Franchising Fitness over 50: How Rick Mayo and Alloy Are Bringing High-End Personal Training to Active Agers.

Do you ever feel like a phony? Like someone’s about to find out any minute that you have no idea what you’re doing and that you don’t belong where you are?

Well, a LOT of people do, so don’t worry! It’s called Imposter Syndrome, and it’s common in all walks of life and at every stage of success.

I know I’ve felt it sometimes. 

And so has my guest on this week’s episode of Optimal Aging, which might surprise those of you familiar with his success. 

Rick Mayo, founder and CEO of the Alloy Personal Training Franchise system, is a fitness business leader who seems like the very model of success. And yet, as he tells me in this conversation, he’s been bugged by Imposter Syndrome repeatedly throughout his career. He also shares how he learned to turn it into a powerful motivator to help him keep succeeding in his business, which now is a thriving franchise system with 100 locations, all bringing fitness over 50 to people across the country.

Resources and Links

Alloy Personal Training Franchise System
Rick Mayo on LinkedIn
Naamly – Support our advertiser, who helps you keep in touch with your members
Life Priority Supplements -- Affiliate Discount code here
Functional Aging Institute -- Use FAIMM50 discount code
Prime Fit Content – Engage the over-50 market

Transcript

Do you ever feel like a phony, like someone's about to find out at any minute, that you have no idea what you're doing and that you don't belong where you are? Well, a lot of people do, so don't worry too much. It's called imposter syndrome, and it's common in all walks of life and at every stage of success.

I know I've felt it sometimes myself, and so has my guest on this week's episode of Optimal Aging. Which might surprise those of you familiar with success. Hi, I'm your host, Jay Croft. Optimal Aging is the podcast that helps gym and studio owners grow their businesses by marketing to the powerful, underserved segment of people over age 50.

My business Prime Fit Content provides premium original marketing materials to help you do that as well. And focusing on this slightly older demographic is an idea that's gaining more and more traction these days. Partly due to my guest on this episode, Rick Mayo, founder and CEO of the Alloy Personal Training Franchise System.

Rick has been a successful fitness. Business owner for 31 years recently celebrating that milestone at his alloy personal training studio here in metro Atlanta. He's won many industry accolades and speaks regularly at conferences. About 15 years ago, he developed a business platform that put alloy program systems and tech into a thousand licensed fitness facilities around the world.

And then in 2019, Rick launched Alloy Franchising, which will, well, its 100th location any minute now. It's amazing. all serving primarily the over 50 market. In short, Rick is a fitness business leader who seems like the very model of success, and yet, as he tells me in this conversation, he's been bugged by imposter syndrome repeatedly throughout his career.

Rick's one of the best in the business. So I'm really pleased to present his great advice for any fitness entrepreneur out there. And I really love this part. He even describes how to turn imposter syndrome to your own advantage, how he uses it to keep driving him onto the next stage of success, and then the next and so on.

So if you've ever wondered how do I beat imposter syndrome, Rick is about to tell you. This is his second appearance on this show. The first was back in January, 2021, and you can find it here as episode 18 where he and I talk about the untapped power of the over 50 fitness market. He's been a supporter of my business prime fit content since the start.

I've been on his Alloy podcast twice, and it's always a pleasure and an education to spend time with Rick. In fact, I'll be sharing the second part of this conversation. In a few weeks. In it, we talk more about the over 50 demographic and trends coming up for the new year. Here's today's episode. Enjoy.

  All right, well Rick, hi. Nice to see you. How you doing? I'm doing really well.

How are you, Jay? I'm good. Thank you and happy birthday. Thank you. They're a little less eventful these days, but yeah. Thank you very much. Maybe now the birthdays are celebrated for still being alive, you know, like that's a good reason to celebrate, so we'll leave it at that. Right. Hey, I will take it. You know, I will absolutely take it.

 I never complained about getting older, and I hate it when people do, because,  a lot of people aren't here any longer who would wish they were.

Yeah, it's better than the alternative, right? That's what I always say. But  I just read a study recently where 50 plus, which is certainly where I am. Um, or the happiest years of your life because you're still pretty healthy if you do the right things.

And I know we've talked on several occasions about exercise, eating right, mindset, being sociable, all the things that keep you healthy as you get older. But if you do those things and you organize your life in a certain way at 50, you sort of have things figured out at least a little bit better than you did when you were younger.

 I I think it's a great time, so I'm really enjoying it actually. Yeah. Good. I'm glad to hear that. So am I. You know, it's, um, it's a great time to be alive and to be healthy and to be fit and, um, So I'm glad to hear you say that.

And it's AGL a good time for us to be marketing this kind of positivity because there's so much bullshit in our culture  generally,  and also in fitness specifically because fitness is so youth oriented that denigrates getting older, that has you and me being out to pasture and over the hill  let alone someone their seventies.

I take it as a, my mission, to bash these myths that we're stuck with. Of course. So listen,  in addition to a birthday, you just celebrated 31 years in business at Alloy, congratulations. Thank you very much. Now I understand you have a very simple one sentence statement about how to be a success in fitness business based on your 31 years.

So what is it? How can, how can everybody be the success that Rick Mayo is? Well, and I think we could probably drop the mic after this and then, you know, this would be it. And this is very stage advice. This is way outside the box, so make sure you're listening. If you get nothing else out of this, you know, conversation.

This next part, it's the real, the real juice. Right? Right.  it's this weird, strange notion,  I dunno if you've heard of it, it's called Hard work. I'm sorry. It's really. Yeah, I know it's like hard, hard and work like Yeah. One, describe, yeah. Right. So, and, and then you do that for a long period of time and you, and you actually do it before you ever see any results.

And there's actually times, Jay, when you're working really hard, And you don't necessarily know exactly where the end game is gonna be. it's a really, uh, interesting concept. Right. It really is interesting. I'm gonna share that with all my listeners because a lot of them wanna know what's the secret?

You know, what do you do  to make this happen right away? Right? Either in, in fitness or in communications,  I've got a foot in both, industries, and it's the same thing they want right now. I want to be everything right. Yeah, don't, don't just create a lot of content and write and write and write and write until you figure it out.

Just learn the secret and then you'll be an amazing writer,  right out of the gate. You could probably buy a course from someone on Instagram who can tell you how to do that for three easy payments of 9 99. And you wanna look for the dude who's got his shirt off in his Instagram ads.

Nothing says fitness business like a six pack, which by the way, I will say I still have one of those, pretty good one at my age. I've only shown it once ever because it's just so not part of anything that has anything to do with being successful in any business, including the fitness. Well. Amen, 

You know, I'm 59 and I, I've been in pretty good shape my whole life. Sometimes I've been in great shape. I've never had a six pack, I guess it's just not, uh, not in the world.

Rick, help me. I know a guy. I know a guy that can help you with that. So after this call, we'll have a side meeting and we'll get you a six pack. Everyone listening, that's Jay's 2023 Initiative. Six by summer and we're gonna have him on a program. So he might not be posting much cuz he can be very grouchy.

 it's gonna be underfed and overworked, but he is gonna look. So good. That's all that matters, brother. That's all that matters, . So, joking aside, I appreciate the humor cuz you know, we both hear a lot of the same stuff from a lot of the same people. but it hasn't all been smooth sailing for you  you are a young man.

You started in the same location,  31 years ago you couldn't have predict. So much of the last 10 years, let alone the last three years. You are the successful owner of a one studio and one location, and then you're this giant entrepreneur with your licensing and now your franchising.

So, Tell us a little bit about, I don't know if there's anything you'd go back and tell yourself when, 31 years ago or what you might tell  a new gym owner who's asking you, how do I make it in this business by focusing on people over 50 like you do, what kind of advice would you give them or would you give yourself back then?

Yeah.  it seems easy to say this now with perspective, but I really do mean it and I wished I. Had someone tell me this early on, which is be patient. each time we've moved our opportunity vehicle, I, I would say moved upward mobility into better opportunity vehicles.

Each time you do that, you're taking a couple of steps backwards to relearn something new, like as close as licensing was, which was white labeled version of what we were. As it looked to franchising, I mean, mechanisms were the same, right? People pay an upfront fee. We teach you how to do it, and then we hold you accountable.

We provide ongoing, you know, content, very similar to a franchise, but franchising is a different animal. So we move from a, what looks like a very similar vertical into franchising and boy back to the bottom of the barrel, not necessarily, you know, in a derogatory way, or that we weren't wired for it.

There's just a lot to learn.  And so part of the being patient advice would be, be prepared as you upskill yourself and you move forward to take two steps backwards sometimes, knowing that, okay, there's gonna be a temporary regression in my, what is my perceived skill set, or whatever that might be.

And in doing so, though, I'm moving typically into a better opportunity vehicle where I may be a little bit stretched, but that's okay. Right? 

But I think people are hesitant to,  take two steps back and  to expose themselves to something that feels scary or they might not be good at it.  You have to. Get uncomfortable.  What I think the unrealistic expectation may be if you don't understand that, is that you'll ride a straight, perfect line from where you are now to where you,  want to be. And, and you know, you've seen the old graphs of entrepreneurship up and down, but really that up and down, if it's, if.

Understood, and it's meaningful, meaning you're planning these backward steps  that's okay. And you gotta learn and you gotta work your way up, and you just gotta be confident that you've done that over and over, and that you're actually wired to be able to do that. So yeah, that would be my first piece of advice would be to be patient. I want to go back a little bit farther before you even get to licensing and franchising, because I'm thinking a lot of people listening to this don't have your aspirations in that regard.

You know, maybe they wanna have one or two locations of their studio have a good business,  and, and that's about as far as their aspirations might go. What kind of advice would you have for them?

Or maybe it's the same thing? I don't know. I think it is because I think,  solving problems is something that's inherently human. We enjoy it. you listen to like a Dr. Huberman, who's the Stanford professor, talks about the brain chemistry on overcoming a challenge or solving a problem, one in the same. this is sort of his definition of happiness is overcoming obstacles and challenges. And when you do, so There is a brain chemistry reaction that's very positive.

It's sort of self-efficacy and all the things that come with like being what we would perceive as being happy. And I'm air quoting that if you're not watching this, Happiness is a terrible goal. You should have a purpose, right? And a purpose means you've got a big challenge in front of you and you have to do things and work hard to overcome that challenge.

As soon as you do that, if you want to live, to be happy, and to continue this process throughout your life is you have to move the goalpost back a little bit, right? So that there's yet another challenge in front of you, one after the other. So in your scenario, Jay, of opening, like going from one gym to two, While it's not going from 2000 gyms and licensing to a hundred franchises sold in a year or whatever.

I mean, it doesn't really matter. I was that guy as well. We've owned multiple corporate locations and I wouldn't say it was any easier then than it is now. I've just stacked enough skills to make the things I'm doing as bearable now as they were back then. Right? Doesn't matter.  wire yourself in a way to present a problem and to overcome that problem. And it might be something as simple as, if I want to go from working in my business to working on my business, I have to learn how to interview, hire. Good candidates and then lead them, you know, to keep them happy for a while.

In my business, that's the only way I'm gonna be able to take two steps out of the business, So even if you just wanna help more people  you're gonna have to scale your business a bit.

That's a skill set. you do need to learn how to read a p and l. And you do need to understand the cash flow, and you need to understand marketing budgets and costs per lead and just some basic metrics. So, I would say instead of always saying  I suck at blank, or I'm not the person,  I don't work well with others, that's a terrible thing to speak over yourself.

 there's always little nuanced things that you can be upskilling yourself on, and you don't have to be master of everything, but at least you have to understand some of these things, right? So I would say the same principles apply, Jay, whether you're doing scaling, one location, going from one to two, two to three, moving into a different vehicle, what I typically see is that people will bounce around too much and they're sort of like hiding from some deficiencies, You know, instead of growing their business and just doubling down on the basics or maybe doing the harder work, you know, they'll just say, well, I'm gonna dabble in this now, and now I'm gonna launch this other program and, and they may be falling victim to this Instagram message of, you need eight line items of revenue.

It's like, you probably don't, when I see that, typically seven of the eight are half baked as it is, so you'd be better off doubling down on the. Right. Making it amazing and  maybe your growth.

Jay is conviction to the basics. That's obscenely hard for entrepreneurs. It's like, okay, I'm gonna work with everything in my soul to, to figure out which one thing I'm gonna dominate at in my market, or whatever that is. And then I'm gonna go all in on that thing and  I'm gonna just drill the basics.

I'm gonna role play, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna pull my clients, I'm gonna do all the things, right? Mm-hmm.  that we don't wanna do. And I typically, that's harder for most entrepreneurs than just, you know, creating a new system or you. Sitting in the back office and building click funnels or just whatever the things are, not that those aren't necessary, but you know, they'll just spread themselves really thin and, and try lots of different things and you know, like, Hey, I wanna start a podcast, but I own one gym.

It's like, okay. I understand that there's a need to get your thoughts out there, you know? But is it really gonna move the needle on your membership? Or is it just like a self-serving thing to do? Right. 

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And that focus is so important. I think that maybe in the digital age, perhaps, I don't know. You were doing this before Facebook and Twitter and everything. Um, it's so easy to get distracted.

You know, you see all these things like, I've gotta have multiple streams of revenue. I've gotta be on every channel. I've gotta be everywhere on social media. I've gotta, you know, do all these things, but actually you don't. You know, and that's something I'm always telling my clients too, is to be on TikTok, for crying out loud.

 if you just focus on the basics,  there's probably five or six opportunities that are right in front of you right now that you just don't want to see because they're diff Again, it's the four letter word means work.

Oh, I gotta meet with my staff. I have to have hard conversations about why those sessions in the evenings aren't going as well. And our churns higher for evening clients. I need to meet with that coach every single week, right? We need to do a, you know, da da. Those are things that aren't fun. It's much easier to say, I'm gonna buy this thing, or I'm gonna create this idea.

This chaos in our heads, you know, as entrepreneurs, There's so much going on, and when I grab the stuff floating by me, I get overwhelmed. And when I'm overwhelmed, I need to remind myself to stop and just focus on those key things. Those 3, 4, 5, 6 things, whatever they are for your business that you just we're talking about, and remarkably the nonsense clears.

Does that make. It does, it does. You know, when I, when I'm hearing you talk about that, Jay, it reminds me like I've become a big fan of different philosophies. Yeah. as I've been able to not master, but at least control some of the things that you're talking about, some of the,  we call it that rat brain, like squirrel, you know, run through the room and you get distracted.

 how do you really control that?  I'm a big fan of the stoics because I, I like the idea of. Focus on what you can control, not what you can't. And a lot of the things that we fret over, even in our business, in our entrepreneurship, they're not the things  right in front of us.

It's about controlling your emotions and making your decisions via logic and data, not based on how you feel, because how you feel. Can change and your emotions will lie to you. They will, they'll back up your, your, you know, biases. They'll tell you that you won't be able to do something if you've got some fear there.

And all of those things aren't necessarily rational. And so if you can learn to get control of the things that you can control, right, and, and really think with logic and not with emotions, that is a great skill for any entrepreneur because if you can do that, then you will look at the immediate five.

Customer service place being cleaner. I mean, just simple things, right?  those will move mountains. Whereas your newfangled idea  for one class or something that's not really gonna move the needle that much.

I had an experience where I relearned all of this.  earlier this year I interviewed for the podcast and author who, like me, was a former journalist and, uh, now she's writing nonfiction books and she wrote one about. How to reenter the workforce after 50 or how to thrive in the workforce if you're a little bit older.

She was very helpful to me and she got me thinking about, I've got a book idea in my head about all of this, and she sent me her template for writing a book proposal.

She's introducing me to her agent. You know, all of this could happen.  And yet, as soon as I started doing that, my core business started suffering,  had a lot of anxiety, and I had to ultimately put that aside for a minute because  I can't do everything, you know?  so we learn these lessons over and over sometimes.

Well, I think each time that you do move into a better opportunity vehicle, it comes with the same belief systems that need to be broken. Like the mechanisms are the same Now the moving parts are a bit different cause obviously authoring a book is different than  creating content for fitness brands that wanna speak well to 50 plus crowd, there's a lot to figure out, but again, that's the sort of the problem solving that's really good for your brain. And  you've got only so much bandwidth, so it might be a bit of a detraction from your main.

But I think that can be figured out, right? I think any of those problems can be solved, or you just say, okay, I'm taking two steps backwards in my main business because the, the, the opportunity of publishing a book.  I think it's a really good thing, right? So it's probably worth it. But again, you could, you have to expect to like take a couple steps back, which is disconcerting. But if you're, if you're in control of your emotions and you're like, well, I mean, what did I expect?

I'm only one person. Yeah. I can't do 55 things. 53 was the, was the max, or whatever that is. Right.

It's gonna happen in like q1, I just couldn't do it right then. I had some personal things going on and yeah, I just couldn't handle it.

 But before I got to the point of view of I will all do all of this. I felt like a big phony. And I wanted to talk to you about this cuz you posted something about this, a famous quote from Maya Angelou about, she's written a half a dozen best selling books or more probably, I don't know.

And she's hugely famous and admired the world over and she still feels like a phony. And your response was, get used to it. If you're, an entrepreneur, you better get used to that imposter syndrome, which I encount. Dealing with this book proposal,  if I were a real writer, I could do everything right.

So  what do you tell these gym owners who are struggling with that? Yeah. I would say that it's always been present for me and, and certainly in every evolution right of business. And,  I'll be totally transparent,  I was a junior in college when I opened this business, and I switched my major from exercise science because it was like, well, everybody's doing exercise science wants to eventually do what I'm already doing.

I'll switch my major to business. Right. Well  I'm still 15 credit hours short of even graduating. So  that makes you feel like an imposter. I didn't even graduate college. Right. so it's like, that works against you. And then I'm like, well now I'm kind like, oh, it's okay.

 Now I could I go back and get my 15 credit hours? Sure. The reason I didn't finish is because my business was doing really well, and  why? Like what is accomplishing this gonna do for this career that I planned to stay in as long as possible?

I couldn't answer it at the time,  so it starts there. you already feel like a phony, right? Mm-hmm.  Then I'm hiring people. I'm 22 years old. And I'm hiring people that are my age now and I'm asking 'em about their life experiences and  their, you know, strengths and weaknesses.

All the cheesy interview questions that we used to ask. And you feel like an imposter. they're looking at me thinking, you know what?  I've got kids older than you. Give me a break. Why are you asking me about, my views on the world and if I'm gonna work hard and all this.

But you know what, it was one of those things. It's like, this is my business. These are my questions to. I feel like a complete weirdo asking these questions, but I'm gonna do it right. And I will tell you that every step, I've got so many stories of times that that imposter syndrome has showed up. And every single time, my response has always been, well then earn it. You know what I mean? Like, of course you have it, everybody has it. If you're on the working at the edge of your skill set, which is kind of where the magic happens. Then  you're gonna have these feelings of doubt, and you're gonna feel like you're not good enough and all that, but then you step back and you're like, okay, again, is that logical?

Or am I just being emotional and am I making excuses for not taking these opportunities? Right? Am I somehow tricking myself by feeling this way so that I won't take advantage of these opportunities, right? Because I could tell myself, You're not qualified for that. You don't belong in this room or in this conversation, or wherever that is.

So you shouldn't be here. But that's a slippery slope, right? So I think there's a fine line. you still have to be tolerant of moving into opportunity.

Vehicles that are gonna put make you very uncomfortable. And if that's the case, then earn it. I remember even joining a long time ago, a Vistage Group, which is a business group. It's a worldwide organization, but what they'll do is typically put 15. 20 people tops in a, in one group and they're all local. So you meet once a month, right? And you just talk about business and they're not the same industry at all.

So there was somebody that owned a giant pest control company, you know, and um, I mean all of these really, really smart business people. And I was probably the dumbest person in the room as how I felt. But I found there was some things that I was really good at that I could really contribute to the. And so  I just gave as much as I could help,  fitness is, is heavy marketing and sales, right?

So I was good at that. So I really helped a lot of those guys and meet with their sales teams and do that type of stuff.  but I had to work hard to prove that I could fit into this group,  but I had to prove it to myself too. So it, it's always hard work.  just to address imposter syndrome overall,  it's a real thing.

It really is. Everyone has it. So first of all, that should make you feel better. You're not unique, right? Everyone has this, and the best way to deal with it is to work really hard and earn whatever room or spot or opportunity vehicle that you're in, that that's the way to overcome it. And you will. And then as soon as you do, remember the.

Move the goal post back and start all over. All right, Rick, thanks very much. I appreciate it as always, pleasure talking to you. Likewise. Appreciate, Jay, have a good day, and if I don't see you, have a happy Thanksgiving. Thanks, you too. All right. Cheers. There's. 

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show, and I hope you'll subscribe, tell a Friend and write a review.

All of that helps us grow our audience. I also hope you'll check out the powerful fitness business training and certifications offered by my friends at the Functional Aging Institute. FAI is the leading authority. On how to build a business that's focused on helping people over 50 live their best lives through fitness, their educational services, networking opportunities and coaching are invaluable, and the pricing is unbeatable.

Just use this special code so they know you're coming to them through me. You can find it on the show notes page and follow the link to learn more. Also, FAI president and co-founder Dan Richie was our very first guest on Optimal Aging. So reach back to episode one for more about the Functional Aging Institute.

I'm now thankful for FAI Support as another affiliate sponsor of this show, so you'll be supporting me as well as yourself and this great organization. So thank you. you can learn more about me and my content business@primefitcontent.com. Send me an email at J J A Y prime fit content.com.

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