? It wasn't a marketing problem, it wasn't an attrition problem. It it was simply we weren't we we had the ability to make more money, of course, but we were underperforming from a price standpoint, which is why the business wasn't making more money than it should have. Yes. So which is a very scary thing for most business owners. This is gonna be very helpful for a lot of people. Talk us through your yeah, talk us through your Uncle Vinny strong arming you to raise your prices.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Vince, Vince got pretty you got pretty serious. They like the the the mindset part was serious, the all that stuff was very serious, but he got pretty stern and serious during the part of just telling me to raise my prices because he he kind of just said, You're gonna pay for your consulting day by just raising this, by just raising your prices here. I mean, I obviously I had a lot of reservations about it. I would that was the most skeptical thing because you know, never done anything like that in the past. I had people who I thought were my friends were members, and I want to raise my prices on them. And you know, we raised it at that point. I I could look more into it, but I think we had definitely over a hundred and hundred at that point we were over a hundred members, I think a hundred and twenty, and we raised it twenty dollars on people, and one person canceled at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

So that was you know, that that was a big I so so going back to when I told you to raise your prices, I remember the look on your face. You were like, I can't do that. Yeah, what was the things going through your mind? You know, what were the fears? Because I think this is important because I think a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, I'm I can't do that. I'm not gonna raise my prices, everyone will leave. You know, what were the reservations that you had about it?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

The reservations was just the fact that everybody would leave and nobody and and that they didn't see the value of what we were doing. But the way you kind of positioned it was very helpful for me because we we just wanted to, we the way we explained it to our members was kind of like we're gonna be providing more value, we're gonna be able to pay our coaches more, we're gonna upgrade the equipment, we're gonna be able to do a lot more for just the cost of you know, a dollar, a dollar twenty-five or something a day or whatever, whatever it may be. So that the the value part, but again, it was more of just me being getting in my own way and in my own head about them not being, you know, them not taking it well.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, yeah. And that's that's a very common thing of like what when you raise price, so it it it creates possible controversy, right? It creates you know, people looking at you as greedy, people you know, thinking that you're you're all in it for the money, which is like that's hurtful. Like you and it's not true, right? Because you are you do want to, yes, you do want to make more money, but at the end of the day, you're doing this to to help people. So I think a lot of guys struggle with that. And then what was the final thing that got you to be like, all right, I'm gonna do this?

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I think obviously the guidance throughout the whole process and in helping me with with the letter that we're gonna send, but the the biggest thing was just that's right.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

We did draft your letter on the day.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, I think Joe, you and Joe, you had Joe help a little bit on that one too, which was yeah, yeah, which was awesome. But then the the the the what was the question?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Uh what when what made you finally decide like I am gonna do this?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Well, like the fact that you know we the fact that you said, you know, this is gonna pay for your whole consulting day if you just do this. So we did the math on doing the math on the whole thing is hey, the math, the numbers kind of open eye-open for me because I remember you saying, you know, okay, you have 120 members, if five cancel, but all those people stay, and you make this amount, you're gonna you don't you're gonna make up for it in in the long run. So it's not even a you obviously I think you made a more dramatic ex example too.

Tracking Numbers For Real Clarity

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Like if yeah, so I I think that uh for those listening, what I did with him was I basically try to create worst case scenarios, yeah. Right. So like if you raise price on 120 members, what and I would ask, I usually ask you, like, what is it? What do you think worst case is? Like you you know that not everyone's gonna leave. Like you know that's not a realistic thing, but like let's call it worst case, like how many people leave. And like you picked the number, I don't even remember what the number was. And I believe that with the price raise, the number that you said was worst case scenario, it was a break-even, right? It was there was no change in the revenue they were making, even with a loss of X people. I don't remember what the number was. And so I think that that's one of the things for those listening. If you're you know going to raise price, uh, is doing the math, right? What is the actual numbers and what can you afford to lose? And and in my circumstance, I have never, I've done this many times. I have never ever seen a gym owner hit their worst case scenario. Never, once.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

And so what was you said you lost one member from it? Yes, yes, and you know, she was she was a college, college age, college age student, and you know, that was kind of you know, it was expected at that point.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Right. Yeah, okay, yeah. So there's always gonna be some, you know, loss. Sometimes there's none. Sometimes there's none, but yeah, usually there's a few, but it's never in, you know, the the the narrative that we tell ourselves of of like this crazy stuff. Okay, cool. So that's so so now we're moving, right? So we got our mind in we got our mind in gear. Yes. We have clarity on our numbers. We paid for our consulting day at that point, and then some, I mean, it well exceeded you know what you paid for the consulting day. The a price raise over an annual, you annualize a price raise. I mean, it it it well exceeded. What were some of the other things that we did in that day?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That would the we something that really transformed the business was the marketing discussion. And I can't remember if it was the one, the first one we did or the second one we did, but the marketing discussion, especially on the athlete side with the sponsorship proposals and the sponsorships with the that was uh I remember you that was that was something that I just believe it or not, I I mean I use it to this day. I I just spoke with a sponsorship team this morning, and you know, we sent out we're we sent we're sent out our first batch of emails today. So that's still that still works, and that's that's something that you know I that I still take from that day.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

What is it that's brought you a bunch of new customers? Yes, yeah. So I mean for those do you want to explain? You can explain, yeah. I'll explain it. So basically what a sponsorship is, is that you know you train athletes. This can be done on the adult side as well, but it's it's easier, a little easier on the athlete side. But essentially you go to like an organization that is looking for sponsors, right? You know, call it like you know, your youth sports pro all youth sports programs are looking for sponsors, but even like you know, nonprofits are looking for sponsors and things like that, even like event things are looking for sponsors. And what you do is many times what the sponsor will ask you is hey, can you put can you sponsor us and pay$2,000 and we'll put your name in two-point font on the back of our t-shirt, and we'll give you a banner and we'll announce your name at the thing, right? And it's just like none of that is ever beneficial for us. So I created a process where it is done literally the only thing that you need to do is ask for email promotions. You basically say, I don't want any of that stuff, I just want you to send some emails for me to promote my business. And then, and a lot of times what I'll do is is pay more money than they're asking for. If they ask for like a thousand bucks, we'll ask for two, we'll we'll give them. I was like, I'll give you two thousand. Yeah, if you do this for me.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

So that's kind of what the sponsorship is. Yeah, I know. And I remember you said to get you one of the big takeaways from that meeting was get 10 sponsors, get 10, find two, 10 youth leagues to sponsor. I mean, I have that on my battle, on my board, in my office, at my house, all the 10, the 10 teams, the 10 programs that we're sponsoring, and what's the next promotion that we're running with them. I mean, that's been a big transform. It's really it's transformed our business since that day. Because when you when we promote these camps, we get these kids in the door, and then we give the parent a free month offer, and the parents join our small. Group program, and that's kind of the the foundation of the the culture that we're building here.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So I want to get some numbers from you and and you know this day, and obviously when you started with us, you were doing less, but where was the business around from a revenue standpoint around when that you were doing this day?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Oh, at that day without diving without diving into it. I mean, that was like I say we were at the high high threes, three hundred uh high three hundreds. Give me the three monthly. So like oh monthly? Yeah, like 25 a month. Yeah, I would say about 25.

The Price Raise Fear And The Math

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Okay, so you're 25 a month. Yeah. Okay. So and then so you you're you you we work on all this stuff, right? You're and again, we're we're not only doing stuff on this consulting day. You were in the mastermind, you're getting, you know, on calls and stuff with with different coaches and getting help and support, but you're at 25k around this day. If we fast forward to today, uh, where are we at, you know, right now?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, so uh 2025.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

So 2025, we we crossed about 760 in revenue, 760k in revenue, about let me see, I would say about 65k average per month. And then like so, and that's that's across athletes and adults across one location.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, so you basically went from 300k a year to 700 something K a year since that day. Yes, yeah, yes, amazing, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And no, it's been a it's been it's been a wild ride. I mean, even coming from the consulting days to the CEO mastermind to just learning at every every event, all that kind of stuff, sending sending people on the team to events to kind of grow and get better too. So that's been it's been transformational.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Amazing. And then now I know we wanted to get to this. You were talking about the second, you know, location. So tell us about what's going on there.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Wait, can I can I touch on a little bit of the core values and stuff too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. I did what I do. Something because I something just popped into my mind too about what the biggest, the biggest shift in all of this. Okay. The biggest shift in all this was, you know, we everybody, every gym owner says they have core values and stuff like that. Like, but they're are they really written? Are you really thinking about them? Do you have a do you have a mission statement that you that you go that you go by every single day? I mean, the one of the biggest transformational things, aside from the marketing, aside from the the sales part of things, is really diving in and figuring out what your core values are as a business. Um, and I I thought I had them until I really sat down and thought about them. And once you really dive in and figure out what those core values are, it's gonna make a whole lot of your decisions that you make when it comes to hiring and when it comes to your marketing and your sales a lot easier because you just filter it through there. And once you, as a as a gym owner or any business, I think figuring out what those core values are and living by them, that that should have been something I should have done a long time ago. But you know, it the the past couple of years have been really good, especially when it comes to figuring out, you know, who is a good fit on your team. That that's that's been a big one for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, because I know we've had some some challenges with staff and things like that over the years, and you've done a great job of weathering that storm. And we all of us that are running businesses have had those situations as well. You know, I always look at core values as the the definition of the culture, right? And one of my mentors, Seth Godin, told me a long time ago that the number one job of the business owner is to drive the culture. Yeah, and for many years I didn't really know what that meant. And I knew the first thing was to have a definition of it. And what you're talking about is core values, like that is it. Your core values are the definition, you know, of your culture. So can you take us through like what was the the process that you used to pick your core values? Did you work with on it yourself? Did you work on it with your team?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Like what was Yeah, well, first I went through what what what my personal core values are. And I went through like I looked up, you know, I thought of mentors in my life, I thought of my upbringing as a student athlete. I thought of people like you and how they lived and how they lived their life. And, you know, from Vince, from you to Walt Disney to Michael Jordan and going to Disney World and that experience and kind of putting it all together into how I live my life, but also how, you know, what what success looks like to a member at Hustle, whether you're an athlete or an adult. So I really I spent some time and I wrote down a whole bunch of words on a piece of paper. And I in like, you know, I thought I had I had about 10 or 12, and then we just crossed them off and we kind of put them together, and now there's five that, you know, they're they're in our they're they're not only just words on a wall, but there's things that we talk about in our team meetings and we highlight our coaches by doing by by living out core values and stuff like that. So I took some time and really dove in on you know what makes me me and also what makes hustle special and then came up with those. I believe that you gave me a t-shirt, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yes, yeah, I think you have it, you have a t-shirt with we have our five, yeah, we have a t-shirt with our no, I remember because some of the core values or all the core values are on the back of the shirt, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yes, yeah, nice. You have that one. Cool. I have that one, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

And I always want to the caveat is I always you know tell this to people on the on the podcast and and in on the Wednesday calls is that you know, if you ever are so bold as to give me a t-shirt, you just never ever should leave the mastermind group. Because if you do, what I do is I donate your shirt away. And what I'll what you'll do is you'll be walking through the streets of Chicago and you're gonna see a hustle strength for a homeless guy, and that's the price you pay for leaving the SPF mastermind. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I always say that mess with mess with people. So be careful what you give me, be careful what you give me. No, this is awesome. And you know, this core value thing is important. I really do think it's one of the more important things, it's an often overlooked thing. And me as a marketing guy, you know, most of my conversations are on helping gym owners make more money. But hey, the thing that is gonna make your business the most money is having a great staff. Yeah, yep. Like that's that's really it. And what helps you decide who to hire, what helps you decide who to fire, what helps you how you're gonna lead and manage your people, like your values are the guidepost for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

So how do you you you you mentioned a couple things. You you use them in your team meetings, you use like when you bring on a new team member, how do you incorporate like the values in like an onboarding process?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Oh, good question. So through our we do when they apply, I send them a form to fill out. And one of the questions on the form is pick one of these core values and let me know pretty much how do you live these out on a day-to-day basis? And they pick that we have our list, all the five core values, and then they they pick one and then they explain how they live it out. And then we get on the phone a little bit, I talk to them a little bit more about that core value. And then when they come in for their interview, we kind of get a good feel for them and you know, based off of that. And when they reach that point, we kind of we have a better understanding on if they really mean it. Um but yeah, we use it as an initial question in the in the form.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Okay, cool. What are some of the other things that you've done from um I mean you've you've grown your business by you know$400,000, but you've gone from$300K to$700K. What were some of the other things that you've done to from a like a sales and marketing standpoint that that's helped you you grow the business? What were some of the we talked about the sponsorship folder, but like what's maybe something on the adult side that that's been helpful?

Sponsorships That Actually Drive Leads

SPEAKER_00 29:41

From the adult side, it's honestly having a set marketing calendar and sticking to it. Yeah, as simple as that. And kind of, you know, looking back to see what's worked last year, like what I'm doing right now. Last, like around, we're planning, we have our 21-day Fit Mom challenge coming up, the leading up to Mother's Day, using using the holidays to kind of set up your marketing calendar for success. Like around summertime, it's the six, you know, we're doing uh a memorial day meltdown, whatever it may be. So it's you know, getting sticking to the calendar, looking at the holidays that are coming around and keeping it fun for for the members, not only internally, obviously, yes, internally, to get them to do some of the challenges and fun things, but also on the external side, keeping it fun, doing giveaways, getting involved in the community, spot doing putting stuff at, you know, we we have our protein powder, shout out Jason DeRoose. Yeah, we have our pro we have our we have our protein powder at a couple of restaurants in town. We do cross food. Yeah, that's we we sell protein powder out of we the out of their shakes at a couple of restaurants. So it's doing that, getting in getting in the community. I I talked, I this is fresh on my mind because I talked to the team about it because we can do all the Facebook ads that we want, all that stuff. But it's you know, they have to know, like, and trust us, especially with our new community that we're trying to develop over there in our second location. They have to know, like, and trust us. So from a marketing standpoint, it's I like to pound the pavement. We have about 10 stuff, we have about 10 events in the pipeline for for for teams, for for sponsorship stuff and you know, and events. We have menopause event coming up next week at the new gym. So no, I'm not. We have a menopause. I was like, oh, you ain't teaching about menopause. No, no, no, not me, not me. We have a we have a menopause specialist coming in. Yeah, yeah. She's um, she's great.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

You'll you'll have like one person that comes to that.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Nobody, yeah, yeah. No, so from a marketing standpoint on the adult side, I'd say that.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Very good. I that's just such a very, very important point that you make about the marketing calendar and planning what you're going to do in advance. It's the same thing with planning your day the night before, right? If you don't plan your day the night before, you're gonna have a shitty day because you're just gonna be like a ship, you know, sailing around at night, aimlessly wandering around. And the same thing goes for a marketing class. That's one of the reasons why in SPF we and we started this this year, but we do a 90-day marketing plan meeting six weeks before the quarter starts.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Right. So before quarter two started, right? quarter two, January, February, March. We we had one a couple weeks ago, right? So yeah. So so basically six weeks before the quarter start, I guide everyone in the mastermind through a marketing map out session where they're actually sitting down. It's like, this is what I'm gonna do to get the customers that I want, versus like sitting around and be like, why don't we have more customers? Like, I don't want we should get more customers. And it's like, yeah, you should, and you should have a plan to get it done. So that's great. What what do you use to to to document it? Like, what do you put it down?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

My marketing calendar, I have a simple, I have it's I keep it simple on my on my Google Google uh Word doc. Perfect. And I have a I have a document that says on deck marketing for what's on deck for March, and I have my big marketing calendar for the year, and I just you know, I I plug and play between those two.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

And I assume you you mentioned FitMoms. I know we have a playbook, and you know, one of the things you get in SPF is a pla is all kinds of playbooks and stuff. And so the cool thing about that is like the emails are done, the texts are done, everything's kind of done for you, so it's easier to implement some of the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah, and it's yeah, I take some of that stuff and implement it into it there, so it's done for you.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah, very cool. Have you used my testimonial email builder yet?

SPEAKER_00 33:20

That's yep. You're it's funny you mentioned that. So I've used it twice already. Oh one, yeah, one is set, one is set to go out this afternoon at one o'clock our time. So I'm excited. It made it made things a lot better because I hear conversations on the floor, and I just take that a marketing tip for you, for everybody listening, is listen to the conversations that are going on in your gym and and and dive deep on that. So, yeah, that's I'm looking forward to continuing to use that. Very cool, very cool.

Core Values That Guide Hiring

SPEAKER_01 33:45

All right, so let's let's we we kind of talked about today where the business is at. It's doing around 700 something K monster year, opened a second location, got a locked-in squad with core values, leading from the front, like you're doing. What is life like for you personally now versus what it was back in that consulting day when you were hemming it on about yeah, life right now, you know, I'm grateful for the journey.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

I'm grateful for for for every day. And I kind of you know, having this conversation with you puts a lot of things in perspective because when you're in the day-to-day of things, like yeah, you're gonna my wife, Gianna, she's my biggest supporter. And she without her, I we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't be where we're at. So having you know, having a great relationship with her is number one. Oh, yeah. And you know, that that is that that without being said, could transform a business too, having a support of your partner. I mean, and then you know, my daughter, she's three years old now. When I went to see you in 2022, our first consulting day, she wasn't born yet. So I have a different perspective on life, on you know, just watching her grow and develop. And it's more of a, you know, I I make sure as you know, as we continue to figure things out with this business, that I put some time every single day into, you know, my family, number one, making sure that they're good. And then, you know, my day-to-day is more on just marketing, sales consults throughout the throughout right now, just we're kind of fine-tuning our sales process. So I'm, you know, doing sales, but also leadership, making sure that the culture is being upheld. So it's a three three-part day. We're marketing in the morning. That we actually did this on our consulting day. It's coming back to me. So it's I handle my marketing in the morning, do my sales calls and my consults in the middle of the day. And then in the evening, we kind of just you do we do our we do our consults or leadership stuff.

Marketing Calendar Community And Life Now

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Anthony, I want to say that, you know, I watched you for the last decade. And like all business owners, you've gone through some tough times, some challenging times. And you know, you always you always come out stronger, you always come out better, and you always learn from them. It's I'm I'm reading the the Holy Bible this year. That's my one doing right here. I got it right here all the time. And one of the lines, I can't remember what verse it is, but it says something along the lines of as a dog goes back to its vomit, so does the person that repeats their own folly. I don't think I have it. No, it's not here, but I don't remember what verse it is. But the point is we're gonna make mistakes. You've made mistakes, I've made 10 times more mistakes than you have, right? We all make them and the biggest thing we can do is learn from our mistakes, right? Is is not repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. That is one of the most important success principles that we can possibly have. A lot of times it's like, you know, we want to create all these success principles and we want to have purpose and vision and all that stuff. It's like, but like of the one of the best success principles is like, don't make the same mistake over and over and over again. Of course. Like learn from it, grow. And I've seen you do that over the last decade. So you're doing great, man. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. Very excited that you're you've come on, you know, this podcast and shared a lot of really good stuff. I think there's a lot of helpful things that you shared today. Last question for you. I want you to picture a young Anthony Dos Dostiche. And, you know, maybe they're in a spot where they're struggling or, you know, not sure if this gym thing was a good idea. And, you know, they're on the fence about getting help, right? Yeah, getting help with the business, right? Kind of like where you probably were. I was like, oh, I gotta spend this money to get someone to tell me what to do. So, what is your advice to to that gym owner that's or business owner that's on the fence about getting help with their business? And what is your advice to them?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I was talking to them. I would, number one, I'm I'm gonna put, I'm gonna SPF mastermind, no doubt about it. I've seen a lot going on, I've seen a lot of the industry, obviously for over 10 years in business. But when you're looking for a mastermind, you know, I was thinking about this today. You need to look for a mastermind version. Pretty much the SPF mastermind is a mastermind version of how we want all of our gyms to be. We have, you know, we have great leaders, you have great leadership, you have great marketing, there's great retention on the SPF. Once you're in, like you're rarely gonna leave. And most importantly, it's you know, there's a great people that run the SPF with a shared value and a mission. And if you go to one of your events, one of like one of the SPF events, you're gonna feel family, you're gonna feel community, you're gonna feel relationships, you're gonna feel accountability. Like that's what we want our gyms to be. So why not be surrounded by you know that type of feel when you go there? You're gonna see Vince's kids around. You're gonna see, you know, it's it's a family atmosphere, but we're gonna get down and dirty and we're gonna get better. And that's you know, if you're looking to grow your gym like like like you, like if you wanna if you're looking to grow your gym and have it be like that, why not surround yourself with people who have that type of mindset? That was very well done.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Excellent. That was very well done, Anthony. Very proud of you, excited for the future, and again, I really appreciate you doing this podcast. Awesome job. Thanks for having me, Vince.