Name: No Filter: What Gym Owners and Coaches Wish Someone Had Told Them
Uploaded: 2026-06-10T19:16:13.622Z
Duration: 1 h 2 min 56 s
Description: No Filter: What Gym Owners and Coaches Wish Someone Had Told Them

Transcript for "No Filter: What Gym Owners and Coaches Wish Someone Had Told Them": Folks, welcome into our party. Man, it is good to have y'all in our space, because, y'all, we're about to go no filter. We're about to go no filter from some of the best minds here in our fitness industry because I believe that if you're here right now, if you're here with us, you have had thoughts in your mind about how to expand your fitness empire. But also, maybe you're already in it. Maybe you're going through a couple different trials and tribulations, and you're not too sure how to, paint yourself out of the corner, so to speak. Or maybe this is something that you've been at for a little bit, and you just need some fresh perspective. It doesn't matter where in this, I would say, journey that you're at. I have some fantastic I have three fundamental experts that are truly here to have a conversation, to go no filter, to really answer the question, what gym owners and coaches wish somebody had told them before they created their success. So they get to satisfy that here with us, today. So, folks, my name is Dane Robinson. I am so excited to be your host for NoFilter, what gym owners and coaches wish somebody had told them. I am a fitness professional, that has, I would say, done everything in the business from mopping floors, to making juice bar shakes all the way to regional management. I love being able to take experts, take people that have lived this life and shine the spotlight on them to help you, to help you create such an amazing fitness empire that is your own. But we can't do this alone. So that being said, let me bring in our fantastic team of panelists we have going on here today. So I'll bring it over to, this, aspect. If coaching, you know, if coaching a career or a career in coaching, growing a business, creating a brand that people talk about, if that is something that you have wished you could have aspired to, I wanna talk to you about first, this man for a second. Because he's created a brand that people really do care about. He's lived the challenges. He's turned his vision, a vision, into a movement. He is the CEO of Proven. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd love to bring in right now, mister Nick Johnston. How are you, sir? Dane, thank you. Very excited to be here. Like you said, you covered it perfectly. We got some good brains in here, and we're excited about this. Yeah, baby. So, his tag team partners, I would say, coming along through this. If you ever wondered how to have lifelong clients as opposed to having ones that, you know, basically, you're, you know, being businesses or being yourself that's just constantly chasing the next client or the next lead, then you're gonna wanna listen to what this man has to say. Because he's not only interested in keeping people strong now. He's had an ability to keep people strong into their forties, their fifties, their sixties. I don't know. Maybe he's shooting for all the way into their hundreds. That might be a thing sooner rather than later. But that being said, he knows how to take aches and pains and turn them into strength. Folks, the truth that he's gonna show us is how to play the long game, but also how to win in the now. Ladies and gentlemen, I love to welcome into this conversation. This is mister Matt Klingler. How are you, sir? Doing good, man. Super excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And excuse me for, the mister, this is doctor Matt. Doctor. You earned that. Gotta put that in there. And then, if the goal for y'all if you would thought about the goal isn't to just survive your workouts. What if the goal was to crush your workouts twenty years, thirty years, forty years from now? This man has literally taken NFL and professional athlete elite mindset and elite strategies and been able to apply them to, I would say, the everyday athlete, the people that are living in this sport that we call life, which honestly is my favorite kind of sport, honestly. But he knows exactly the blueprint in making sure people buy into longevity, which is ultimately buying into themselves, which has helped him expand his business and his imprint, his, fingerprints on this industry. Folks, ladies and gentlemen, can you all welcome into here? We have doctor John Russin. How are you, doctor John? Good. Thanks for having me. This is exciting. Y'all are exciting. So I don't wanna waste any time because you all have have the experience, you have the knowledge, and they need it. So, matter of fact, doctor John, I wanna start off with you because I wanna call let's call this first base, if you will. We wanna think about hustles to systems. You know, how, you know, bottlenecks are kind of like creator or how we are as operators or me as, you know, coaches or whatever, are becoming bottlenecks in our business. So I'll start with you, and I'll ask the question. Have you ever realized that you were the bottleneck in running and growing your business? And what did that cost you? What did you need to change? Share some insight with us. Let's go no filter. I've been the bottleneck of every business that I've ever started, and I was the reason that we didn't continue to grow. But I think that you have to be the bottleneck yourself at one point in time. If you're gonna be a coach, if you're gonna be a personal trainer, if you're gonna be a rehab professional, you gotta be great. You gotta get in your hours. You gotta build your systems. You gotta know how to do the thing before you can figure out how to scale the thing into being bigger than yourself. But twenty years ago, I was a coach that was just working with clients, figuring it out myself. Ten years ago, I started educating and I started the Pain Free Performance Specialist Certification. Very quickly, I figured out I couldn't be five places at one time to run seminars every single weekend. And from there, we have 25 master instructors for a Pain Free Performance all across the world, running almost 200 events every single year. So I was the bottleneck as a coach. I was the bottleneck as an educator. I'm the bottleneck as a business owner, and I think that being able to have reproducible systems, but also being able to mentor and be able to build others into greatness, that is the true testament of somebody who can scale greater than themselves. Sure enough. Doctor. Matt, you know, Doctor. John talked about it. I'm so lucky I got two doctors in front of me. I love it. You know, Doctor. John talked about, like, he was the bottleneck. He is still the bottleneck in some aspects of it. And I'll ask you, is that just part of the process? Is that just part of the deal if you're going to, you know, expand, you know, your coaching business that initially that's where you kinda have to start? Yeah. I mean, I think John hit the nail on the head. And, we we started with one location, and then we opened a second one about three years ago here in Southern California. And the the second one wasn't doing very well. In fact, it was it was struggling. We were taking a lot of what we were making from the first location and using it to fund the second one. And so I decided that I was gonna remove myself from the first one and fully inject myself into the second one. And so the the second one started to do well. It started to grow, became profitable. But as that happened, the first one started to suffer and struggle. And so I realized that, man, like, I I can't be in both of these locations full time. I've gotta figure out the problem because I I want to grow, and I still wanna grow beyond just two locations. And I realized the problems was we didn't have good systems, and our our software was a mess. And so I spent every spare moment that I wasn't treating patients in the second location and working in the day to day redoing our systems and our software. And I I think this is, like, gonna segue into what we're gonna talk about the rest of the time, which is how do you build systems that allow you to scale. And I've learned a ton about that. And now we have two locations that are both profitable. I don't really work day to day in either one. In fact, I haven't been to the second location more than a handful of times this whole year, all because of, I think, a lot of the things we're gonna touch on today. You're absolutely right. Get out of my head, dude. Get out of my head. Stay off my notes. I but no. You're absolutely right. And, Nick, you know, we've, I've heard the acronym system stand for save yourself some time, energy, and money, and I would say maybe sanity in that. So I I would direct this to you. What was the first system or a hire that that freed you up and made you made a big difference or the first noticeable difference, in your business in the in the get go, in the early on? Yeah. It's a good question. I think just like these guys know, I don't have a doctor in front of my name, so they've been through a little bit more school than me. But, we come from the fitness world. Right? And the fitness world overall is it's a new space, and a lot of us are figuring out a lot of this for the first time, especially in the CrossFit world for us. This is a an area where there really wasn't a lot of people to look up to or to figure out what has worked in the past, what has been there from a system standpoint. So for us, it was a lot of trial and error. And to go back to your original point, it's it's you have to have the passion to get into this in the first place, but you also have to know how to fail. And and I think that's the number one thing that I talk to people a lot on is you have to go through those hard times and those failures to even understand that systems are needed. Right? Because you'll see a lot of companies that, you know, they'll do really well off the bat because they have a great product or they got a good product market fit. But when things start hitting the fan is is when you gotta figure out if if you really wanna be in this thing. Right? And that's when, you know, you gotta figure out if you're the issue or if the product's the issue or the market's the issue, and going through those different trial and error periods is what really sets you apart from everyone else. And for us, to answer your question whole, it was, hey. We have this passion for fitness. We have this passion for coaching, but how do we reach the thousands of people around the world that want to hear this information as well? We can't keep it just between us and and our athletes. And how do we take what we call our special sauce and then bring it to the masses? And I think some of those systems are finding really good partners that can help with distribution and, the the physical asset side, bringing people into our physical gym. They get to see that in person every single day. And, you know, when you start getting into different areas of business and and you start doing different verticals, it gets even harder. Right? Because you gotta have systems for each type of business. So, you know, trial and error is really the biggest thing for us. And while that's not a system in itself, you can learn a lot that way. No. Man, spoken with such, I would say, unconscious competence. So as we're we're thinking about all the different problems that go into systems, doctor John, what do most gym owners and coaches get wrong when they try to systemize? Because we're hearing systems, systems, systems. But, ultimately, is there, like, still some stumbling blocks when somebody is trying to systemize their business? Or what what have you seen gym owners kind of, like, usually kinda trip up first when they do, you know, say, okay. I'm gonna implement a system, but maybe they don't do it the most efficient way. One of the x factors of being a great coach is being able to outwork everybody else, to be able to put in the hours, to be able to make sure that you have your Saturdays and Sundays locked in on your schedule because you're going to over deliver for those clients. But back to those same types of mentalities of outworking or putting more hours in, you are gonna run into a time where you are doing low level tasks that maybe could be systemized. You know, if you're doing something two, three, 10 times, there's definitely a system that can be built around it because all of a sudden, you're gonna hit this glass ceiling very, very quickly as any sort of successful professional in the field. And when you hit that glass ceiling, time is your most valuable asset. Now, you know, top five percenters, one percenters will ever have the ability to hit that ceiling, but that's everybody on this call right now. But when you do, you need to look at what can I do as the brand, as the voice, as the leader, as the visionary that nobody else can do? And then what are all the other things that I can teach and mentor into other people or into technology so so we can then distribute it. And I think that the highest level task that you could possibly do is that you build a system that not only gets you more time back, but it makes it a more valuable based product or service for the clientele that are coming in. That's a super tall task. It's like, wow, you take yourself away, you gain more time and freedom for yourself, and your clients love the service even more. That's what we're all shooting for. That's what gives you the ability to scale and remove the glass ceiling that I was talking about. Man, listen. I hope you all are are taking in all this because we're we're tossing out a lot of information. But when something pings like that, please write it down. Put that in your front pocket because we're we're just getting started, y'all. Because, doctor Matt, if if I navigate a little bit away from from systems for a second, knowing that we have those those foundational, aspects in place, And then I believe that everybody that's here with us, to go back to what doctor doctor John said, is that we're a little competitive. We like to outwork, you know, the next person. So we tend to put those, you know, that effort in, I would say. But, let's move on to second base for a second. And I will talk about this as far as our systems are enabling us to focus on retention. And I've always believed that, you know, it's a lot easier to to keep what you've brought in and, you know, go out and search for, new revenue and new lead sources. So I guess the the question for you is, what does you know, if you could be so, transparent with us, what does the churn look like right now in your business? And, you know, when did you start really taking retention seriously? So so this year, so far, we're at 3% month over month. And we have we have, like, 300 clients in our original location, about 200 in our second location. And they they pay an average of, like, $450 a month for our our group, personal training program. So just real transparent numbers. But it hasn't always been that way. When we first started, we've been open for ten years. When we were, like, a couple years in, our churn was, like, 10%. And at the time, we just had one location. We had about a 100 people, and we would add 10 people per month, and we would lose 10%, 10 people per month. And we're just in this flywheel for a couple years where it was, like, 10 in, 10 out every single month. And it really didn't change until until COVID hit. And somebody told me, like, if if you don't have a good product, no amount of of marketing, no amount of, like, having conversations with people to try and talk them out of quitting. Like, none of that stuff is gonna work if your product isn't excellent. And so, you know, COVID in LA that lasted for a really long time, we had to be closed for, like, six months. And so we had a lot of time to sit around and figure out how do we make this thing better. And so we implemented a ton of stuff to make our our program unique and better. So, we we have eight workout stations in every studio. Everyone has what they need to do their workout at their station. We do strength training for adults over 40, specifically overseen by a doctor of physical therapy. So we figured out our our secret sauce, like Nick said, and we figured out all these different components that make our program, I think, the best around for a certain group of people. And so I feel like you've got to get your product right. You've got to be obsessed with how do I make this thing better so that people don't want to leave. Because if you don't fix that, it's like you're trying to patch holes in a leaky bucket that's got a bunch of holes, and it's like you need maybe you just need a better bucket to actually hold people. No. I I dig that. Nick, I would, assume that, you know, you were around for our our COVID, era, so to speak. And I think from an industry standpoint, we are seeing that 2020, not even 2021, was not essentially what hurt, I think, you know, single, you know, fitness studios and businesses and stuff like that. It was 2022, '23, '24, '25, '26. How did you see yourself kind of figuring out that secret sauce and, you know, being on, we'll call it the the the right side of not having to close your doors when the the world went upside down? Yeah. It's an interesting question because I was the company actually didn't even exist in COVID yet for us. We're '20 and then 2021 is when we came around. So we actually got to see the, I would call, the darkest days of the fitness world, the least that we're in when it comes to both physical locations and then also when people just wanted to be in gyms at all. So for us, I counted a blessing now that we got to build our company in those days because we got to fail and we got to figure out what the hardest possible way was to do this thing. And now that it's back, I say, this is the most optimistic we've been about the fitness industry in a really long time. You you bring in AI and you bring in the just all the developments that can come in all of our businesses, if you have the right, again, systems in place and you're willing to kind of innovate in a way that makes sense for your business. So for us, I think going down the hard path and sticking to it was was the number one thing that I could I could give to anyone. Right? Because you can have all the best systems in the world, but, if if you just give up every time they don't work, you're gonna be in a really hard spot because just because you have a system doesn't mean it's gonna work all the time. So going back to even what Matt said, you know, figuring out what works for you is really the the secret key to everything because what works for these guys may not work for me and and may not even work for somebody that's a direct competitor for them. Right? They have personalities is is a big reason why people wanna do, what they're doing and and be involved in their business. Same with us. We've got two amazing founders, Antia and Shane, that people can connect with, and they can get that, intrinsic motivation that comes from the intrinsic individuals that come from our business. And, you know, those little intangibles are what have put us where we are. And even though the markets may not have been how we wanted them to be at first, they're moving in direction that we feel like we have helped with, and I think that's the biggest key for us. Man, it's a, you know, way to flip that that narrative of, like, you know, it's a it's a blessing to be you know, to have built, you know, your fitness business during such a time that everyone was experiencing the same thing globally, and harness that and to see that as a blessing. Doctor John, this is called no filter. So, can can I can you go no filter for me for a second on this question? Always. Yeah. Not even man, he's the android with such like he's like, that's not what we're doing. This is what we're doing. What is the single biggest reason clients leave, and how have you addressed it? Because maybe you've you've experienced this. But if you're talking to so many different business owners and people that, have yet to to build what they have envisioned, and they're going through building the systems, and they're, you know, trying to figure out what the passion is and be obsessed with the details and build it. But that being said, they're not paying attention to their head, maybe the leak in the bucket. But what is the biggest what is the single biggest reason you've seen why clients leave? Every coach is gonna think that clients are leaving because the service isn't good, the results aren't there, they didn't lose fat, they didn't build muscle, they didn't get their knees healthy, and it's almost never that. I used to think that, you know, a decade or two ago. I thought exactly the same thing. But the biggest reason that people leave any sort of fitness business, and mine is no exception to this rule, is a lack of congruency between the perception of what the deliverables are going to be in terms of exactly what they're getting in the mediums that they're getting them in and the user experience that they're gonna have, and then what you actually get once you're inside or once you're utilizing that service or once you're actually with your coach. If there's a mismatch between these two things, it's very hard to claw back. And no amount of fat loss and no amount of results is gonna get you, away from that bad taste in the mouth that people just don't feel like they're getting what they originally came in for. And this is a constant battle that, you know, my businesses face all the time because, I don't know if you guys know this, but not a whole lot of people read for comprehension anymore. And clients certainly aren't doing, like, a PhD dissertation before they go in and hire a coach or join an online program or enter a facility. They're just going, oh, that looks cool. I love that exercise. That guy seems passionate. I'm not gonna read any of this sale page purchase. And then you're like, oh, my God. Like, now I have to service this person. I need to make sure that we're all on the same page in terms of exactly what I am about to give them and what they have planned for themselves. So I think that just being very clear and owning exactly the process and being able to back it up with here's how it works, here's why it works, and here's the track record of results that I can stand behind. If as long as you're clear with that, then very rarely are you going to have these clients leaving. And if they do leave, it's gonna be because of factors that you can understand. Hey. I'm not in LA anymore. I'm in New York. Hey. I'm running a marathon instead of powerlifting next year. And it's less so, like, them not really trusting you, liking you, or believing that they got exactly what they were there for. Man, on the the backside of that, I will let's let's doctor Matt, I would say the same thing to I would say the different sides of the same coin. How do you know when a client is about to leave you before they tell you where they when they quiet quit? I mean, usually, they stop showing up as consistently. And we track we track attendance, so we know a couple weeks in advance. Like, they instead of showing up for three workouts a week, they show up for one or two, and that's, like, their high, high potential to leave in the next month or so. So if you can I mean, like I said, no amount of having conversations with people is gonna fix the long term problem, but sometimes people just need a little bit of, like, encouragement? And so if you can identify when a person is in that phase where it's like, man, they're they're probably gonna quit in the next month, you know, you can send them a nice text, have a conversation with them, give them a call, and just ask if there's a problem you can help them solve, ask what you can do for them. That that goes a long way. I love that. And, y'all, before, we continue on to this, where we're having some really good conversations, because, like, I'm coming to you next on this, is that as you've heard Nick, Matt, John speak, I want you in the chat to tell me which one, of these gentlemen so far has felt more like, your teammate? May more like your your guardian angel a little bit. Maybe that voice inside your head. Has the things that Nick has talked about, John, Matt have talked about? I wanna know which one of these has been like, oh, that's the voice in my head. Because, honestly, that goes so far. That matters a lot. Because that way, you can resonate with the things that and the information and the insight that they're sharing, and then also go apply it. But like I, mentioned, Nick, I'm coming to to you on this. When we think about, you know, it's not the results of why people leave and, you know, in the essence of why, somebody would just, you know basically, you know, they they don't show up after a while. My question to you is, what is the one retention strategy that has worked for you, but more so maybe surprised you in keeping somebody, in in your community, in your wheelhouse, in your solution? Sorry about that. I think we, what we've learned over the last few years and when we started in 2021, it looks a lot different than now on the world as a whole. Right? Like, everybody's busy. Everybody has something going on that's going to pull them away from the extracurriculars like fitness. Right? I don't think there's a ton of people that we know in our lives who put fitness above all else when they've got families and they've got kids and they've got jobs that they have to worry about. So for us, it's coming up with value that aligns with what's going on in their life. Right? Because we all ebb and flow. There's gonna be times where maybe we have a competition or a race where we're all in for eight weeks, and we feel like we only wanna go to the gym. But what happens afterwards? What what happens when you don't have that North Star goal in front of you? How do we get people to still be interested in what's going on there? And for us, it's very interesting because the majority of our business is with, you know, global low ticket subscriptions where people are on and off all the time. And if they get busy, they get off. If something happens, they get off, and and we're used to that. So churn much higher. Right? But then we look in our gym, and and just like Maddox talked about, those customers who come to the physical gym every day are at such a a higher advantage for us to make an impact in their life when it comes to value because we can talk to them and we can hear what's going on in their life. So for us, it's been about how can we take that in person experience and replicate that to the thousands of people that we have online where we don't have as many touch points. So for us, it becomes a lot of value driven conversations. What can we give you that, hey. Maybe I'm not having to charge any more money, but I can give you something else you could do while that main goal may not always be the main goal. So for us, it's, hey. Let's use High Rocks, for example. We have a lot of people that'll come in, and they train really hard for eight to twelve weeks. What happens on the Sunday after their Saturday race to keep them interested in doing the next thing. Right? So we come up with supplemental programs like, maybe I wanna do some strength training, or maybe it's just an accessory program, which these guys would know all about. Because sometimes when we train really hard for these events, we get little nags here, and we get little I I won't call them full injuries, but things we need to rehab, and we need to get ready for the next thing. Because starting off, we just said, hey. Get right back on the program. But sometimes that's too aggressive, and we've had a lot of changes there to where let's come up with some really cool supplemental options to where we can get people motivated, give them the value that they're looking for for their money, and then also make sure that they're having something to put a date on as a goal. Right? Like, even if it's not an event, hey. Hey. For the next six weeks, I'm gonna work on getting my bench press better. Even though that has nothing to do with higher ups, it gets me fitter, and it helps me do something where, you know, I I'm able to relax my mind a little bit. I can spend some more time with my kids, go to some more events that I would like to, and they don't have to go find a new program in the meantime. Hi. Doctor Matt, Nick talked about, HyRocks, and I would and that gave me a a a quick question on retention. When you're thinking about the things that are happening or having, you know, some really good moments right now, you know, fitness races, High Rocks, strength training, having a great moment, recovery, equally having a great moment. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired. We we didn't say, like, Pilates is having a fantastic moment. When you have maybe those members or those people that are will have these short term goals, and they look at you as a solution, but that short term goal is complete. And then they kind of move on to whatever the the next, either facility solution may be. What is maybe the opportunity, and what's the challenge of having those folks that, are driving, you know, what, with the trends that we're seeing right now between, again, let's say, more so between High Rock's strength recovery base. But they're there to see you for a short time, but maybe not hang out for a long time. Yeah. I don't know if I'm the right person for this question because I work with older clients, and they they don't tend to change a whole lot. You know, they they wanna be fit for the rest of their lives, and they're not interested in High Rocks or CrossFit, or, yet maybe they wanna run a maybe I'll ask you, maybe on the pickleball standpoint or, you know, the aspect of, tennis and tennis and golf. But maybe I think pickleball might be the more opportunity avenue because we've seen that explode really well. with, our our silver athletes in that regard that may not have been doing any type of athletic movement prior to picking up a paddle. I will say this, the longer you've been in business, the more of an opportunity there is with your alumni. And our original location, we have you know, two to five people come back every month because strength training became important to them again. And, when. I was early on, I used to, you know, fight and claw just to get people to come in. And now I started to realize it's like, you know, people are gonna be ready when they're ready. And I can't I can't generate the initial momentum for someone. I just need to be top of mind when that person's ready. I need to deliver an incredible experience when they're in my facility and, like I said, make my product better so that, you know, when they leave because they are gonna go do marathon training or they really wanna focus on pickleball, whatever, it's like, you know, eventually they're gonna realize, man, I'm getting weaker. And I had such a great experience at Village Fitness. I wanna go back there again. And by the way, this guy's been emailing me every single stinking week and telling me stories about his kids. And, you know, he just I feel like I know the guy. That's the key. I think that's the opportunity, Dane, is, like, you need to stay top of mind via email, via, you know, mail marketing. If you think that your people read the mail, which old people, they they check their mailbox. You need to have a a podcast. You need to be posted on YouTube. Just, like, stay in front of these people. Then when they're ready, they're gonna you're gonna be the first choice. They're gonna come back and wanna work with you. Dane, Doctor I, jump in on this one? to do? Yeah. I I was gonna say, please. I I saw you chomping at the bit. Don't worry. Like, Yeah. go go. for it, dude. I've had these same struggles just to mirror what Nick was saying is like, not everyone's going to train on the same style of training for multiple years and decades at a time. And even some people that get into their forties, fifties, and sixties, everyone has this novelty itch because most people today are on social media. They're seeing all this sexy, shiny object syndrome stuff, and they're always wanting to do something new and novel because training should be fun, and we can't, we can't discount that. But, you know, ten years ago, I used to write single sale programs and sell PDFs, and I do it on my website. And we sold tens of thousands of these, and it was one twelve week block. And And then at the end of the twelve week block, people are like, yo. I'm out. Like, this is great. I just gained 12 pounds of muscle in twelve weeks. Like, thanks a lot. I'm going on to the next program. And then it took me, like, five, six years to figure out, like, maybe I should have a continuation plan for these people. Maybe I shouldn't let them go at twelve weeks. Maybe I should make it twenty four weeks. So then I did a follow-up program. And then it took me another year or two to figure out, oh, maybe I should have a subscription so they never leave. They can just be members every single month. And that got me to the next level. Then we hit that plateau again. We had one single program that was on a subscription for the first time, which was amazing. Okay. Anytime you go from single sale revenue to recurring revenue, it's like, holy shit. This is amazing. Like, we don't have to go out and get all these people ever again. But then somehow, some way, you know, people would get anywhere from, like, six to seven months in to a membership model on a single program with a single deliverable with a single focus, even though we're really well known for well rounded training and well balanced training, they always had the itch to do something different. And that was my big impetus to moving my virtual teams over and and partnering with exercise.com because I was a big believer that I needed to have a multi team, multi program platform that was ongoing always for everyone. And the big reason that I wanted that and the big reason that I pushed for that, my entire executive team pushed for that, is because we wanted people to program hop. I know that sounds so bad, like we don't want people to program hop. We want them to hop internally within our app, within our brand, within our systems. We don't want them to go from marathon running to power lifting to high rocks and all this different stuff. We want them to go like, hey. I had a strength focus, but now I have a hypertrophy focus. Now I have a little bit of a power focus. You know what? I'm feeling run down. I have a prehab rehab longevity focus. And it all kind of feels the same and it's getting it from a trusted source. So that in terms of retention skyrocketed our retention. When we started doing the multiple teams inside of one single app, we cut our churn rate in a third. It was night and day different. We started offering more optionality for people to have their own destination of where they wanted to be at whatever point in time, and then people stay a triple as long and our our churn rate reduced by 22%. And it was wild. So that's something that we continue on with because we know people are gonna have different seasons of the year. They're gonna have different seasons of life. They're gonna have different challenges. They're gonna have different aches and pains. They're gonna have different things that they wanna go out and do because when they're ready for behavior change, you just need to be there for them exactly like Matt was saying. Stay in front of mind, but also know that when you have somebody in, make sure that they know that you're not a cookie cutter, that you are as flexible as you need them to be because you're always there to serve them wherever they're at. You know, we always say just to go in and, just to, say what Matt said again. When somebody is a client of mine, I view them as a client or a member for life because we do have a lot of people leaving and then coming back later on. I like to think it's. that they they thought the grass was greener on the other side and they came back to the real side. But in all actuality, they had good relationships. They had good results. They knew that we were there to service them, and that is a rare thing in the industry today. So being able to have multiple options to serve more people, as long as it's still within, like, your right to win, your x factor, your specific niche, that's gonna be a game changer because not everybody is gonna wanna do exactly the same program. I would argue that people don't even wanna do the same High Rocks program half the time. Yeah. Say say say it from the say it to the people in the back, honestly. And, Nick, I see I I see you nodding your head, honestly. But, you know, doctor John alluded to, you know, making the decision to to exercise.com to help, you know, people program hop and for them to find and almost have a create their own adventure, so to speak, you know, within his community and everything. Nick, what is what was what platform is, your solution, and how has that helped you on the retention side of things? Yeah. We we've been going through the exact same thing, and I think as a whole, that's the market of what people want. Right? And us as business owners, we've gotta be really flexible when it comes to what the customers want because without them, we don't have anything. So for us, so we we we've been with SugarWAD for three years now, and it's been it's been great from a standpoint of, hey. We have our ideas. Our coaches have the program. We think we do this better than everyone. Now we need a platform to be able to distribute that. Right? Just like I mentioned before, how can we meet as many people as possible to showcase what we think is the way to train? And as as John said, I think people are in a really interesting time in fitness where there are all of these options. And then just like you said, everybody's got something new they wanna wanna try, which is awesome. Right? Because there's very few times in this world that somebody can just do the same thing over and over for years and years and years. We even see it with our our professional CrossFit Games athletes and now our High Rocks professional elite athletes. They love just jumping in in their off seasons in different sports as well. So even those people where, hey. This is their job and they're making money from this, they even want variety. So on a very minuscule level, we wanna pair that down to people that can do that every single day. And if they just wake up in the morning, say, I'd rather run than weight lift. Let's give them the option. Right? Because in the past, this wasn't really a way to think about training. It was, okay. I I only wanna be a power lifter. I only wanna be a crossfitter to where if we can open our minds a little bit and and come up with a a one size may fit all, it gives us the opportunity to show that our coaching style may be better than someone else's. Right? Just like these guys have said, you can't control someone living leaving or coming, but you can control the fact that you're giving the best product you can. You're gonna resonate that with people that come, and I think consistency wins overall there. Again, mic drop, y'all. Listen. I know you guys are taking in a lot of, information right here. Continue to write things down that are just really popping out to you. But, also, y'all make sure that you're putting some questions in the chat. I would say I wouldn't wanna know the price of a one on one business consult with any one of these three gentlemen because I probably it's probably a little pricey. But guess what? You get to have all three here now. So if you could have a one on one sit down with Matt, John, or Nick, what would you ask them? Because that opportunity is right here right now. Doctor Matt, I'm gonna move this thing on, and let's call this third base, baby. Because we are building a brand people, not only, I would say, talk about, but obsess about, honestly. So for for you and you you talk about where your community is, and I love the fact that you call, your folks that, may leave and come back alumni. I like I love being an alumni to the places that I've, quote, unquote graduated from. That I think that's a very, unique and a very, you know, savvy term. But that being said, I wanna know, for you, what does your brand stand for, and how did you figure it out? You talked about trying to figure out that secret sauce. How did you figure it out? But tell us right off the bat, though, what does your brand stand for? So so three things were strength training for people 40 overseen by doctors of physical therapy. We, I mean, we used to talk all about, like, health and longevity and and weight loss, and we realized that the thing we actually changed for people was helping them to get stronger. And the people we best served were those 40, and the thing that they really liked about our business and our brand was that we have doctors of physical therapy. And so we just kept it really simple. Like, people can understand all three of those terms, and they mean something to them. Like, I I can't stand when I see somebody's mission statement. I'm like, I have no idea what that means. It's just wishy washy garbage. But ours is like, hey. We do strength training for people 40, overseen by doctors of physical therapy. Somebody can look at that and go, I understand that. That makes sense to me. I I feel like I might need that. So that's what we stand for. That's who we are. It's really simple, and it works, and I think there's a lot of people that are looking for that right now. Awesome. I love it. Doctor John, I I will ask you this one for your, your journey and where you're kinda at now. Was there a moment when you realized people were talking about you on their own? Like, you know, you love your business. You think you have the solution that know that can help hundreds and thousands of people. But was there an exact moment where some where you kind of, like, had this third party perspective where, you know, people started talking to you, like, you know, best kept secret. I have that moment all the time, and it's been happening for the last thirteen or fourteen years because I'm in the online fitness space. And this thing in your hand right here, this is all you need to know if you're doing good, if you're doing bad, if you're making waves, if you need to pivot, if you are consistent on social media, if you are yourself, if you are authentic, if you are educating, if you are putting out free value day in, day out, ten, fifteen times a day, you're gonna hear. about it and you're gonna hear the good, the bad, the hysterical, the ugly. You're gonna have all feedback coming from all places. But the feedback that you don't want is a quiet room, a quiet chat, a quiet post, a quiet reel. So anything that you do is always gonna get feedback. And I'm not one that will look and be, like, measuring my level of success by, you know, a million followers on Instagram. It's more about how I resonate with my core audience. Exactly what Matt just said is that I'm not for everybody. My training is not for everybody. My app is not for everybody. My certification course is not for everybody. But for the people that it's for, they're gonna know exactly what to expect from me, and it's gonna be a reciprocity play because they are gonna be supporting in this process for months or years at a time. And by the time they're ready to jump into any avenue that we have to offer them, they are gonna know exactly what to expect. They're gonna know what to be delivered, and they are gonna be happy to be there, and they're gonna be the best coaches and clients in the room or inside of the app. But, yeah, you realize when people are talking about you because for me, it happened in 2013. I was writing articles. I was working at the Chinese Olympic Center over in Beijing, working with Olympians in their youth development program, but also with some of their medalists. And all of a sudden, I started writing articles. I never had an Instagram account because Instagram wasn't a thing. I barely had Facebook at the time. I didn't have a website, but I was writing on some mainstream fitness media sites. And all of a sudden, that was a huge mushroom where a lot of people had a lot of things to say about me, my training systems, and exactly what I was doing with my athletes and my clients. And that's great feedback, but that was the one single moment sitting over a thirteen hour time difference in Beijing, having people in America and all across the world either tell me I was the greatest thing ever because face pulls help them not have their shoulders hurt their bench press anymore or that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. It was train training because I was trained in physical therapy. So as soon as you start getting feedback, you know, you're gonna get some positive stuff. You're gonna get some negative stuff. But the thing that you don't want is not to be your authentic self, not to put your, best foot forward, not to be representative of your best work. If you can simply go out and message that every single day, you're going to realize that people are talking about you and that's going to be a good thing for your branding. Nick, I see you, nodding your head a little bit. A lot of it, actually. Anything to, you know, your maybe your, instance when you realize people were talking about you on their own and I would even offshoot it as you know is, whether it's bad publicity or good publicity. You Whether it's good things or bad things, as long as people are talking, it's a it's a good thing for for your business. Yeah. I even saw the question that was next on here about the biggest mistake that a business can make in that regard, and I think this is a perfect segue into that shiny object syndrome that we we touched on earlier where, you know, you see the trends that are going on. Let's just bring it up again. Let's say it's High Rocks where it's it's a a very general market fitness app or yoga or something that has nothing to do with your core business. But because you see someone else making money or or having an influence, you feel like that's the the path you should go down. Right? I think that's the number one reason that businesses fail is they get out of their core mission and value, and it's what both of these guys have said so far. You can make such a difference by doubling down on what you believe in as long as you truly believe in and what you know is right. It doesn't mean that you stop learning. It doesn't mean that you stop innovating, but it goes back to the first thing that we talked about to where you have to believe in your brand more than everyone. And if you don't double down on what you're doing, there's just no way to ever have that passion come through or ever be able to lead the people that need to spread the word for you, right, when we talk about our coaches and our employees and anybody that may be on the marketing side. Like, the passion that comes from the founders and the owners are what drive a business to grow, and that's where we have to be. And and that's where, you know, that's where we've had the most success because we, as a brand, are a very elite performance based brand, and and we're not for everyone. Right? We wanna see how far people can push themselves and and whether that means you're gonna stand on top of the podium as a professional or you just wanna get better as day one in the gym in your CrossFit journey. All those people should want to improve in their lives, in all areas of their lives, and we wanna be able to give them the tools to be able to do that. And that comes from the passion that we hopefully are are showing them every single day in the way that we act as well. Doctor, Matt, how do we not chase a shiny object because we're human and, you know, we like shiny objects. And how do we not try to all of a sudden re rehaul our fitness business to, to tailor to something that maybe on will only last but for so long and not for the the foreseeable future? I think you really need to become obsessed with your your core product. And, I I think that and until until you get to, I would say, like, a million dollars a year of revenue, you really don't need to do more than one thing. Just be like one product for one person. Make it great. And then if you can't scale beyond it, then maybe consider adding something else. But I think and I I we used to have, when we were a very tiny business, like, 10 different programs. We had a yoga thing and a kids program. We did massage therapy. We even had, like, a special program for older people. And I realized that they were just they were sucking our time and attention and energy. And what really drove revenue, what we really uniquely served our customer was our small group personal training program and physical therapy. So we cut everything except for those two. And it was like a a overnight, our business just started to take off and grow. So sometimes you can do more by by having less because you can really focus on making those great. So I don't know how to not chase the signing object. You almost just have to do it and then realize that it's it doesn't work. Because, you know, if somebody's asked me, like, would you if you could go back and start over, would you do things differently? I'm like, yeah. Maybe. But you kind of have to learn the lessons by doing. And entrepreneurs are kind of cut from this cloth where it's like we move fast, we get things done, and we learn from our mistakes. And so you just have to be willing to learn from your mistakes and to to do things better over time. Man, I I I tell you what, that seems to be part of the narrative that you just kinda have to go through it. It's not right or wrong, but there at you gotta kinda cut your teeth, a little bit to to get to the vision that you really, see yourself and, obviously, your coaching business, being. Doctor John, question for you. You know, doctor Matt really kind of alluded to this, but if you had to rebuild your brand from scratch today, is there anything you would do differently knowing what you know now? I spent I spent the last six or seven years trying to remove my personality, to remove my brand from the brand of Pain Free Performance, and then ultimately the Unbreakable training app. And I was strategically doing that, I thought, for a reason, so I could create something bigger than myself. And then all of a sudden, it was like the agent AI. All of a sudden, nobody's trusting any information anymore. All of a sudden, the only thing that you have to differentiate from a bot out there on social media, even on email, on YouTube, whatever it might be, is us being able to converse right here, right now with a trusted authority's voice, something that cannot be reproduced. So we ended up pivoting and going like, hey, John. I know we just worked so hard to get you off the floor teaching and coaching and doing all this stuff, but you don't have to coach anyone anymore in terms of in person. You're still going to write some of the programs because that's what you do the best. But you know what? We are going to get you out in front of everybody again. I've always been very vocal on social media and education and being able to, again, create content. But it has become more important today than before for me to be the voice to steward the brand, but also be the voice to lead the people that are following. I know how cliche that sounds like. We'll lead the people on social media. But it's true. Look at anyone today that has a following, an imprint on whatever industry that they're in. And the big secret is is that is if you can be you, if you can get somebody inside of your head, if you can be able to have them alongside witnessing your journey, your wins, your losses, your flows, your day to day, then that is what is gonna build that trust factor when they come into maybe a commodity based purchase, which is gonna be a fitness app purchase. It's gonna be continuing education, whatever it might be. Many people today in the industry, different than ever before, are buying based on personality and trust and feeling like they know somebody at a deeper level. Even though I think that I can get somebody a better result in terms of their fitness or their health status, they're gonna know that. They're gonna assume that from almost everybody today. And the thing that's gonna push them across the line in terms of being a believer in a tribe member of yours is gonna be you. It's gonna be you spending the time with them, educating them, delivering, and being able to push value for free day in and day out. So if I were to rebuild the last six or seven years, I would have probably just kept on talking out my phone at this point. But, I mean, we all have to live and learn because you hear a lot of different things and the industry is gonna evolve. The world is gonna evolve. None of us would have ever sat here and thought that AI is gonna be as pertinent today, you know, 2022, 2023. So you just have to be able to roll with the punches. You gotta be able to evolve and not be too proud to just, like, pivot and change lanes a little bit. And, I I I love it. That that that spoke. That that that spoke. And I would say preach, my man. Preach. Folks, we are coming to the the tail end of this amazing conversation because we can go on for hours, honestly. But real quick from a, q and a standpoint, make sure I want you to get some questions in because we're gonna talk about AI spoiler. But also at the same time, if there is any software that you need system information about, whether it's exercise.com, Zen planner, SugarWise. I want you to put it in the chat right now. If there is one system that you know, like, you know what? I think this is gonna be for me. I think this can help me build my fitness empire. And, when we do a next no filter, I'm gonna be one of the our panelists and speakers. Put it in the chat right now. Is it exercise.com? Is it Zen planner? Is it SugarWog? Let us know right now. But I am gonna jump in to some of our our questions, and, I I will kick it straight off to the question that I think is, top of mind for everybody. And I'll I'll make this a little free for all, whoever wants to jump at it first. But how are you harnessing AI in your business? I think too, I'll jump in there. So I think what John just said is just so spot on because I think we're we've been to this point where the AI craze was I think we're past that point of people just trusting it to trust it because it was new and exciting, and people are getting really smart now, especially our customers. They're they're seeing past that level of, oh, this tech is really cool, and and it's, again, shiny, and it's the new thing. And now people want real connections with real people talking about their real problems, truthfully. And I know Matt probably goes with this with having an in person facility. AI is not gonna do anything for you there outside of the back end business. Right? It can't coach a class for you. It can't talk to your members. It's not here in their personal lives. So for us, I think the biggest implementation and to make sure that we're insulating ourselves for the future is just figuring out the systems like we set out before. How can we optimize our daily habits and and the work of our employees so they can get back to what they're good at? Writing a better program, talking to our clients, giving a better program that is hard to replicate by a machine because it takes time to really think through the the nuances of what people wanna see and then take care of the billing on the back end with AI, take care of the customer service on the back end with the AI. Those are the things that can be really useful for businesses like these in the fitness industry. And I think for us, it's it's a relief, right, because none of us feel like we're gonna lose our job to AI if we are that good at what we do in this space, which is exciting. And and it's gonna, again, to use the word, it's insulating to us as coaches because we know we do have that secret sauce. Alright. I'll just keep I'll go run more so to speak. Matt, are you using AI if at all? Yeah. We I mean, lots of ways. So right now, I just started in the last couple months using Claude to, go and click on reports within Zen Planner, grab the data, and then put it in our KPI dashboard. So we used to have people doing that, like, manually, and it would take, you know, hours every week. And so now AI is doing that, and our staff can focus more on caring for people. And then probably the most effective thing that we do is we have an AI text bot within Engage's platform, and it, when a lead texts us, it it'll communicate back and forth with them, give them the information they need, and then get them to book a first phone call. And we used to have a problem with with people booking first phone calls because they would text us back, and then nobody on my staff would communicate because we're so busy, you know, taking care of clients. And so now we the the AI tech spot books, like, 30 phone calls a month for us with people that are interested in our program. It's nuts. And it it cost a fraction of what it would for somebody on the staff to do it, and it it works better. It's been a a a game changer for us in the last, you know, twelve months or so. Okay. Doctor John, real quick, anything to add to the AI conversation? What I'm not using AI for is my programming. What I'm not using AI for is my content. What I'm not using AI for is my communications with clients or members. But what I am using AI for is leads management. I get anywhere from five to 700 DMs per day on Instagram alone. And being able to manually manage that, people are gonna quit within two days of trying to manage that beast. And sometimes I'm in there on Sundays trying to do it myself. So we built a system where we can lead them in. It's very similar to the way that I would start a conversation out. We've been able to mirror my voice very quickly, and then we do have follow ups with, real life human beings to be able to problem solve for them on the back end. But the most important thing, I think, is that because we have such great data and analytics on the back end of the Unbreakable training app on exercise.com, we are taking it to a whole new level where we're taking that data and we're becoming obsessed with that data to be able to look at a lot of the metrics that we mentioned on this call today, whether it be client acquisitions or churn rates or, reactivation schedules. And then we're using AI to be able to build bigger, more robust models and seeing what actually works. You know, one of the things that I have, and I know that, many people that are scaling their businesses have problems with, is having our own user bias. And when we have our own user bias or our experience bias, it's very hard to take that away from our gut instinct that even looking and analyzing data manually. So anytime that we can almost get a another mind in there or robotic mind in there or a multiple of them, we're able to look at it from a little bit more of a concrete standpoint, a less biased perspective so we can make better decisions when it comes to, again, the human element of decision making for the way that we're pushing it to multiple different initiatives for the businesses. Amen. I love how you led led with, like, this is what we are not using AI for. Love it. Folks, we're coming to we're gonna sprint to the finish line on this one because this is our lightning round q and a. And, Nick, I'm gonna start with you. I'm gonna ask you a question. You give the answer, thirty seconds or less, but no context. No context. I just want you to just blurt out the unfiltered answer. Are you ready, sir? We're ready. Let's go. Here we go. First thing you would cut if revenue dropped 30% overnight. It's probably a few people, but that's the tough end here. I was gonna say the same thing. No. No. Got it. Got it. Doctor Matt, biggest waste of money in your first year. We took out a bunch of, credit cards that were zero interest for the first twelve months, to buy things that we probably couldn't afford to buy, and then we were paying off the interest for, like, the next two years. So it was dumb. Doctor John, what industry best practice is actually BS? 100% personalized programming, creating new exercises that nobody's ever seen to impress a client because it's your special sauce. It's BS. Nick, back to you. CrossFit, record or online, what's the hardest to run? Oh, hardest to run is brick and mortar for sure. Those guys deserve all the credit in the world. Gym owners do an amazing job. Doctor Matt, the number are the number you actually care about the most in your business. To be honest, it's monthly revenue. I look at, like, monthly revenue by program often throughout the month. It probably shouldn't be, but that's just just what it is. Doctor John, hire fast or hire slow? Slow. No. Let's take it slow, baby. Nick, one word to describe the fitness industry right now. Optimistic. Doctor, Matt, one word. Oh, don't confuse entertainment with results. I know it's more than one word. I'll take it. Doctor John, one word, maybe. Rapidly dash evolving. And then, ultimately, everybody, John, I'll start with you as we wrap this thing up. One piece of advice you would tell fitness business owners and coaches. If you're looking to scale, you have the best opportunity in the world right here, right now. There is a huge influx of need, wants around health and fitness and longevity. If you are positioned as a professional coach with expertise, with experience, with a fire under your ass to serve people, then being able to bet on yourself, scale your business, and go all in on yourself. There's never been a better time to bet on yourself. Doctor Matt, one piece of advice we would tell fitness business owners and coaches? Be relentless. I think it it takes violent execution to create a business that is good, that's excellent, and you've gotta be ruthless about it. Like, every system you build, make it something you're proud of. Every training that you run for your staff, every every session, like, build your product and your business into something you're incredibly proud of. Know that it's gonna be hard that you have to put out way more effort than you think you will, and and you'll be really happy in the long run. Nick, one piece of advice do we tell fitness coaches and businesses right now? Just along with what these guys have said, you gotta find your passion. You gotta go all in on it, I think. And and the biggest part of that is never stop learning. I think once we think we've got it figured out, somebody's gonna pass us really quick. So you gotta find people that have been there before, people that have done this before, and take the good, the bad, the ugly, every everything in between and figure out how it helps you. Amazing, y'all. Folks, I I can't stress enough, again, what their one on one consultation fee would be. You know, if we had a opportunity to figure out maybe, that's the next no filter, what their one on one consultation fee is, but you got a whole hour's worth of it. Make sure that you follow each one of these gentlemen, on their social pages. Support the work that they're doing because they spend an hour of their time and their knowledge, their failures and successes to support you in what you hope to achieve. And I would say not even hope to achieve, what you will achieve. A huge, huge, huge thank you to all of our platforms for, you know, being such great solutions and allowing us to go no filter. So if you wanna continue this conversation, whether it be with SugarWatt, Zen planner, exercise.com, you have three real life, gentlemen in front of you that found solutions within all three of those platforms, and it is time for you now to take that next step, in creating your fitness business, your empire, and the impact you hope to have on the people that are right for you. Doctor Matt, doctor John, Nick, thank you. Thank you so much for going no filter with us. You're welcome. Thanks having having. us. That you guys. awesome. Thanks, Dan. Take care. Peace out. Bye bye, everybody.