Botox and Burpees
Botox and Burpees
S05E97 From 6 Gyms to 120: Growth and Entrepreneurship with Chris Hardenberg: Lessons from the COO of Station Athletics
With six current company gyms, how can Station Athletics @stationathletics reach their goal of 120 gyms in 10 years?
Chris Hardenberg @c_hard_fit, the Head of Operations for Station Athletics shares his journey from being a high school wrestling coach and teacher to becoming a central figure in one of the largest CrossFit gym chains in the country.
We delve into Station Athletics' unique expansion strategy, managing multiple gym locations, and the vital importance of quick lead response for member retention. Chris opens up about the trials and tribulations faced, including navigating debt and the impact of COVID-19, and how they emerged stronger.
He also discusses the systematic approach to programming and the comprehensive support structure for coaches and members. With ambitious future goals, Chris outlines the growth mindset and strategies that could take Station Athletics to new heights. Whether you're a gym owner, manager, or fitness enthusiast, this episode provides valuable insights into running a successful fitness business.
• Chris discusses his introduction to CrossFit and the impact it had on his life
• Insights into the unique model of Station Athletics and its community focus
• The significance of responding quickly to leads for gym retention
• Navigating early challenges in Chris's journey and how they shaped him
• The method of programming used at Station Athletics aimed at inclusivity
• The importance of fostering a gym culture built on support and accountability
• Lessons learned from both successes and failures in business growth
• Future goals for member growth and expansion in the fitness industry
Join us for a riveting discussion on fitness, community building, and entrepreneurial spirit that inspires!
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All right, welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees. I'm here with my very special guest, chris Hardenberg. He is the chief operating officer or head of operations at Station Athletics. His Instagram handle is C underscore hard, underscore fit. He is also a remote coach at ZorFitnesscom, which does remote coaching and programming, and he does the work for one of the. He does all the heavy lifting for probably one of the most unique or biggest CrossFit gym companies in the world, or at least in the country Station Athletics. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks, I appreciate it. So the reason why you guys are so unique is that you have six coming on, seven locations which I'd never heard of for a CrossFit gym company. You have locations in Denville, ledgewood, roseland, which I dropped in and I'll talk about Sparta, summit, westfield, rutherford, steam, which I understand will no longer be part of station soon, and then you even have station for her, which is like specific programming for women as well, yep um, your website is stationathleticscom.
Speaker 1:Your instagram handle is station athletics, as well as individual ig handles for most of your locations and you also have in. The reason why I got a hold of you guys or at least I I knew about you guys is because of your locations and you also have. The reason why I got a hold of you guys or at least I knew about you guys is because of your podcast, movement Mindset, which has really detailed your efforts in regards to building station athletics and all the lessons you've learned along the way and where you guys have been. So thank you again for joining me on the podcast and I'm sorry that the founder, joe Pasolacqua, was not able to join us. He had a last-minute thing. But I want to hear a little bit about Chris Hardenberg first. So I kind of dug in a little bit on you, and you are a New Jersey product. You grew up in Verona, right, yep, and you were a collegiate wrestler, yep, and you were 157 pounds.
Speaker 2:Is that what you're right there? Yeah, as a senior, yeah, 157. I was pretty light. How much do you weigh right now? I'm about 170. Now, okay, sam, I'm the type of person that new fitness people hate. I was fairly competitive in CrossFit for some time. When I competed, I was closer to 180 pounds. Fairly competitive in CrossFit for some time. When I competed, I was closer to 180 pounds. And so now as we've grown, I've kind of like all right, I take our class four or five times a week, so I'm working out less and have lost weight since doing that. So, yeah, so I'm about 170. You're right, you're the person people love to hate.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you were at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. You were team captain, you had 61 wins, yep. And then you were coaching wrestling back in Verona, your hometown, and I remember watching you talk about the first time you did CrossFit. I always love people's first time start stories and it's so classic. It was Fran, that was your first one, yep. That's so ironic, yeah. So how did that happen?
Speaker 2:So it's yeah. So how did that happen? So it's funny. So, like you said, first of all you did your research, You're good man. So I was coaching wrestling at my where I graduated high school in Verona, and it was the off season and I knew the guy who ran the weight room. He was kind of like the weight room guy football coach when I went to the school and we had a really good relationship when I was in high school and so I was just there working out because I was a teacher as well and, frankly, I was a broke teacher. So it's like, all right, well, I'm not going to pay for a gym, I have access to a weight room, I'm just going to go to the school and work out. And so he kind of pulled me aside and was like hey, have you heard of CrossFit? And I was like no, I have no idea what you're talking about this was 2012.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to say, well, I graduated 2012. This is probably around there, maybe 2013, 2014 got it. So it's like this was just when, like rich froning and crossfit's, like media team, started to take off so like I don't know how long you, how long have you been doing crossfit?
Speaker 2:yeah, since about 2014 okay, so around the same time as me. So I don't know if you remember like old school videos of rich froning, yes, working out at like tennessee tech and like spooning peanut butter and and jelly into his mouth, like that was when he kind of like said something to me, yeah, and so I was like no, I never heard of it. He and he's like you know, you should try it, I feel like you'd be pretty good at it, and he knew me again from high school, coming from a wrestling background. That attitude of like induced suffering is like very much embedded into the sport, so I was like all right.
Speaker 2:So I looked it up and I just went, got in. My search took me to crosswordcom and the main site workout for that the next day was fran. That's crazy, yeah. And so, naturally, right, I looked at it 21, 59 thrusters at 95 pounds and pull-ups and I was like, oh, like this does not look hard, right. And so I was like I'll do this tomorrow. And I did it.
Speaker 2:And I remember being so sick that I like threw up the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ate before working out. And I was like, just like a lot of people, it's like what, wait a before working out? And I was like, just like a lot of people, it's like what, wait a minute? What happened here? Like I was, I wasn't competing but I was still in good shape, right. Like I just came out maybe a year or so removed from being a collegiate wrestler. I was still in shape because I was coaching football and coaching wrestling at the time I was young, you know, I was probably 23 years old and I'm like, how did this kick my butt so badly? And I was like I got to look into this more. And then what really hooked me was, after doing that, realizing that you keep score in the workouts because, being competitive, I was like so wait, I can work out, which I already love to do, feel strong, but then compare scores and try to beat you like I'm in, like that's kind of what got me there.
Speaker 1:Right, that's like such a former athlete kind of a hook is that you can still compete at a high level and you did for a while. It sounds like. And what I like the most about your story I guess like a lot of people's stories, is that there are a lot of trials and tribulations in it. I recently talked to Aaron Hind and he was the CEO of FitAid and he literally, like when he transitioned from being a chiropractor into his beverage company, he literally was like eating macaroni and cheese. He had like no money, he was broke. And it sounds good in retrospect but at the time when you don't know what's going on in your life, like it's scary when you're a young adult and you're like, oh my God, I could literally fail and become homeless you went from being a teacher coach getting into the CrossFit space, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:But then there were a lot of problems, that kind of happened in terms of trials and tribulations. So what, what, what was that?
Speaker 2:yeah, that was, uh, it was scary. So, to paint the picture, like you said, I was a teacher. I was a phys ed teacher, um, and it was fine, right, like I got a degree in health and physical education because I knew I was an active guy, I knew I wanted to do something with like fitness or whatever at the time. But coming out of high school, the only thing I knew of at the time was like, oh well, if you want to do that, you go teach gym, right? So that's what I did. And, long story short was, at the school I was at, I had applied for a paid football position. I didn't get hired and so I was like, all right, I want to stay connected with the kids. They didn't have a paid wrestling position, so I was like I'll volunteer with the football team Because I was wrestling at Verona High School and I was teaching phys ed at Roselle Park High School, and so I was paid as a wrestling coach at Verona. So I volunteered with the football team for two years and then my son was born, my first child, and I was like, okay, you know, I frankly was like I'm not going to. If I'm going to donate my time, it's not going to be to high school kids, it's going to be to my family. So that's what I did. And so I was like okay, but I have to make money somehow. A teacher salary doesn't pay all the bills.
Speaker 2:And so I started part-time coaching at a CrossFit gym, which is an interesting story, and if I could, if we have time, I could go that route too. Let's go down there. So I had done the open in 2014 at a local affiliate, because I saw a guy I used to go to high school with was there, and the owner at the time, after I did the open workouts, was like well, what are you going to do now? And I was like well, I'll probably just go back to working out at the high school. And she goes. Well, what if you work out here? And again you mentioned it like broke teacher fresh out of college? I was like I can't afford a CrossFit membership. So she goes well, what if I just let you work out here for free for a little while? And I was like well, I can afford free. So I did that, loved it. And then she was like have you ever thought about coaching? And I was like yeah, I would love that. But for people who don't know the level one is a thousand dollars. It's very expensive. And so I was like well, i't have $1,000. And she goes well, what if I paid for the fee and you paid me back in installments? I was like I could do that. So that's what happened. That's how I got into coaching CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Was that Parsippany? No, so that was before Parsippany, so it was an old gym. It's not around anymore. No-transcript. I said but I'm not gonna move to a volunteer position, give up the extra income I'm making, like I have to support my family. And I said to her and I'll never forget, cause?
Speaker 2:My wife was a teacher as well, but she was on maternity leave. I was like listen, my wife can still go back to her teaching job. I said I understand the position you're in and if that, if this is going to prevent you from giving me tenure because I was about to get tenure I was like all I ask is you, let me know now, so my wife can go back to her teaching job while I look for something new. And she goes no, you should be good, you should be good, okay. So my wife tells her job, she's not going back. So now she no longer has a position at the school district. I get a contract. I signed the contract. That's June. About a month later a freshman football job comes open. I decline it. I don't want the freshman, that particular position. About a week later my principal calls me and says we're letting you go. Wait, can they do that and break the contract? So I guess I learned after the fact that I probably should have gotten the union involved.
Speaker 2:But my limited knowledge being a non-tenure teacher, the way teaching work is when you're non-tenure they can let you go at any point in time for whatever reason. Once you receive tenure, it's like very hard to get you fired, and so what happens in most school districts is they leverage that to the hilt. They'll get you to do whatever they want you to do Beforehand, exactly because they know they can, and then after tenure, then there's a little more Nuitation, exactly so. I was just like I'll never forget it, sitting in my room, like I have a one-year-old, a mortgage, my wife has no job. Right, I have no job. I'm like what in the world am I gonna do? So I I remember sitting with my wife and I was like I gotta start applying for teaching jobs and I go into the gym I'm coaching.
Speaker 2:At the time, which was in Parsippany, I said, listen, guys, like I can't coach class here anymore because I have to put all my time and effort into finding a job. Yeah, and they're like, well, we can't lose you. So what if we put a proposal together for you to come on full time? And I was like, well, put something together and then we'll talk. So they did, and I went to my wife and was like, what do we do?
Speaker 2:And she's extremely supportive. And she knew because I told her when I was at the gym in Fairfield babe, if I could do this full time and make a living, like I would jump in a heartbeat Like this is what I want to do. But at the time I was like but you can't make a living doing this unless you're going to own the gym, of course. And I and I was like I'm not willing to take that risk. So she goes listen, you've been wanting to do this, let's just take a chance. And so I was like that was all I needed, like I needed her. Giving me that stamp of approval Like I got your back was like all the fuel I needed.
Speaker 2:I was like all right, let's frigging do this. That's amazing, and so that's what kind of got me into the space, and then that's its own long story, but again, but just to shorten it. There, that's its own long story, but again, but just to shorten it. There was a lot of promises that were made to me in the proposal that were not kept. Right. Things went totally haywire, which is unfortunately not uncommon in the CrossFit space, where you have, you know, fitness people that don't know business, right, and so I ended up being like I got to get out of here, and at the time, I was working out about once a week at Roseland because I connected with Marquand um and I had reached out to Joe. I was like, listen, do you need a coach? And he's like no, but I need someone to run my gym in Roseland. I was like, well, I'm your guy, and so that was in 2017, and that's when I came over to Station Athletics okay, so Joe Pasolacqua had owned, uh, roseland at that time yeah, so he owned two locations at the time.
Speaker 1:Which two that one.
Speaker 2:Roseland and the CrossFit Sparta location Okay.
Speaker 1:So at that point he wanted to expand and grow Station Athletics. And so when he started talking to you about let's get more and more locations, what did you think of that and what made you buy in and say, yes, we can do this.
Speaker 2:So I was all in. So, to start, when I came over, I didn't have any options. I was like I'll never forget. He told me he was nervous to hire me because he had never hired a salesperson before, because that's his strength is sales. And so he had done all the sales at the two locations. But he's like we have so many people coming in, we're growing so fast, I need someone to do this, but I don't know how I'm going to pay you. So you're commission only. Whoa. So I had no base salary. I only made money if I sold someone on a membership. Wow. And I was like, all right, well, this is all, this is what I got. And at the time I was also.
Speaker 2:We had to. Things got so bad. We had to sell our townhouse and I had to move in with my pregnant wife and my one-year-old, with my parents. Oh my God. So talk about like as a, as a husband, a father and a man like I have totally let my family down, like that's. I felt like a complete failure, and so it was like very much back up against the wall, like I have no choice but to figure this out. And so that's what happened.
Speaker 2:I sold like a madman, I tried to fulfill to the greatest of my ability to get these people results, because I'm like, if I can help these people and they can get results and they can see what we have going on here, they're going to stay, they're going to refer their friends and we could keep this thing going. Um, and so at the time we were working with a company called gym launch I don't know if you're familiar with them um, and so we were growing pretty rapidly, and then that's when he's like hey, I think I want to open another one. We were growing pretty rapidly and then that's when he's like, hey, I think I want to open another one. And so I was like, all right, let's do this. And I fell in love with the idea of like.
Speaker 2:The way I look at it is, if we expand our reach, that's more people we can help. And so if we had I'm making up a number, but let's say we had 250, 300 members between the two locations, it's like, all right, well, if we had another one, that's another 100, 150 people we can help. If we had another one, that's another 100 to 150 people we can help. And I was a big believer, and still am that. If I feel that our program is the best out there, then it's almost like we have an obligation to expand. So when he kind of outlined and it was very like it was not business plan 101. Like this is how we're going to do it, it was very much like idea, like this is how we're going to grow, I was like, all right, let's make this happen.
Speaker 1:So big pictures, but the details were not like quite all filled in.
Speaker 2:No, he's very much a jump into the deep end and hope that he can swim type of guy.
Speaker 1:Was it like so the first thing I would. I saw your website and I saw all the locations Like so how do you like? I know just from my home gym, crossfit Bison, like how the money runs and I'm like, where did they get the money to keep expanding from location to location? You either have to be rich and have existing money or you have to borrow it. Sure, so which way did you guys do it to make this happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say a little bit of both, okay. So we hit a lot of snags around 2019. So in 2018, we were growing like crazy. Cashflow was not an issue whatsoever yeah, that was probably like peak Cross. Cashflow was not an issue whatsoever yeah, that was probably like peak CrossFit oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it was also we were early adopters to online marketing and so for people out there who understand online marketing numbers, like we were getting like three to $5 Facebook leads, whereas now, like a Facebook lead is like like if it's 30 to $40, you're like, ooh, that's really good spend. So it was like to get $3, $2 Facebook leads. It was like I tell people it's like drinking water through a fire hose. Like I was seeing people every 20 minutes for four hours. Wow, yeah, on repeat.
Speaker 2:And so 2018 was like Holy smokes, like we got something good going on, so we expanded and expanded and expanded, but again, like I mentioned, like not got something good going on. So we expanded and expanded and expanded, but again, like I mentioned, like not having a structured plan, we outpaced our capacity and then hit a couple of bad decisions, like all in conjunction. In 2019, we had two back-to-back bad sales hires that sold like gangbusters out of the shoot. But then it's like in those consultations they're making promises or not really knowing the program, and so it was like people were just going out the back door.
Speaker 1:I see, so retention was not really poor.
Speaker 2:It was the worst that had ever been for our gyms. Then, on top of it, there was a member at our Roseland location who worked for a supplement company and we were thinking about white labeling protein in a couple of different supplements. So she approached Joe, outlined the whole program and he was like listen, what is the minimum purchase order? Because he's like I can only fill so much at a time. She's like oh well, you can fill 500 bags at a time, you don't have to fill the whole thing at once. So he's like great, let's do it. And then we get a $90,000 supplement oh my God. And he's like what is this? And he's like, oh.
Speaker 2:And then the owner was like well, that's the minimum purchase order 5,000 bags. And he was like I was told I could fill 500 at a time. He goes yeah, you can fill 500 at a time, but you have to pay for it all up front. And so he's like what? Wow? And then, in conjunction with that, we were also opening a gym in Madison which was going to be our seventh location, and construction got delayed and became more expensive with that, I see. So all of that hit at once. So he borrowed a lot of money, a lot Like he told us at one point, the gym was a third of a million dollars in debt.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of leverage. Yes, so we were. People were taking pay cuts. We were doing all we could to help the business survive. Right, and I'll never forget me, him, our head of marketing, john, and the one girl, rachel, who helped kind of build out a lot of our back-end systems. That was like kind of like the the center team, right, we had a meeting and then and he goes, guys, I'm making my, our last payment today. We're officially out of debt. Wow, we're taking off from here.
Speaker 2:We're like all right, let's do this and then cover it and good break march 2020 yep, oh my god.
Speaker 1:And then COVID, march of 2020. Yep, oh my God. And then everyone went down to the crapper at that point.
Speaker 2:So then, we had to get shut down. Fortunately we had. It sounds very similar to Bison. We had members who were super committed to us, kept us open, and so then after that, we shrunk down to four locations. Okay, so we went from seven down to four and that allowed us to build momentum and build up some steam in what we were doing, allowed our cash reserves to grow and Joe, basically within the state of the business he was then started a couple other businesses and said, hey, I need to put my focus in these other businesses. Here's the keys to the car, don't keep this thing running. So I was like, all right, I got to grow these things.
Speaker 2:So I helped grow the gyms while he worked in the other businesses and then through those two avenues, we were able to build up enough cash to continue to build going forward.
Speaker 1:So, listening to this, there are a couple things. The first is you guys have more experience in terms of lead generation and growing a gym than any other gym I've ever heard of. Like marketing and lead generation for most gyms is very disorganized, like they don't have a very good marketing system, they don't have a good throughput, they don't know how to approach people and convert them into members. It's just like, hey, come on over and like try out our gym and let's see what happens, and like it's really, really loose. But you guys seem like trial by fire. You guys are you particularly have probably perfected exactly what it is that needs to be done to convert a potential into someone who's actually not just going to come to the gym and run away after a month, but like you know that they're going to stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what out of that experience, what is the single most important thing you would say or think about when you got that potential lead for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would say so if you were to ask me single most important thing when the lead comes in. Yeah, so that would be, um, I would say speed, speed. Yeah, most people don't realize how quickly you need to respond to someone. Um, there's a lot and and, to be frank, we've battled this with people who've worked for us as well, but there's a lot within the CrossFit space, because the people who run these gyms are gym people. Yeah, like, getting into the gym is not hard for them, right, so there's a lot of an attitude of like, if this person wants to be here, they're going to walk through the door, right, and it's like that's not how 90% of the population works and we have to this person. Does people have to realize who run gyms?
Speaker 2:The gym is actually a grudge purchase, like, most of the population actually does not want to go to the gym, right, like, I hate to break it to people. They don't want to be there, right, they're only going there for a couple reasons. One they don't like the way they look in the mirror, right, they don't like the way they feel, right, going through the day day to day, right. Or their doctor says you need to exercise, right.
Speaker 2:And so, recognizing that, that fact that it's like, okay, I know, as the owner of the gym person, that I got something good, but you're not going to know it, and you're probably not going to know it until two, three months of being with us that you're like, oh, this is what it's like to feel good. This is what it's like to eat, right, this is what it's like to get enough sleep. This is what it's like I don't know to have friends that actually take this seriously, take this seriously, so being able to realize I have to respond to this person quickly and effectively to get them in the door, because not only do they generally not want to come in, but, for those of you that live in the tri-state area, you throw a stone and there's a gym available, right, yeah. And so it's like there's so many different gyms and businesses vying for their attention that if you're slow in that time, someone else is quicker and they're going to that gym. You know what's so funny.
Speaker 1:So I told you I was going to drop in at Roseland. Yeah, so I go to your website and there's the first thing always is that big drop yes Form where you fill it out. There's really no other way of contact. You have to do that. So I filled out the form.
Speaker 1:This was 730 in the morning and literally not eight minutes after that I got a text from Marquand saying, hey, I got your message that you're thinking about dropping in at our gym. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. I was like I've never had that happen for any gym in my entire life. And so I go back and forth and I'm like, hey, and I was honest. I was like listen, I'm, I'm here to interview you. I'm, I'm, and he's like no problem. And he took me through. He told me the work, like this was like just a random day, and I have to say I was.
Speaker 1:That blew me away and that is very consistent with why you guys are so successful, that that, to me, that makes total sense. Um, the other thing that stood out for me listening to you is that you are not afraid of contracting and expanding, like that's happened to you guys. Like you guys have gone down, you guys have gone up, like if it doesn't work for you, then you're not throwing good money, or after bad, if a location doesn't seem to really like fly and that's happened so, like, for example, with Rutherford Steam, like that was part of the station it's not going to be going forward, like what makes you decide like this isn't going to work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So before I get into the Steam topic specifically, we had, like I said, had, grown to seven locations. Unfortunately, the Madison location, which was sole owned, opened. It hit its year mark right before COVID hit, and so one of our sales reps right, that was a bad hire for us ran the presale. It didn't run as well as we wanted it to, and then, after we had gotten rid of him, we started to build some momentum. Covid hit, so it was a huge money suck on the business and it was really hard for us to let it go. But it eventually got to the point where we are in a meeting and it's like we got to close this location. We can't keep funneling money from the other gyms to keep this gym afloat when we don't even know if this is going to last. So let's cut this and focus on what we can grow.
Speaker 2:And then there were two. There was one partnership and one attempt at franchising. So again, right, like we had an idea that we wanted to grow and what that was gonna look like, we weren't sure. And so there was one gym in Verona who a guy was opening his location. He realized he's like I don't really know what it's like to run a gym reached out to Joe, to partner, he said okay, and then there, so we did that. But then it's like all right, maybe we should franchise, cause we don't want to grow fast. It's like we don't want to take 20 years to get to 10 locations. So we tried franchising and that was originally our Denville location.
Speaker 2:Now both of those partnerships fell apart because two reasons One, we weren't good at being like this is the way it has to be Right and you have to run it this way because we know it works Right. And then, when things weren't followed, we weren't good at being like, especially with the franchises. Like being like listen, you won't follow our systems, we're just going to take the franchise away. Um, to be able to be successful in a franchise model. We talk about this on one of the episodes on our podcast.
Speaker 2:I won't get it in too in depth yeah but you have to be have ironclad contracts. Yeah, you have to be a little ruthless, yeah, to be able to be like listen, if you're not going to follow our systems and we're going to take it back and like like that's what McDonald's does, yeah, right, cause they own the land and so if you're not doing their systems, they just evict you. Right, um and and that. And, frankly, in the beginning, a lot of in business is like you're doing business with friends and family.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that can get awkward Right.
Speaker 1:So, and these are more passion projects, because it's CrossFit and they're gyms- Exactly so.
Speaker 2:So eventually we said you know what we got to cut ties with these guys. And it wasn't necessarily about money, like obviously they weren't. The gyms weren't very successful, because if they were successful then it's like all right, we'll figure out a way to work this out, right. But it wasn't about that. It was the fact that, like Joe kind of said, like you're giving my brand a bad name, yes, and if we're going to grow, you can't have negative connotation to the brand, right. And so we cut ties with that and shrunk all the way back down to, like I said, four was Roseland, steam and the two Sparta gyms. We reinvigorated Denville and then we had opened Westfield and then, with Steam in particular, it was one of those things where the gym is that gym has been around 12 years. It was the only partnership we had left in our network, oh um, because we had acquired that gym. So one of the partners from the previous uh ownership stayed on Um, and he's a great guy.
Speaker 2:I think it was just one of those things where visions got to the point where they didn't align, and so it. It was very amicable to be like all right, hey, you want the gym to look like this, our brand, station Athletics, this is the way we do things. And so it's like, okay, cool. And so the other owner was like all right, well, let me buy you out then. And so that's what's going on.
Speaker 2:And again, I don't know when this is going to air, but it'll probably air after that deal is done, and if not, then it'll be on the near horizon, and so that'll bring us to five, which is again not what we want, but at the same time, kind of like you said, it's like we've gotten good, and we've gotten good because of mistakes and pain. Right, we got good at being like this is our system, this is why we know it works. This is the numbers to back it up, and we need to be unapologetic about what that is and that if you're able to follow that, you're going to be successful, and if you aren't, that's fine, but then there's no room on this bus for you.
Speaker 1:So you have your flagship, which I would say would be Roseland, and then you have Denville, you have your opening Ledgewood, you have Sparta, Summit, Westfield. What made you choose those locations in particular? Like you just opened Summit in Westfield recently, it's like why did you say, okay, we need like out of everywhere in New Jersey? Like why? Why those locations?
Speaker 2:So the first location is actually in Sparta, okay, so that was the first one. And then Roseland opened and Roseland was pre-me, so I think that was mostly because he was looking to find a different demo. The Roseland location is very close to it's in a good spot. It's near Livingston, not far from West Orange, he's Hanover, so it's a good spot. Then the women's gym was open in Sparta. That was there because we found we were losing a subsect of the population in that town, because the original location is very much like old school CrossFit feel. It's in. It was in a warehouse setting. You know, you walk in and there's like people with shirts off swinging from bars, and so you had people be like, oh, this isn't for me, and they left. It's also a population that has a lot of stay at home moms, so babysitting was an issue, and so he opened the women's gym as a means to fill a need in that town and so that became super successful for those reasons.
Speaker 2:And then from there we look at a couple of different things. So we do a whole demo search. We look at population. We look at average income in that population, household income, facebook metrics to be like okay, how many people are we going to reach with our advertising? And then what is the distance between that town where we might go and one of our existing locations? Because it's one of those things where we want to be far enough away that our advertising doesn't cross, pollinate, that you end up self-cannibalizing the area. And so we look at those metrics and then, based off of those metrics, we say, okay, cool, here's some of the areas we're looking to go into. And so that's what's allowed us to kind of pick some of those towns.
Speaker 2:And then obviously it's based on the space. For example, ledgewood, by demo numbers, is maybe not the strongest compared to like a Westfield right, but it has really good bordering towns. It's far enough away, it's on Route 10. And we walked into the space and it was a perfect square and the rent numbers and utility numbers were right where it's like oof, this is going to be an easy project to build out. It's a prime location, it has great parking, it's next to a little gym, it's next to a Dunkin' Donuts, so you're going to have traffic. And then when we looked at the demos and said, okay, hey, here's Ledgewood demo.
Speaker 1:But the way.
Speaker 2:Route 10 goes is it goes like real fast Randolph, Ledgewood, Roxbury you get like three or four towns in a really tight avenue.
Speaker 1:So that's a lot of the stuff we look at, wow. So there's a lot of analysis before you decide.
Speaker 2:this is where we need to be yeah, and we also look at our competitors. So for us, some of the main competitors, we look at our Orange Theory, f45, and Alpha Fit Club. So those are franchise chains. F45 is international, orange Theory is national, but they're big brands, right. And I remember sitting a meeting and we were like, I wonder we? We were like let's pull up the map of where they're at. And we just said, you know what, if we believe our program is better than those guys which we do to my core, I do it's like well, they've probably already done the market research on where to go. Let's just go where they're at, let's, I like let's, let's go right across the street, right, and then you're, all you're doing at that point is pairing marketing with marketing and program the program, which is why coffee shops open next to coffee shops because, exactly right, yep.
Speaker 1:So uh, how about other crossfit gyms? Do you also look in to where their location is and take that into account when you're not really?
Speaker 2:really no, because you kind of touched on it. Most of those CrossFit gyms are like it's like your mom and pop shop, right? One location, one to two owners. You don't really have a big staff and a lot of them are not professional spaces, right? You're not used to that from I don't know a lot about Bison, but from outside looking in and talking to you. Right, you're not used to that from I don't know a lot about Bison, but from outside looking in and talking to you. You're not used to that, because it sounds like Bison has. They have full-time staff, they have part-time staff, they have been around for a long time, but most gyms are not that. Most gyms is.
Speaker 2:I'm the owner, but I also have another job and I coach when I can and I have my 60 members and it pays the bills and I'm okay with that. So we look at it in the sense of like. Get an idea of like. Okay, how do we adjust our schedule? Like, is it an area that has to be in super early because you know you get heavy commuting into the city or something like that? So we'll look at that for research. But as far as like where to locate ourselves, that's not something we necessarily look at. You affiliate with crossfit, do you?
Speaker 2:guys hold crossfit affiliations we do so, so roseland does okay, our other gyms do not okay so and I'm interested, why is that?
Speaker 1:so? I know even station athletics roseland does not have crossfit in their name, even though they are across CrossFit affiliate. So what was the decision to say affiliate, say Roseland, but not not the others?
Speaker 2:So when Joe got started, he was a big CrossFit guy, yeah, um, and so, as you were too, yes, well, and I still am Okay, um, but so we, we, so Roseland was affiliated, um, but then, as we added different locations, especially post 2018. Yeah, I remember being in sales consultations and you got a lot of well, I heard CrossFit gets you hurt, I heard it's dangerous, I heard this, I heard that, and it wasn't like in 2014, 2015, where you could slap CrossFit on your building and people just marched into the building and so it was almost like there was a point in time where CrossFit was actually. It was almost a deterrent. I think things have come back around.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's a deterrent anymore, but I think it's so part of the vernacular that now more people recognize and this is what I would say in sales consultations it's like, because it's not a chain, people would see CrossFit and be like, oh, you're all the same, right, and it's like that. People would see CrossFit and be like, oh, you're all the same, right, and it's like that was the unfortunate thing we recognized is like, okay, you know, mom and pop shop down the street might be doing a terrible job of running a program. Right, they have CrossFit on their building. They see CrossFit on ours and think it's the same I see, and so it's like I've done nothing wrong to have a negative connotation in this person. Right, but negative connotation in this person. But because they had a negative experience at a gym three miles up the road, they're not walking into our building.
Speaker 1:I think you're right and I think that there are two issues here. The one that you're listing is just such the uneven nature of the quality of the affiliates out there, and we've all, I think, have gone to affiliates where the experience is less than great, and I think CrossFit HQ is having that's like one of the biggest problems they're dealing with and they have been. But I also think there is some negative connotation, because it you know, risk of injury. You know, these guys are crazy like all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:So you're right, I don't think that a lot of people find CrossFit, on the name, to necessarily be helpful for their gym, and I've heard a lot of gyms do that, even though they're maintaining a CrossFit affili the name to necessarily be helpful for their gym. And I've heard a lot of gyms do that, even though they're maintaining a CrossFit affiliation, they're not putting it up there. It makes sense that you want to brand consistently as Station Athletics and have people know what that experience is like, depending on which location they're at that they're still going to be at a Station Athletics. What kind of programming do you follow? Like who does it? Like what is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so internally we have two different types of programming that we do. So we have our CrossFit style programming. So that's our one gym in Sparta, the Roseland location, and then it was the steam location. So they run, you know, tried and true CrossFit programming snatches, burpees, muscle-ups. Who does it for you? So we rotate. So we have about four people who rotate. We run six-week blocks, so one person will program six weeks and then the next person will program six weeks, and so we rotate six-week blocks and we rotate three to four people to program. And our system around that is essentially we have one person who writes the six week block of programming. They then send that six week block to me.
Speaker 2:I look over every set, every rep, everything in the program. You know I won't make wholesale changes. Like, if they have a certain progression they want to follow, great. But I'm looking for more of like. Like we have a guideline where, in our opinion, the work done in class should not exceed a half hour. And so you know, if you have a back squat that takes about 15 minutes and a 12-minute workout, that's about 27 minutes worth of work, you're good. And so we want about, you know, I would say, 27 to 32 minutes worth of work in the class. I want to make sure we're balancing things like you know two-leg squatting, single leg, knee flexion, upper body pulling, like, making sure, like those are all puzzle pieces correctly, and so I'll send feedback to that person.
Speaker 2:We then have a back and forth on what stays, what goes, what changes. Then that program gets sent out to the general managers of the gyms that will be doing that programming to look at and we schedule a meeting. In that meeting the programmer goes over the skeleton, what to expect within those six weeks, and then, if there's any workouts in the six week program that could pose a logistical problem like hey, I'm trying something creative here, like you're going to have to organize the class in this way, do this, this, this and this we go over that in that meeting and then from there we record that meeting. I send it out to our entire part-time staff so that they can watch it and see what's going on within the six weeks. Oh, I see. And then we also have our media team film a video with the programmer to go over the skeleton and we blast that out to the members so they know what to expect within the six weeks Wow, that's really systematic.
Speaker 1:And one super helpful for the coaches and super helpful for the members actually, wow, one super helpful for the coaches and super helpful for the members. Actually, wow, that's really great.
Speaker 2:And then what's the other leg of the yeah, so the other leg is what we're going to be calling SA Fit. So essentially, what SA Fit is? It's like an amalgamation of a lot of different things, but think of it as a lot of CrossFit. But we take out certain movements like barbell, snatches, muscle-ups, handstand, walking. We basically take a lot of those movements out and so you have, I would say, a CrossFit base to the style of programming. But we'll incorporate some bodybuilding in there. We'll incorporate some, you know, maybe some aerobic style stuff or HIIT style stuff, but all the vernacular is CrossFit-esque. And the reason why we do that is because we found demos at some of our gyms changed significantly. The starting fitness level of people coming into the gym continues to go down. You get people like all right, I'm 40 years old, I haven't moved since I stopped playing high school sports at 18.
Speaker 1:It's like, ooh, so we're really starting at square one, so we're not going to make you squat snatch Exactly, or do handstand pushups Right and then we.
Speaker 2:We found a lot of people don't? I hate to say it, but there's a lot of people in the population that really don't care what they snatch. And so it's like, all right, you have this with the, with the members. Then, on top of it, it it's hard to find good instructors. Yeah, like we have a bar at our company of coach, like you got to be this good and finding someone who's this good, who can coach the snatch, the clean and jerk, is way harder. Yeah, then, like we've had good, we have good coaches at some of our gyms that have very little to no experience very little experience, I should say, coaching the Olympic lifts and they're amazing coaches. They know they can coach a back squat, they can coach a bench press, they can coach toes bar, they can do all that.
Speaker 2:They're just not super familiar with snatching and clean and jerking, and so it's like if that was a CrossFit gym, they would never be working for us, because those are also the movements that if someone were to get hurt, it's going to be most likely. In those movements there's a complicated complexity, yeah, and so we were like, all right, you know what? I think this is our model because, in our opinion, crossfit and the way it's formatted is the best way to get people results in a short length of time. Uh, build muscle, but let, maybe let's cut out some of the things that are the hardest to coach and that people don't really care about, and we label that SA Fit, got it.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously the product is what keeps people. So you guys obviously have a tremendous amount of experience and expertise with advertising, marketing, lead generation, bringing people in, but obviously people stay. The retention rate is based on your product and the product is the coaching and the programming and, like you said, crossfit or CrossFit style programming works. We all know that. That's why we're all in this space. How do you establish that Like so? How do you choose your coaches?
Speaker 1:How do you choose the culture, or establish a culture, because a lot of it's also about community, and I saw that at roseland when I was there. Like you know, the people knew each other and they, you know, there was a lot of banter back and forth and they really had a, you know, good uh rapport and the coach shaka was great. Like he was really uh, like he spent time making sure everyone's fitness level was appropriated. Someone had a little bit of a tweaked shoulder and he worked with them during, before we started the class WOD, like after the warmup, to make sure that you know he was going to be able to do the movements. So how do you ensure that your coaches are actually coaching right? How do you pick them?
Speaker 1:You know it's not, it's not like you said. It's not that easy to find good coaches. And then how do you like build community and make that culture for each gym?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of it is done in our interview process and that was something again like as we go through this, if anyone's listening, I want people to understand like everything we've learned and developed was unfortunately learned the hard way.
Speaker 1:Oh well, we all learn.
Speaker 2:Those are the best lessons, and so like we, you know every everyone who's ever run a business has heard oh, you hire, slow fire, fast, right, and that's way easy to say and way hard to do in practice. But through a bunch of bad hires we've learned, no, that there's truth to that. So for someone who wants to be a coach for us, first thing they do is go through a phone interview with us and basically all we're trying to get through that phone interview is background, what is your experience? Where do you come from? What are your expectations? What does your schedule look like? And then it's like okay, if there's alignment, great, come in and take a class. And we always want people to come in and take a class because that helps gauge culture fit. Like if I'm going to be a coach and I'm a wallflower, that's probably not a great start, right, no-transcript, and take class. Then after that, if it's again, this is all assuming it's an outside hire after they take class, if it's like all right, this looks like they move well, that's also a thing. Like I can't have someone coaching an air squad who can't physically do it, and so it's like all right, they move well, they have good rapport, they look like they'll be a culture fit, coming and coach a class. So we give them no guidelines.
Speaker 2:Here's the workout Build a warmup. Send me a like a lesson plan of what your plan is for the day. If everything looks good, run the class and then we watch them, coach the class and then, if that goes well, from there we have an internship program and so that's done to teach them. You know how do you assign people in a class. What are our expectations when coming to class? So, like we have certain markers, like every person in the class should hear their name at least three times, the coach should be talking for at least 75% of the class. The coach should be moving. There should be no more than three, four minutes at a time. They're standing in the same spot, right Stuff like that. And so it's like that's where we teach them, and then, based off experience, that usually lasts anywhere from two to six weeks, and so we go through that full process before anyone coaches a class with us. That's a pretty thorough vetting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, and then.
Speaker 1:So you have different levels, so that's your first level. Yeah, the have different levels, so that's your first level. Yeah, the person that actually is in most contact with the members the athletes. And then what is it that you guys do for each gym in terms of community building?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our general manager. So the cool part, I think and of course I'm biased, but the coolest part for us that I think about our gyms is universally. We have certain systems and processes that we have, whether it's around a referral pipeline or how do we run this program. But on top of that, each gym kind of has its own individual personality. And so my goal and I say this to our general managers is like I want you to feel like you are the gym owner. Now, you're not going to make 100% of the decisions yourself, right, but I want you to get to the point where you feel confident making 90% of the decisions yourself.
Speaker 2:And so what happens is the community within that gym starts to reflect the general manager's personality a little bit. And so what we do to help build that community? Obviously you have the front facing of the GMs I'm sorry, of the coaches, but for someone who comes into our gym brand new, they start in what we call our six-week program, our FitLean project. Everyone who walks through the door for their first six weeks gets unlimited classes, they get an individualized meal plan and the GM is their accountability coach.
Speaker 1:Just every new member. Every new member Really, yeah, wow, so it's almost like an induction period, because you want them really closely monitored for all of that stuff, correct? That's a great idea.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of people will fall off in those first couple of weeks, yeah. And so the GM is there saying, hey, you had. And then every week they step on our in-body scale to track progress. And so it's like cool, you had a great way, and this is what I saw. Make sure you're doing this or not a great way in this week, what? So it helps keep them on track, right. And then if they're not showing up, we have that process, so the GM could be like, hey, you haven't been here, what's going on?
Speaker 2:And so it helps make sure that people are coming into the gym. And that's huge from a community standpoint, because most people are not used to going to gym and getting that support Right. It's hey, you signed the contract, great, that's all I care about. And so that helps. And then, after they progress into the membership, we have different things along the way to help ingratiate them into the community. So like, for example, once you convert into a member, you get a welcome box from us which has a branded shaker bottle, a free t-shirt, sticker, sunglasses, like all this stuff with our logo all over it. Nice, so you get that. Then, in addition to that, you progress into membership. Everyone who progresses out of our challenge gets what we call our level two meal plan, so you get nutrition guidance. It's like all-inclusive. It's part of our membership.
Speaker 1:That's just automatic. Automatic, so it's always there. Nutrition is always part of it. Yes, because it should be right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and so that's the way we look's always there, um, and then from there we do things where, uh, community events. So we have a community event calendar for the entire year built out. The year before that we make tweaks to, um, you know, our coaches are and our staff is very in tune to making sure that people are showing up to the gym. So we have a system. We call it our SOS list. You know, save our shit, right? So we get a report where if someone hasn't been to the gym for two weeks, they pop up on the report and our general managers are reaching out to them to get back into the gym. So it's a lot of like the Marines, like no man left behind, right? And I think a lot of that, plus the fact that RGM feels supported, allows them to build that awesome community.
Speaker 2:Because what a lot of people don't talk about is you have a lot of gym owners who, frankly, are tired, burnt out and broke, and it's really hard to build a community when you're worried about am I going to pay the rent this month, right?
Speaker 2:And so my thing was like if we could rewind back to what I said a while back, where it was like I wanted to coach at that one gym, but I was like you can't do this full time without owning the gym was like I want to create an atmosphere where you have people who love fitness, they love CrossFit. They're not sure how they could do it to make a living. And when I started, it was either you had a full-time job and you coached classes just because you loved it. You did it full-time but you were dirt broke, or you own the gym and you were probably dirt broke anyways. And so I want to create this where it's like no, you can earn a real living doing this, you can have access to benefits doing this, you can be able to say, hey, I take a paycheck home, I can support a family and having that stability also allows our GMs to pour in our members.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, who does your nutrition work for you? Do you have anyone dedicated, or is it a program that you buy in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have tiers. So phase one is we have a couple of different meal plan templates. So based around your body fat, your size, your goals. It's like cool, you fit into this, into this box. Yep, and it's very it's restrictive, but it's restrictive because our goal is to get people results quick within those six weeks, because if I can get you results, basically I'm showing you that we can get you results Right. And so if you don't get results quick, like the first meal plan is not something we'd recommend people being on for three years.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:But it's like, oh, I lost 10 pounds. Well, now I've convinced you that I know what I'm talking about. So it's like a reset chat, exactly. So now it's like, okay, cool, I've earned your trust. Now I can use the next year and a half to educate you on what's best to eat for your body. So that's phase one. Then phase two we start to look at your markers on our in-body scale, and so it's more in tune to, like, what is your lean muscle mass look like? And we have a formula we'll enter into a sheet to help spit that out. Phase three is then macros, and then we're this close we're not there yet, but we're this close to developing what we're calling phase four, which is one-on-one macro coaching. So if you're familiar with, like RP, strength or M2, like they do that and it was our opinion it's like, well, why don't we have that? Yeah, and so we have a couple coaches that went through like a precision nutrition course or some other courses, and then we're just building out the system now.
Speaker 2:So that's like okay, whether you're someone brand new who hasn't eaten broccoli in 10 years, or someone who's like no, I'm trying to shred and like compete at like regionals, like we can have someone to coach you through that.
Speaker 1:So the general managers are full-time employees? Yeah, and they manage one gym or multiple gyms.
Speaker 2:So they manage one location.
Speaker 1:That's it. Wow, so, like you said, they're managing all the daily issues that, like a gym owner, would probably have to handle. Yeah, that's what they do. Yeah, and then, after that layer of administration, it goes to you who manages all the general managers, or there's another layer?
Speaker 2:So it was me and that was exhausting, and so we're building out a true corporate structure now. So we have one woman her name is Shannon Flannery, who ran our women's gym, and she is unbelievable. She took over our women's gym post-covid. She was previously a teacher, left, left education. I remember having a conversation with her, like shan, like the gym was struggling, and I was like I, I can only pay you this and she was coaching 18 hours a week. Wow, doing sale, like she was just like grinding. Wow, that's like super person. Super person Built the gym, built the membership up. Then we had to move. So that was the other thing. Post COVID was the landlord. At the time we had a manageable rent and he's like I want this much for the space and it was like almost double of what our rent was oh my God, and I was like we can't afford that.
Speaker 2:So we had to move the gym. And we moved the gym and not only did we move, but we had to cut the space down. It was probably like 33% of the previous gym size, oh my gosh. So it was a lot. It was very turbulent time and Shannon's so good at her job that she continued to get people results. She continued to build the community and the gym grew. The membership grew despite the smaller space. So she then became our first district manager and then so she manages what we call our Sussex Morris district.
Speaker 2:So any gym in Sussex and Morris County is her purview. How many gyms are there? Is that right? So right now that's the two in Sparta and one in Denville and it will be Ledgewood. So she'll have four. Yep, okay. And then in December, you know, joe and I met and he was kind of like we're drawing stuff on a white board. We met for like four hours. I'm like all right, where are we going? And we looked at the board and he circled me and we're like you're, you're the bottleneck, like I was the bottleneck for the growth of the business.
Speaker 1:Oh, for growth? Yeah, because I only had so much time and only all those decisions had to go through you in terms of getting things done and so he was like we need to hire a second district manager.
Speaker 2:And I was like, can we afford to do that? And he's like we'll figure it out. So I was like, okay. So we started to search for a district manager and I ended up connecting with an old friend. His name's that you, you may or may not know.
Speaker 1:Dave, I saw that announcement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean he's right down the street where it started, at Hawthorne.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I knew I've known Dave and Nast for a while, yeah, and so I reached out to them. I'm like, do you know anyone who might want this job? And Dave texted me. He's like you know what I might want that job? And because him and Nasted sold their gym, yeah, and they're great people, christian people yeah, I've met through different churches and Christian groups and he was taking care of his father and was like I need to find something new. So we talked and I had one interview with with him and I was like listen, man, I got to take you through the process just because I have to like to feel good about it. But I'm like I'm going to hire you, right, and he's been dynamite, yeah, um, and so to have the two of them. He's in charge of what we're calling now our Essex Union District. Okay, so any gyms in Essex and Union County right now. He was also in charge of Steam, but with Steam coming away, he unfortunately only has two gyms right now, but as soon as Summit opens he'll have three, and so that is now the new corporate structure.
Speaker 2:And that is what makes me super excited is like I can now say to someone who I'm looking to hire for a general manager position. Hey, you're really good at your job and you're leaving your mom and pop gym because you want to grow. Well, you can come to our gym. You can earn a salary, have commission and bonuses and play, do personal training, make a good living. If you love that gym and want to stay there, great, you can stay there for forever. But if you want to continue to grow, there's a position above that which is a district manager, and now you can manage anywhere from four to eight gyms plus, and that could be your next thing. And then our goal is, as we grow from there, we would develop regions, right? So like, maybe a region is the state of New Jersey and you might have four or five, six district managers under you. So that's kind of the corporate structure we're building.
Speaker 1:I can see where your plans are in the future here. They're big, yes, like very big yeah, and I guess I can only say I would believe it because of all of the hard knocks you guys went through. Like you said, this system has only come out because it's been tried and true for multiple years and multiple locations and multiple systems and, like you guys have sort of closed off all the loopholes, leaks, problems, potential issues that might come up. How many gyms in your wildest dreams would you see yourself in in five years? Yeah, so it's funny.
Speaker 2:You should say that. So we have a corporate goal we want to have 2,000 members by 2026 and 20,000 members by 2034. Wait, so how many do you have right now? So so we ended last year at about 690 members. Okay, so by the end of 2026 we want 2,000, which in our estimation, is about 14 to 16 gyms, and then we want 20,000 by the end of 2034, which, by our math, is about 14 to 16 gyms. And then we want 20,000 by the end of 2034, which, by our math, is around 115 to 120.
Speaker 1:How do you? I mean, you are very confident that you can compete against all of these other not CrossFit gyms but, like you said, these other types of fitness places like Alpha Fit Club, f45, orange Theory. What makes you guys better than any of those people?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, in our opinion, what makes us better is a couple of things. One is, I think our structure is better in the sense that our general managers actually have support With those other companies or franchises, and so there's no real corporate support. The way a franchise works is you're given the playbook, you pay a certain amount of money into the pot so you can get the playbook, and then every month they take a certain percentage so you can use their name on their building.
Speaker 2:But a lot of the ins and outs is like okay, this is how we market. And you're like okay, so that's how we market. But who's to say that marketing works well for your area, whereas for us it's very much like these ads don't work here, but they work over here, so we'll run them over here and we'll figure out what works over here. And so what happens is you don't get the corporate support and a lot of those locations end up floundering, and that was reinforced because we've had people from those companies apply for jobs with us, and that's what they've said is like I've had to figure this all out on my own.
Speaker 2:The other thing I think that makes us better is because of that corporate support. We put so much into the program itself, Whereas when you're selling franchises, from a corporate perspective, my goal is to sell franchises. My goal is not to get more members or improve their offer.
Speaker 1:It's just the number of franchises you have.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and then it's on the franchisee to manage that, whereas corporately, because we're all so owned, our goal is to make the program so good that people don't want to leave.
Speaker 1:The issue is and I see this is one are it's a it's a push pull situation. One is you're putting a lot of authority like you're decentralizing it so like as you get bigger, your district managers take on more responsibilities.
Speaker 1:The general managers the you know like to make sure that the product in each gym because that's how it works yeah, the product has to be successful. So you're pushing a lot of authority down for a lot of these people, but on the other hand, you also have a lot of responsibility on you because now you're also overseeing more and more of these people to make sure that their authority is being used appropriately and they're being guided appropriately, right. So it's like at some point. It's like how many more Chris Hardenbergs can you get? How many more Dave Whitsons can you get? How many more Shaka's can you get? It really depends on finding that and continuing to grow that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a lot of it is. You know, I'm trying to impress upon some of our district managers. Now it's like, okay, you're now not Dave necessarily, but more Shannon, just because Dave. Dave was not a general manager with us writing from somewhere else, but Shannon was a general manager and so she ascended and it's like, okay, you need to now reframe your sales, like you're not selling memberships anymore, you're selling employees and so you're selling. Why should this person work for us? Right?
Speaker 2:And then that that's a lot of that conversation is like, okay, she now has to vet out is this person a good fit for us and are they going to get in line with what we want to do and resonate with the vision we have going forward? And that was something we had our first annual like conference this year to kind of talk about a lot of that stuff. And one of the things we said was like here's the goals 2,000 members by the end of 2026, 20,000 by the end of 2034. We're going and so if you're in, get on, if you're not, that's fine, but you got to get off then, because we're going, no matter what. If you're not, that's fine, but you got to get off then, because we're going, no matter what.
Speaker 2:And then I think the other thing that separates us is a lot of those programs are very watered down, in the sense it's like Orange Theory as an example Very cardio heavy, yes, not a lot of weights, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so what we see a lot is people get great results in the first two months, then they plateau because they're not building any muscle. People get great results in the first two months, then they plateau because they're not building any muscle, right. And so we say, okay, hey, we operate off of sound strength training principles. That's why we lift weights, and we lift weights that are moderately heavy or heavy for you, and we vary what those things are to help you build muscle, because if you build muscle, you burn more calories at rest, and if you do that, you're able to have a leaner disposition as well as just a healthier lifestyle. And then you also have the CrossFit effect of different progressions to build to, which keeps people hooked from a fitness perspective. And so we think that aspect of our program blows the other programs out of the way. And then, in addition to that, we also, like I said, we include nutrition, where a lot of these gyms just don't do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's a kicker. Yeah, that's, that's the key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then and then also the um, the accountability Right, and so we know, like we had a gentleman who used to work for us, who previously worked at Orange Theory, and they said that the average membership length was people. Someone would stay with that gym for three months, like that was the average length someone stayed, whereas at our locations it's anywhere from 1.3 to 1.5 years. Yeah, and so it's like having that ability to continue to affect change allows people to stay for longer, and why that's important is because if someone stays longer, they get better results and if they get better results they tell everyone they know, versus these other companies which are basically banking on investor dollars to feed into the marketing machine, to replace the conveyor belt of people going out the back door.
Speaker 1:You must have some amazing back end systems to deal with all this, because there's a lot of metrics you guys are keeping track of. I do remember when I did my sign in at Roseland I mean it was all on iPad, it was pretty quick I mean, as long as you don't read the 50 pages of disclaimer which everyone has and I quickly got three emails and you know, with my account stuff, all this other stuff, like you know, it was really really, really fast and I was able to log in, look at, like membership options, this, that every other thing. I thought it was about as good of a back-end system as I ever saw. And is this the one that you guys have always standardized on and always yeah?
Speaker 2:So we've used this system for a long time. We're actually in the process of gradually transitioning out of this system. Really, yeah, a lot of it is because we are now at a point where we're outgrowing that system from a location standpoint. Oh, I see. So a great example is the system we're working on, migrating to MindBody. They have the ability to, in our branded app, have a dropdown menu with the location, I see. So you can click the dropdown, select your location, find out what the schedule is and then, if you're I'm a Roseland member but I happen to be in I don't know, ledgewood or Roxbury for a meeting, I know the schedule can pop into the Ledgewood location.
Speaker 1:I see, I've done that for yoga studios and the MindBody Pretty popular with those guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Pike has been great. The backend system we're using now, it's just one of those things where it's like, okay, they can't keep up with us and, like a lot of tech companies, their support got cut post COVID. So it's a lot of AI and bot communication which can be okay, but when it's like, no, no, I need to get someone physically on the phone to work through this issue. They're not great with that, whereas MindBody, with our program, it's like no, we have an account person, so if I have an issue, I can email Steve or call Steve and he can help me fix the issue, did you?
Speaker 1:envision yourself when you first started, right out of college, that you would be in the position that you are Because you're not doing coaching, you're not teaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're not doing like you're in gym stuff. You're like a high-level admin. Business growth Like this is a completely different skill set that you ended up growing over the past 10 years and in order to get to where you are, like when you look at yourself now, like is this great? Like you're like blown away excited. This is like did you ever think this is where you would end up? Being no shot? No.
Speaker 2:I know, cause when I graduated, I was like my big thing was like, all right, I'm going to'm sorry teach gym and I'm, I want to coach wrestling, because that's what I did. I was a wrestler and I was like I want to coach high school wrestling and be a head high school wrestling coach and and as things morphed and progressed, I realized, okay, yeah, like I actually really like this fitness thing and I always liked fitness or lifting weights, like I in high school I played football, I wrestled and I I was one of those people who, like, really enjoyed the off season, cause it was like I just get to lift weights and feel strong. Right, I thought I looked strong, but I wasn't because I was so skinny, but like, um it, I enjoyed it, and so it was like, okay, it started to progress that way. And then, as it progressed that way, I thought it would just be coaching people, right, like, all right, I'm going to coach class. And then, um, you mentioned I do a little bit of remote coaching now, and when I was at Parsippany, I had at one time, I want to say I had 10 to 20 clients I did like individual program design for and I thought that was what I was going to do and I didn't really have an interest in the business side, um, but things gradually changed the more I moved up in station athletics. I was still with sales, I still had a role in some of the coaching and programming stuff, but it became less and less prominent.
Speaker 2:And I think where things really took off for me from a business perspective was actually post 2021. So in 2021, I competed on a team in in uh quarterfinals Okay, and I remember doing it and it was and it was with three other people. Two of them are still at our gyms. One guy actually moved down to Florida and I remember getting done and I like gave it everything I had. And I looked at the quarterfinal leaderboard and I was like we finished 151st and I literally like it might sound crazy, but I took a step back and I was like you know, I'm not that great at this and so I was like I need to take a step back from this.
Speaker 2:I was already starting to feel like I had two kids at this time, like my time was being pulled in a lot of different directions. I was like it was one of those like cognitive dissonance where it's like should I still be putting in two and a half hours, three hours of training every single day. And so I went through this period of like almost like morning to be like I'm not that, I'm not that dude. But then it's like, where do I put my competitive outlet? And I realized through like some podcasts, I listened to some books I read, starting to track the metrics a little bit more that I was like oh wait, a second Business is a sport I could play for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:So you treat business like a sport A hundred percent. So now it's like I look for PRs in memberships, I look for PRs in revenue growth. That's where it's like it juices me up, Sam, when I'm like, oh man, we PR this month and revenue Right. So that became my sport of choice. Where it's like I think about it all the time. So that's what really got me into. The business side is when I really started to feel that like business was a sport or a game that it's like, oh okay, like this is my new competitive avenue I love love that, that to be able to switch from that to that is, uh, something I think a lot of people could take away and actually use as a guide for their success yeah, for sure wow.
Speaker 1:So for anyone else that's uh in the space that is listening to you and saying how do I become chris harden, like, what would your advice be for them?
Speaker 2:You know my advice would be to try. You know I give this advice to there's a woman who works for us right now. She's our general manager at Denville. She's 23 years old and she wandered into Roseland. Her and her boyfriend drive from Blairstown to Roseland to work out. Oh my God, yeah, and I remember when she started working for us and I go Felicia, your job right now is to learn as much as humanly possible, and so my advice would be that is to don't have an ego.
Speaker 2:Seriously Approach every situation like you don't know anything and try to learn as much as humanly possible.
Speaker 2:Take a posture of a student, because the more you do that, the more you learn. And if you can be a direct implementer of that and be like cool, I've learned this thing, I'm going to do it now, you start to build a skillset and a toolbox that will advance, going forward and that's kind of what happened for me with Joe was like he just kept throwing stuff at me. I was like, all right, I'm going to learn how to do this and then I would implement it. And then he just knew that if he threw something at me, I was going to figure it out. And as someone who is a business owner and management that person and this is again when I'm trying to press upon new people with us you don't understand how valuable that person is, that I don't have to micromanage you, that I can just say, hey, we need to get this done and get to the next thing, and you say okay, and you get it done. That's the person that is going to continue to progress forward.
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid of all those hard knocks, because they will really teach you a lot. If you can get up and keep going, you can end up where you are it looks like. Thank you so much, chris. I learned a lot. I'm really inspired by this and I really wish you guys all the success. I have a feeling that your goals might actually be lower than where you guys might end up being just listening to I Sure Hope so how you guys operate. Thank you so much. Thanks, sam, appreciate it.