The 10k Trainer: Semi-Private Gym Owner In Hawaii w/ Blake Parado

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Transcript

Welcome And How To Level Up

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showofffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness podcast. Aloha, my friend, Mr. Blake. How are we doing today, sir? How's it going, Chris? Thank you for having me on. We've communicated back and forth a lot. We've had a lot of you know funny little interactions on social media. That's the beauty of it. But now we're going to be talking about your story as a gym owner in over there in Hawaii. So thank you for taking the time today, sir.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

No, thank you. Yeah. I think this is the first time I'm having a podcast with someone I technically didn't meet in person. So that's exciting.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, there you go. That's the beauty of technology today. So why don't you give us a little breakdown, your story, how you were a nerd, and then you got into baseball, and then now

From Scrawny Baseball Kid To Lifter

SPEAKER_01 1:08

look at you, you're just living the life.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, I mean, most people are kind of surprised when they look at me that I actually grew up like a big nerd. That's a joke. I obviously look like a big nerd. Um, yeah, so I played a lot of video games. I was a scrawny kid going into high school. Um, I was already fully grown, 5'7, maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. Um, played baseball because that's like the well, baseball is big in Hawaii in general, because that's one sport that size doesn't matter as much as other sports. Um, you can get away with I mean, other sports, there are stories of people succeeding when they don't quite have the size, but baseball is probably the most common, or size doesn't matter too much. But anyway, my coach, the varsity coach, said if I ever have a chance to make far make varsity or play varsity, I need to bulk up a little bit, get stronger. I had kind of a weak arm. I could barely hit the ball out of the infield. But he said I had a good attitude. I've been told I had a good attitude growing up a lot. I always got the never really got like MVP or all-stars, but I got a lot of good attitude and attendance awards. Um but yeah, in high school I got hooked up with my I got lucky enough to be hooked up with my lifting coach, Coach Clay. He was a softball coach at our school at the time, but he took a bunch of us under his wing as long as we were dedicated and showed up every time and gave our best effort. Showed up five days a week without fail for four years, only missing major holidays like Christmas, maybe New Year's. Um he really drilled into me great form on the compound lifts. Like my first workout was doing like 10 sets of 15 of squats with just the broomstick and to depth and had to get down to depth every time. Um that left my I could barely walk for like a week after, but it really drove in that form. Yeah, we squatted like a couple of times a week, bench pressed a few times a week, deadlifted every week or so. So I kind of got exposed to powerlifting, the power lifts or pumping with us really early, and he always stressed form. So I was lucky enough there. After high school and I got to college, I just continued lifting, never really had any interest in going into fitness or anything because back way back then in the early 2000s, personal training wasn't really considered a like a respectable career or anything. It kind of was just a side a side job or something you did as a stepping stone. If even if you're going into like exercise science or something, it was considered a stepping stone that you do it while you're in college to get experience and then you move on to something else, whether it be physical therapy, strength and conditioning, athletic training or something. Um, and when I even did an internship at a strength and conditioning place, they told me, Oh, yes, get up, start personal training now before while you're in school. When you graduate, look to get your CSCS certification or something, and then become a strength coach, as that's the next step. Um, so I followed their advice. I ended up, I started with a actually I started by applying for 24 hour fitness and never got that job. So I tell my clients now you're working with somebody who couldn't even get a job at 24 hour fitness. Um what was the reasoning for that? Um, I have no idea. I just well, they didn't really have a lot of openings where we are. I applied at a whole bunch of them and got um only heard back from one that wasn't even the closest one to where I live. Um, it didn't sound like they had a lot of openings, and I was working at a restaurant job at the time and they kind of hinted um if you want to work here, you got to give up that job or you won't have enough to make your quotas and stuff. And I was like, Well, I'm making like $200 a night at that job in four or five hours. That's pretty hard to give up for a job that pays like 15 bucks an hour. Um, but I wanted to be a personal trainer or I wanted to get experience. So I even considered cutting down hours, probably not giving up completely, but cutting down hours if needed. Ended up not getting the job anyway, so it probably worked out for the best. Ended up starting at the YMCA for a little bit, which was a great way to get your feet wet because they don't really push personal trainer or quotas and stuff. You kind of just go at your own pace. Personal training is kind of just there. Um, even met the person who introduced me to powerlifting, powerlifting competitions anyway, at the time um at the YMCA, because he saw me that he's like, You do all the lifts anyway, you might as well just compete. Um, but anyway, at after being at the Y for a bit, um I ended up getting connected through through one of my friends at Roos Chris to my old boss, um to where I started at the private studio, Fitness Reigns. Um, the owner was like roommates with one of my friend with one of my friends that were a server at the same restaurant. Got hooked, he told him that I was a trainer and looking for a job, ended up getting hooked up and starting there. Um, so that was like my first real personal training job. And that was maybe a year or so before I graduated college. As I was working there and got exposed to working with

Early Training Jobs And Finding Purpose

SPEAKER_00 5:55

a whole bunch of regular general population people and helping them get out of pain, get out of meds and stuff. I felt that I was way more fulfilled doing that than working with athletes. Um, working with athletes is fun and all, and everyone kind of wants to do that at first or try. But at the end of the day, it's like I feel like I get more I get more joy and fulfillment out of helping everyday people, people who normally wouldn't be found in the gym or are scared of the gym, getting out of pain, doing things that they thought they couldn't do again or ever, rather than working with athletes who usually are already pretty good athletes and just helping them get become better athletes, which they probably would have been better. A lot of athletes would have been great with or without you, as long as they didn't go to somebody who got them hurt.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

And that's just so cool. Now, how were you at how long were you at the Y for?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Um, only about six months until I met my former boss. Um and then I kind of I just hung on to him, was doing both at the time. So at one point before I graduated, I was doing personal training at two gyms, working my restaurant job and going to school.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And the crazy thing about success is people will look at you know what we're gonna talk about next with your gym, and they'll just kind of sweep everything that happened in the past under the rug, where it's like, you know, you were in the trenches in high school learning from you know a strength coach and you know, just hammering in the movement competency so you know how to move. And then you go out there and you work with other bodies, and then you're talking about an internship and continue education. And so, so many trainers, you know, they'll get that first entry-level cert, and they've never even had a coach work with them, and they're just gonna use their anecdotes and hopefully it works. But then what do you do when Susan or Frank has a knee issue or a shoulder issue? And I'm sure you came across a lot of that stuff at the Y. And so, really, what was your motivation behind continuing your education?

Why Great Coaches Keep Learning

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Because you have a plethora of of hands-on learning events you've done, and kind of wanted to dissect that first before we talk about your gym.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Um, yeah, going back to being fortunate to have a coach, I I mean, I thank him all the time when I see him. That what I'm doing now is definitely attributed to him, and then um still he's still close friends with like my mom and stuff. So um yeah, she like sends him videos of my power to thing all the time so that he can see. And then um anyway, yeah. I tell people from the time I was 14 or from high school, the four years of high school, I probably got more experience under the bar than most people get in their whole life, especially before they become trainers. Um and what was I saying? Um hands-on learning stuff, and so they moved. Oh yeah, hands-on learning, yeah. So um, yeah, this well, I just enjoy I just enjoyed learning in general. Like even before I went into the fitness industry, I used to buy all the flex magazines, muscle and fitness magazines, and even this is when I was still a computer science major. Um, I was on the bodybuilding.com forums, T Nation and stuff, and I just found it because even going back to when I was playing sports, I knew I didn't have like the raw natural talent or size, surprisingly, when you look at me. But so I was like, okay, how am I gonna actually succeed in sports? I have to be smart and learn the game and learn the ins and outs. So same thing when it came to the gym. It's like I'm not gonna natural, I'm not one of those guys that naturally I've had friends that walk in in college and stuff, and I was like, Oh, when's the last time you benched? And they're like, Oh, like five years ago, and then they rep 315. And it's like it's like I've been lifting for how many years and never got three. Then you just walk in and or like I worked with an athlete at the O gym and he's like, When's the last time you deadlifted? And he's like, Oh, I never deadlifted, and then he reps four plates. It's like like that's not gonna be me. Um, so I always so I was like, So I was like, Yeah, I gotta be, I gotta be smart and like learn how to like get the ins and outs of this if I want to like get to a respectable level of strength and musto and stuff. So I was always into the learning, and that continued on even more so after getting certified. Um like you said, um, even when I got my first certification NESM and I was going through like the programming and stuff, and then even um even looking at it, I kind of had the inkling like okay, based on the like what they have for their sets and reps and work periods, work and rest periods. So, like even before training, when I was like, this is kind of a long workout. This is like an hour and a half workout. Um, I don't know if that's gonna work for someone, but um, even and then I think like even the very first time I had the Y, I tried a little bit of like okay, their stabilization phase and stuff, and I was like, but it was, I think the first client she was kind of a bigger overweight lady, and I was like, I don't know about having like an overweight lady. The first thing we do is like standing on one leg and doing like lateral raises and stuff. So it already kind of clicked in my head from my past lifting experience and reading and stuff. It didn't take it took all of like one session, one client to realize, okay, it's not like you get the certification and that's it. You got to keep learning and applying and figuring out ways yourself. Um I always saw it as like a just a step to the door. Like to me, it's like it's like Pat, whether it's getting your first certification or graduating from college, you're just showing like that's just open, like you just stepped into the you just entered the door and showed that you're not a complete idiot and can pass a test. That's that's the very, very floor.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah, I agree, but so that's part of the issue I find with because you have that background. And so you know so many trainers that I talk with, especially today, must be tough because who do you follow? And you're like me in the sense I was always reading men's health and bodybuilding, and so you were learning from like the Tony Gentilcors, Eric Cresties, Elaine Norton, Ben Bruno, you know, those, you know, the essentially like the gatekeepers of professionals back then were you know that they're what they're saying is legit. But today it's like you could be following some dipshit on social media and you don't really know, they just have a lot of followers. And so if you don't have that exposure, and then you take this model, and it was funny because someone sent me a post from one of their ads on NASA, and it's like, why should I get NASA? And they're like, Oh, because of the OPT model. And like, if you have any brain whatsoever, you know that that is not going to be applicable to working with anybody. And so imagine that new coach who's now out there trying to have a stability ball squat curl press, and it just doesn't work. And so you had the ability and the faculties to be able to, okay, well, we got that done. Let's let's go out there and learn some more. So, what were some of the hands-on learning courses? And let's talk a little bit about that who you've learned from.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Oh, yeah, some hands-on courses. So at my old gym, my boss was a big kettlebell guy,

Hands-On Seminars That Changed His Coaching

SPEAKER_00 12:20

so he was good connections with Dr. Mark Chang. So I believe that would be the first hands-on course I did since becoming certified, um, where he basically went through the whole like strong first model, really broke down swings, getups. Actually, I think it was just like almost two hours of swings and get ups. Um, but broke it down to such detail, and that that made me realize okay, we've been doing swings and get ups at our gym for like two years at that point, teaching it. And there's still ways to like if he can go down. I think he broke down a kettlebell deadlift and all the intricacies of like how to set your feet, how to set your hips, feel your hips, um, set your even down to breathing. Um, broke it down to such detail, and that was kind of the eye-opener. Okay, no matter how long you've done something or how good you think you are at something, you can always be better. There is no such thing as perfect form. Um, and I tell that to the clients all the time, like whenever they at whenever we correct their form and stuff, and they say, Oh, was I doing it wrong the whole time? And I was like, No, it's not that you're doing it wrong the whole time, but there's always ways to make it better. Like, and I use myself as an example with them. It's like I've been come I've been doing barbell squats for what 24 years now and competing for 15, and I still film my squats. My coach, I still find ways to break it down. My now, I now have an in-person coach, he breaks, he still breaks it down. So it's like if I've been doing the same lift for 24 years and competed and have like a few records and stuff in it, and I can still find ways to improve the form, you can find ways to improve your form on like a goblet squat and stuff. Um, but yeah, so that that was one of the big hands-on learning ones. I've done like the CP PPS course with Joe DeFranco. Um, what else have I done? Um a whole bunch of seminars, like three out of the four um real coaches summits. Um, gone to Raise the Bar, Vigor Ground Summit. Um went to Vigor Ground just for a one day. I went to I flew in the more one the morning and then flew out that evening into Seattle for a Vigor Ground seminar. That was ambitious and probably won't do that again.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Um again, just from hearing you talk about that mindset. I was talking to someone the other day and they were, you know, we're gonna be in Miami this weekend, and we'll be in uh Nashville for a seminar. And you know, the always the pushback is it's too expensive. It's too expensive. I can't do this. But they're not thinking it in the way that you are, where it's like, I'm gonna be around some of the best coaches and I'm gonna learn to fine-tune my coaching skills, which will ultimately better serve my clients, but also allow for me to be a better coach. And you know, when you have that mindset where it's like, I want to learn from Luca, I want to go and hear Aram or whoever it is speaking at the coaches summit. And it's just this curiosity to continue to learn. I feel like a lot of coaches, it's like they missed that phase. And I can't even tell you how many trainers I've met at when we're doing our seminars. That's this is the first hands-on learning that they've done. And I'm like, you've been a coach for quote unquote coach six years, and you haven't done any type of continued education. Like, oh, you know, I'll go find the free quizzes on whatever site just to get my CEUs. Like, are you taking it just to pass an exam, or are you actually, you know, dissecting the material and applying it to your clients? Oh, no, no, no. I'm just, you know, it's got to maintain my certification. So then you hear so many people talk about how hard it is to become successful in this, but you have to really build that foundation. And you're, you know, just from what you've already said right there, you've invested literally tens of thousands of dollars into becoming better. And I would you know, I don't want to speak for you, but I don't feel that you are gonna say, like, oh, it was a waste of money. Like you saw it as a purposeful for your your career.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, I don't I don't even know what how much I've invested total, and I rarely ever look at the cost. I mean, I guess it's kind of I wouldn't say it's a privilege take, but I guess it's a privilege take to like I don't really care how much if it's I see a seminar that I want to go to, I'm just I just make sure I have me and my wife don't have anything planned or anything at the time. It's like, okay, I'm gonna go. And then I don't really look at the cost or anything. And then um, I'm sure that I mean, I'm sure I could look. Yeah, it's hard to put an exact ROI. Like, it's not like I'm gonna go to real coaches summit, come back, and then okay, now all of a sudden I'm gonna make 20% more salary or anything. Um, everything's just kind of compound, like you said, like you said, everything in my life kind of compounds where I am today. So it's hard to say that any specific one thing resulted in like this type of success or anything. Just like when it comes to fitness, right? Like you can't, it's not just one thing that you can add and all of a sudden you're gonna get results. It's your whole everything you've accumulated up till now, everything you're doing, everything you're currently doing, everything you plan to do in the future accumulates to like your success. So I've just kind of looked at it. I never really looked at the CEUs. It just happens. If I go to if I see a seminar, a workshop and it comes for CEUs, I'm like, oh great, but that's not the first thing I look at. But um I'll just take the free online ones, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

But that is like literally the that right there is the defining factor of a growth mindset versus a scarcity mindset where you know people are thinking, oh, you know, well, what if it's gonna be too extra blah, blah, blah versus like, no, I'm just gonna do it because I know it's gonna make

Opening A Gym To Fill A Gap

SPEAKER_01 17:27

me better. So was there a moment or like a fork in your career when whether it was you and your wife or you, and you're like, I think it's time for us to open up our own gym. Talk to us a little bit more about how you got into it and what that process was like.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Um, yeah, actually, when I first became a trainer, I never thought of opening a gym or ever wanted to because when I was working for the other gym, Fitness Reigns, and saw, well, being around other gyms, going to other gyms and um watching him operate the gym. And you like all trainers, we kind of we enjoy we should enjoy training the clients more than like the operations part of a gym. And I tell yeah, I tell my interns and stuff, if you really want to, if you really enjoy working with the clients and you want to focus on training for the rest of your career, don't open a gym because when you open a gym, then you have to shift all your skill sets to something else. Operate basically, well, not basically, literally becoming a business owner. You need to learn all the business side of things. That's going to take your focus away from learning more about training and training clients. Um, anyway, so I worked, I was at that private gym for a few years, then branched off and ended up lucking into a right when I branched away from there. Another gym opened that was more of like a smaller commercial gym, kind of like I guess like kind of like Evolve Fitness or Andrew than work at where it's an open gym, but they rent out to trainers um and just pay them rent, and then you bring in your clients and you collect everything. So that's probably that's the way I recommend most trainers go if they want to focus on training because the overhead is so low. Like I think the rent was only $750 a month for training as many clients as you want, and the gym didn't take any percentage of you just charge whatever you want, and the clients pay you directly. Their only stipulation was that any clients you bring in that aren't members of the gym, they have to sign up for the gym, which was like $25 a month. And I was like, cool, I'll just put that cost into their training um and cover it for them. Um, but yeah, I was like, so it's like an overhead of a thousand dollars a month and train as many people as you want. So I was like, cool, I need like one and a half clients to break even, and then the rest is all and the rest is all in my pocket. Um, but yeah, after so I did that for a good amount, built up a client base relatively fast, was making great money there. Um, but because I always kind of did like semi-private style training, luckily for me, that first gym that I was at was doing semi-private training from the get-go back in like 2011-12, before most people even knew what semi-private training was. Um, so I already had exposure to that, carried that over. But as you can imagine, doing semi-private training in like a commercial gym, as the gym got busier and busier, it's pretty tough. Um, it just came to the point where I couldn't do the style of training I wanted, and with the clientele that I wanted because I focused mostly on like newer, older clientele. A lot of them don't feel as comfortable being in like a gym full of bodybuilding. It was mostly a bodybuilding gym, so bodybuilders and power lifters like me that drop weights really loud and grunt and stuff. So when we left that gym, we were kind of looking, me and my wife were looking around, trying to find a spot to well, either another spot we can rent. There was none, so I guess the only choice now. And I even took her on like a gym tour. Like we're I left the gym, we didn't have a gym for a little bit. We were just kind of in limbo, waiting to hear from different spots. So I'd say, Oh, we'll just buy a whole bunch of one-week passes to other gyms, like powerhouse, um, 24 and UFC and everything, um, all the gyms um around the area, and she didn't like any of them. Um, and then so she felt uncomfortable in most gyms, and she's a power lifter, right? So I was like, okay, if you feel if you in your 20s as a powerlifter that can outlift half the guys here don't feel comfortable working out at all these gyms. Imagine our clients that are in their 40s and 50s and never worked out in their life walking into these gyms. How do you think they feel? So we're like, we need to just create a space for our own that doesn't exist here. Um, we ended up going to we ended up lucking into a spot. I had a friend that was closing his gym, and um it's like he never thought of passing it on to somebody else. And I was like, Oh, I'm looking for a gym. So I ended up taking over his spot. It was more of a CrossFit style gym, and it had more like dark walls and stuff. So we took over the spot and just painted everything bright colors and then made it our gym. So um yeah, it was more just out of necessity and find like seeing that there was a hole in the market for um a space for where people who know they should be working out, but maybe aren't into fitness like we are. Um I think every I mean everybody knows they should be working out to. Point. I don't think I've ever talked to anybody. It's like, do you think fitness, do you think you should be working out or fitness is important? I don't think anybody said no, they just don't want to or don't feel like they know how to start. So yeah, there was a whole thing in the market where we saw that pretty much every gym we've been to caters to people who already enjoy working out. And we haven't seen a space for people who don't quite enjoy working out or feel uncomfortable in other gyms. So we ended up just creating one.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Love that. And so from the business side of it, did you, you know, where did you go for your business coaching or did you learn about books? Or, you know, they'll talk, they'll say when you open up a gym, you should have six months of rent saved up. And you know, from the financial side of it, what were some of the things that were the bigger costs? Did you uh take on the gym with all the equipment in there? Did you have to go out there and buy it? And what were some of the more expensive things? I love talking about the business stuff because you know, I talked to a lot of trainers about training, but this is

Startup Costs And Business Lessons

SPEAKER_01 22:51

this is a fun conversation to have.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, learning about business in general, I think a lot of it came from working at the restaurant, Roots Chris, for almost a decade and just kind of picking up on things there, like the hospitality and client service aspect and even like selling right as a server, selling wine and stuff. Um, that carried over to when I went independent and felt like I was a little more comfortable. Still wasn't the most comfortable with sales at first, but probably more comfortable than most trainers when they start off. I was like, if I can sell something that I don't even really like, like wine, I can sell something I really am passionate about, like training. Like it became I was like, just sell the same, like even at Roose Chris is like, don't sell something that you know someone doesn't want or like um for fitness. Don't sell something to someone that you know they need. And so yeah, that became that part got covered from that. Um, and the business side of how we ran our gym, we just kind of went to other gyms and observed, and it's like, okay, what do people not like? Or what are stories we've heard of people who had trainers and stuff and didn't like? Like the most common ones were trainers being late or not showing up for sessions, or the gym being dirty, or parking being junk and um equipment being broken. And it's like, okay, note all these things. Okay, all these things people don't like when we open our gym, we're not gonna do those things. Um, and then um, what was I saying? I mean, there's sorry, go ahead. So, yeah, we opened in 2018. Startup cost, we ended up we were actually saving for a home at the time already. Um, we were lucky enough to get hooked up with a friend of a friend, financial advisor from the times we were like 24, 25, like 2015 or so. So we had a good three-ish, three plus three, four years of working with the financial advisor, helping us come up with a plan. We were getting pretty close to saving for like a house already at the time at in 2018. But then things happened at the gym that forced us to look for our space. So we used that saved money and put it into the gym. Um, the startup cost wasn't crazy high because like it was already a gym to begin with. Um, so we got to keep the flooring and we kept the rack in there and some of his equipment. And then we were actually we already had ordered equipment before we went into that gym for a different space, but it was a smaller space and it was already shipping over. We had the lease just about done, and the landlord pulled out of that space the very last minute um and said they had to think about it. So we're kind of stuck in limbo with like equipment coming on our way and like shoving a bunch of equipment in my mom's place. Like her room is filling up, but there's like a giant rower and skier sitting in the middle of her room and stuff. Um, but then yeah, and then when we got that in place, we just put all the equipment we already ordered inside, or a little bit more because it was a bigger space than we had originally was going to go into. Um, and then yeah, I bought I just basically paid the owner a lump sum for whatever equipment I wanted from him, and um, not exactly for his clients, but he was nice enough to with his clients, current clients okay, like to give me their contact info or have them reach out to me if they want to continue over. Um, so I just threw him a little bit extra for that because that's basically his life's work going into that. And I'm just getting a bunch of leads for free, that really warm leads for free, right? Because it's a no-brainer if they want to stay over, they don't have to change gyms or anything. Our training style is not told, like absolutely opposite from the way he was doing things. Um, so yeah, we started off the out the gate kind of running. I think we already had like 70, 80 clients coming out the door. Um built it up really fast. Um I don't know if we had any business plan or anything. It was kind of just like I just my uh me and my wife was like a team. I just did all the training. I would just do be like a runaway train and train everyone from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. Um, and she took care of the business, like the marketing and the financial side and like our website and all that, and made sure I wasn't like totally screwing things up. And that's just kind of how we uh that's just kind of how we operated up until the pandemic.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

So cool. And so if you don't mind talking about some numbers, that uh initial investment, what did you buy it for?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Um, I think I it was only like 30 something grand.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Like and then additional equipment that you bought?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Um, that I don't really remember, but prices of equipment back then weren't as crazy as it was now. So I don't think we spent more than 50 grand total.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

I mean, that's how big's your spot.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

2400 square feet. It was a pretty big space for that amount. What's your rent? Um, it is currently just over eight grand. Um, yeah, there's a standard three percent raise since we've been in.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah. I mean, that's it's all about the the peas of marketing, your place where you're at and how you get out there and you know you you market your product. And so you had that nice influx of people. Now, of those 80, you were talking about semi-private. For those that aren't too familiar with semi-private, is that a monthly membership? Is it discounted versus one-on-one? So to say you're charging 100 bucks per hour, they're doing $40 and they're buying packages. What does that look like?

Semi-Private Training Model Explained

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So, yeah, we just took what we normally would charge for one-on-one and made it like 60% of the price. So um back, we were probably charging like $100 back then for a one-on-one, which made semi-private like $60 to $65. And actually, it hasn't even actually maybe even less, like $55 to $60 at the time per session. And we took up to, well, we took a soft cab of up to four people per hour. But as we got busier and busier, it kind of like, okay, we can fit five here, we can fit six here, especially in such a big space. 2,400 square feet is a large space. Um, but yeah, basically, semi-private. If people aren't familiar with, there's large group classes where there's a whole bunch of people that we consider. I'd say anything over 12 people is a large group class, and everyone's doing the same workout together. People with it like F-45, Orange Theory style, and we ran those as well, like boot camp style. Small group, I would say, is between like six to twelve, which is or small group personal training, but I'd say it's like six to twelve, in which there's a program designed for that group, but they're all doing the same workout again. I'd say semi-private is six or less. Pretty hard to do it with more than six unless you have multiple people, but six or less clients in that hour. And the main difference between that and the group is that each person has their own individual program that's designed, that would be pretty much the same program as if they're a one-on-one client. The only thing is they're sharing that hour with other people, and the trainer bounces around from person to person, still gives the same corrections and cues as they would if they were doing one-on-one client, except I tell the client the only difference is you have to count your own reps. And that's pretty much the only difference. Some gyms require them to like set up their own equipment too. But me coming from the hospitality background, and we're so handy, like everything is like, no, we're gonna bring out all the equipment for you, put all like set up all your weights, put it away for you. All you got to do is do the exercise and count your reps.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I mean, the skills that you learn, I always will say some of the best trainers I've ever met come from the bar industry. They're bartenders, because you are we are in the service industry. And it's like it's mind-blowing when you do. I mean, you're a smart cat and you surveyed and you went out there and you did your market research as you should. But trainers are just it's insane. Like it's the little things, they don't show up on time or they're not smelling the part. And it's like little things like that, it just turns your clients away. So if you look at, okay, if this is what they're doing and people don't like it, well, let's just do the opposite and let's actually make it fun, let's make it engaging, and let's provide a service. And I'm sure that your retention is extremely high, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Mm-hmm. I think our attrition rate is like one percent or something. Something great.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

And so your marketing right now is probably pretty low because you have your business going well and it's taking care of itself.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, we have like an ad cost of zero because we don't do any, and all we pay is to be on whatever Google charges to be a registered business or something. Um I mean, our costs for we use a bunch of software is that even then I'm not very efficient at. I use like a whole I use like kilo for certain things, I use bonus living for a CRM and um have two coach for our programs. So we have a whole bunch of costs and programs that I can probably consolidate, but um I tell people I'm not I'm actually pretty lazy, so I just do things like um the same way every time. Um but yeah, in terms of marketing, yeah, it's just all referral. And then we just did it. My wife, my wife is a marketing, former marketing major, so she she it's thanks to her that the business side is as up to as up to par as it is. Because if it was just me by myself, it would be it would have went to crap a long time ago. But yeah,

Service Culture And Referral Marketing

SPEAKER_00 31:40

um, yeah, so she she took care of the website, she knew about SEO and all that from the time I we started our company, and she has her own business too, right? She has our photography business, so and it's kind of this the same ideas apply on both sides. The marketing is very similar for both sides because it's technically pretty much a service industry, too. So basically, our strategies for our website and marketing and stuff were the same. We just one is about fitness and one is about photography.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

I love that. And and so when you look at now versus when you started out, people don't realize, like you said, you have that trainer hat on, but then the business hat also is on. So you were doing early morning, late at night. You know, did there come a point to when you're like, you know what, I don't know how long I can do this for, or because the business was doing that well, you started hiring people. Are you doing 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. now? Like, what's it look like on a day for Mr. Blake?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Oh, no way. Yeah, I probably do less hours in a week now than I did in the single day back then. But um, when we first moved up leading up to the pandemic, I was the only trainer, so yeah, I did every single session. Um, pretty close to 70 hours of sessions a week, if not more than that. Um, and then they're all semi-private in groups. So we're looking at 150 plus sessions, actual sessions in a week. And I was only 30 at well, only 30 at the time. So I didn't feel I didn't feel I never felt burnt out or anything. I don't think I've ever felt burnt out at a single point in my entire career. Um, I think it's I kind of laugh when I hear all these burnout stories and stuff, but it's like, how are you burnt out working in such a fun like industry industry as a gym? But um, anyway, um No, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

I think I want to talk about that a little bit more because I'm almost ashamed to talk about that because I hear so many stories of people, I'm burned out, I'm burned out. Then I'll talk to physical therapists who, similar to our background, we have internships and we've learned and we've really had our eyes set on this. We were passionate about it, we knew our why. And you'll hear therapists, oh, yeah, right now I'm doing 40, 45 clients a week hours, and that's no biggie. But then you hear trainers talk about, like, oh yeah, full time. I'm thinking like 15, 20. And I'm like, what the fuck do you mean 1520? Like, find me a job that you can, you know, clear six figures and you're working 10, 15 hours a week. It's not realistic. And you know, yeah, it's not that hard when you train, especially when you train a group. I always think it's easier to train a group versus one person because when it's one-on-one, they're telling you fucking everything. They're oh, they're this isn't doing well, the relationship issues. But like when it's a small group, it's not as personal, but it still is within reason. But I love that. I love hearing that. I wish more people would really reflect on why you're getting into this industry. And if you have that, why I'm doing this to help people, and yeah, you can make money, but you're not doing it just to make as much money as you can. You know, doing a 30, 40 hour work week isn't crazy. I've never burned out in my career. And I also credit that to similar to you, is I'm always learning. I'm always out there going to seminars and I'm surrounding myself with different mentalities and different ideas. And so then it kind of fires me up to come back and okay, here's a new plan of attack. So I, you know, I think that's awesome. And people need to hear more about that. That it's not like you have to get this badge of honor where it's like, oh, you have you're gonna burn out sooner or later. You're fucking working 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and you were able to do just fine.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah, and I think it all comes back to like growing up, like when I was in middle school, I had a pretty hard ass baseball coach, and we practiced seven days a week without fail all the way through Sunday. So I've never had like Sundays off in my entire life working at a restaurant and everything. Um, we practiced baseball seven days a week with my lifting coach in high school. We lifted five days a week for three hours without fail for four years in college. Like, and like I said, when I was in college, at one point I was working at two gyms and working in the restaurant four to five nights a week and going to school full time. So um doing all, and then at the peak of after I graduated, I was doing 40 to 50 hours a week at the gym and four nights at a restaurant. And at one point I reached, I remember one month I counted all my hours and I

Work Ethic And The Burnout Debate

SPEAKER_00 35:38

did 300 hours plus over just over 300 hours of work in one month on the clock. That's not even including off the clock where you're doing like planning sessions and stuff. Um, so after doing that, and then ended up working for myself at a gym for 70, 60, 70 hours a week. I was like, this is if I can do all that working for other people, working for myself felt like nothing. Um, so I mean, um, and we're doing really well fine, like we're doing well financially at the time too. So yeah, going into the pandemic, we're like, oh, everything's great, like really busy making it. Um, I think we were we were grossing like 200, 250k before the pandemic with just me as the trainer, um, and with obviously pretty good profit margins because I'm the only person. Um, pay my wife if anything. But um yeah, so but then going into the pandemic, which was kind of a blessing in disguise, because like I said, I was running around, I was like running around with like a chicken with his head cut off for um there was no organization. When people came to group pass, they just signed their name on a whiteboard. When they wanted to schedule their semi-private sessions, they would just text me or um or just tell me when they're coming next. So I just had a Google calendar and just plug people in. The beauty about semi-private though is if someone comes at the wrong time or you forget someone's scheduled, it doesn't really matter because it's a group anyway. So it's like, oh hey, you just act like that was the time they're supposed to come. Whereas if you're training one-on-one and you double book people, then you're like, oh crap, I'm in trouble. Like something, I mean, so some hours I would get screwed up and there'd be like five or six people when there's only supposed to be four, but like nobody even notices. Um that probably comes from working at the restaurant too, right? Like if reservations come at the wrong time and stuff, you just take them and go. Or if like just be a table of four and then six people show up, just adjust the table and you go with the flow. Um, but yeah, um, pandemic made us kind of um okay, we re like look at our business. Like, okay, the one wake-up call was like bench me and my wife we were married, we're still married. Um, we were married two, three years already. We're talking about okay, at one point, if we want to start a family, this work schedule is not gonna fly. Um, she doesn't want to just like me be gone all the time and stuff. And that's the reason why the owner before closes gym, because he had a family, he had a few kids and he was never home because he was at the gym from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Um I was like, okay, so at some point, and the other worry was even if we never had kids or anything, um, all that most of the income is coming from the gym. And if something happens, like I'm powerlifting at the time, what if I like break my back, snap my back squatting or something? Or if I'm like crossing the street of the gym to the parking, it's a very dangerous street. People keep running that red light, and uh, someone runs me over and I can't work, then we're really screwed. I mean, we have well, I had like this like really high disability insurance and all that, but at some point we're screwed if I can't work. Um, so and then we at the time, I will admit, during that couple of years when we first opened the gym, that's probably the amount of least continuing education I ever did. Um, never really we almost never traveled at all during the time, but we just traveled for our honeymoon real fast for like a week and a half, and that was about it. Because if at that time, if

Pandemic Systems And Hiring A Team

SPEAKER_00 38:45

I like most trainers, if I close the gym and didn't have if I went on a trip and closed the gym, there's no income for that period of time. Um so yeah, all those fact we thought about all that going into the pandemic for the three-month shutdown. Um, we hired a business coaches, we hired Two Brain business at the time. Um, reorganized everything. Um, we got an actual, I think that's when we switched our CRM to bonus living, and then they got us our scheduling app and um had so that our clients could schedule online, make payments online and stuff. Um and we worked on hiring employees. Two Brain really helped us with that, develop our employee handbook and stuff. And then when then fast forward a year later, then we hired our first employees and kind of just kept rolling from there. How many people do you have working for you now? I now have two full-time trainers, and by full-time I mean 20 to 30 hours, full-time trainers. Um, and then we just have a luckily we're like a five-minute walk from the university, or at least where the University of Hawaii has their kinesiology classes because they have it kind of on the outside of campus, but closer to my gym. Um and they're required to do two internships during their undergrad. One is a 40-hour internship and one is a 160-hour internship, which basically takes up the whole semester. Um, and since we're right outside the gym, and then I put my and I talked to because I graduated from there, I talked to the head of the department and asked if I can put my name on the list of recommended places to intern. And then she came by my gym and saw what we did and talked story, and she liked it, so she put my name on there. And luckily, she instead of calling it Parado Power Fitness, she called it Blake Parado Power Fitness or something, and it's in alphabetical order, so I appear at the top. So we get a so we get a nice rotating crop of interns um every semester and a cleaner, and that's about it. So we keep a very light, uh, a lean staff.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yeah, but now you're able to you look at that your your career capital that you built, and when you're younger, yeah, you don't have much overhead, you don't have a family. But now, you know, if you something you wanted to pursue as you know your career's gone on, you have that the luxury to potentially do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yep. And then yeah, even for like traveling for continued education and stuff. Now I can travel, now I can take now I can go to like real coaches summit or any other workshop, and most of my clients don't even realize I'm gone. Um and and so yeah, by investing into a team, I can travel, better myself as a coach, better myself as a coach, and then pass on those skills to my trainers and they become better coaches. And if they become better coaches and more invested, then the clients are happier. If the clients are happier, they pay more and stay longer, and it's all just a continuing cycle. And um, yeah, so really again, when I think about seminars and stuff, I don't really think of the cost because it's all coming back, maybe not in a I mean, I'm sure there's a tangible ROI if I really broke it down, but it's I don't really want to waste my time doing that. I just know there's gonna be some ROI.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

I mean it's you know, I I did a podcast in an article the other day on the three reasons why I feel trainers quit. And it's it's kind of cool because throughout this conversation today, you really hit the hammer on the head on all those. The first one being false expectations. So people think, okay, I'm just gonna work eight to five and it's gonna be super easy. And there you go. It's just a walk in the park. I got my first certification and now I'm good. I'm qualified. Number two, being hands-on learning. And you know, you were in the trenches and you're learning from a bunch of people, and you still are. And the last one being mentorship. It's just so cool to hear people that are having skin in the game, they're successful. But most importantly, it's like when we got into this in the beginning, we like exercise, but we want to, you know, help people, and you're able to do that. And it's just so cool to see your your model. And you said that Doc Farnsworth is gonna come out and do a seminar at your spot in March of 27, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah, we've I mean we've had a couple um River Coach Summits, always followed him and stuff, and then talked more story this past one. Um, and I actually convinced a few of my other Hawaii trainers to come out. Um, I try to stay connected with all the other trainers in Hawaii. I don't know why some people some people have the minds they don't want to follow other trainers in their area and stuff. And um, I think I've even been blocked by a few that I've never even met. I was like I was like, I can't see your page. Um, but yeah. Um I I like I want to help the trainers that actually I feel like are good people and just don't know, like maybe they've just never been introduced to like the I mean it does kind of feel like a circle now, like real coaches circle or like the like the Mike Boyle, like you said, Mike Boyle, Eric Cressy, Mike Robertson circle. It's kind of functional training circle. But um, yeah, some people have been coaching for a long time and I don't I don't know how they found other people, but like never heard of them. Um, but are pretty good coaches and are trying hard. Um so yeah, I try to tell people all the seminars I'm going to and stuff, keep in touch with them. Um they ever want to ask questions about business and stuff, I'm more than happy to share with them. I also I'm most coaches kind of worried that people are gonna copy their ideas, I guess. I don't know. Um I I I'm pretty open book. I let the interns like Interns come in and like take like photocopy my whole employee handbook if they want or whatever. Like there's no

Retention, Trust, And Being The Best

SPEAKER_00 44:06

there's no real secrets that I at least there's no secrets in terms of there's nothing I do that I haven't learned from somebody else. So it's not like my secret. It's just a whole bunch of things that I've learned and kind of just bastardize into our own thing. Um but anyway, and plus like yeah, I tell people our I tell anybody to ask our model and stuff. A because um if they try to copy, I don't think they'll be able to copy the way we do anyway.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

So um, it's just the gatekeeping is is hilarious. It's kind of like the the burning out, in my opinion, because it'll be like, Do you think Wolfgang Puck gives a rat's ass if he gives me his best recipe? I'm gonna fuck it up. I'm gonna burn it, I'm gonna do something wrong. It's like he has the best recipes, but you know, it's about you know the the art of the craft, and you're saying so much about the professionalism and the service, and people are gonna not implement that, so there's no there's no need to gatekeep. You just give it all away and go out there and and do good, and you'll it'll return to you as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah, you and you can't copy, like you said, hospitality and the customer service and stuff, it just has to come naturally with practice. Well, you have if you're not a naturally good or caring person, it's gonna it's gonna be hard for you to fake that every single time. So um just that kind of people kind of just weed themselves out that way eventually. I've never I've never really met too many, at least in-person trainers, that were legitimately not great people, and they make it very long. They've I've some of them made it longer than I thought they would, but eventually they've all had to stop in search of something else because you can only fake it for so long. Yeah, um, especially because yeah, with retention, we have clients that I have clients that have been with me from my very, very first gym, and they just keep following me everywhere I go, even when I try to ditch them, but they just find me like so, like talking about 15 years now. Um, and then they stuck around even if I'm not really doing the training anymore. Like up until recently, I wasn't even scheduled regularly at our gym. Um, only um I would just show up when needed, like if it was extra busy or to do like new client consultations or goal reviews, or just to if I want to just feel important and walk around like on the mayor, just randomly show up. Um but only until recently, like now I'm like one one of my trainers needed one shift covered regularly. So now I have one shift um of like five hours. But yeah, even if I've even when I kind of removed myself from the training, those kind of still stuck around. Um because yeah, after long term, yeah, yeah, the training part is important, but it's how like how you are, how you make people feel is how is way more important, both short and long-term retention. Because if people do any type of training long enough, it could be good or bad training, but if they do it long enough and don't get hurt, they're gonna get results no matter what. Um, they may not get results as fast, they may not be as efficient, but they can pretty much do anything um and they'll get results, whatever those results mean to them. They'll get you'll get you can do Zumba and get stronger eventually, or like the RN3 cardio classes and get stronger eventually. Um you can do strength training or powerlifting and get more flexible eventually as long as you don't get hurt. So, yeah, no matter what you do, as long as you keep doing it consistently and you don't get hurt, which goes back to consistency, you'll get results eventually. So that part, it's not that that part doesn't matter, but that part matters less to our clients. What matters to our clients is do they enjoy it? So that do they enjoy it and do they feel safe? And if you do those two things, they'll stick around no matter how good or bad your training is. Now, saying all that, I tell my interns, I still like you said I'm humble and stuff, and my wife always jokes people call me humble because I actually have kind of a big ego. Going back to why I do all these continued education and stuff is because I want to be the best, even though there's no way to measure who the best is, I want to be a the best and the best I can be. So, because in my with my own conscious, I can't I would find it hard to charge an amount for something, the service that I know somebody else out there is charging less for and is better at me at that service. So if I'm uh if I'm charging like a hundred bucks for a private training and someone down the street is charging 80 bucks and I know they're a better trainer than me, I would feel dumb charging a hundred dollars. But um, even though there's no tangible way to measure that. So I want to keep getting better and better. And one thing I like about training is that going back to being an athlete, I already I knew very early there was a very low ceiling to how good of an athlete I could be. The goal was maybe maybe make the varsity team in high school, and I exceeded those expectations by actually starting on the varsity team as a 5'7 first baseman. But um so but there was a very clear and low ceiling that I could be as an athlete, but as a coach or trainer, there is no ceiling to how good you can be. You can be as good as you can just keep learning and learning forever, because a there is no limit to how much you can learn, and even if you spent 24-7 learning as much as you could, you'll never learn all there is to learn. So that's what makes it fun. And again, going back to the burnout, how can you burn out when there's so much to learn and you'll never learn at all? Um, but it yeah, if you try to be the best, or if you ex if you shoot for being for perfection or whatever, as perfect as you can be, somewhere along the way you'll probably land at being great.

Where To Find Blake And Closing

SPEAKER_01 49:37

I love it, my man. You're uh smart cat. And now that we know that we there's a spot out there, we'll have to make our way out there sometime for a seminar and meet in person. And I'm I'm proud of everything that you're doing because you're what the industry needs more of. And if your your students and your interns are lucky to have you, they really appreciate you taking the time today. Where can people find you on social media?

SPEAKER_00 49:57

Uh, my personal page is my name, Blake Parado. If you can follow that, if you enjoy looking at dogs and watching me lift. And then our gym page is Parado Power, but uh that's basically just to show that we're still open. I don't really I don't I don't do I don't spend too much time on social media besides just to make um be a smart ass and joke around with people. I don't really yeah, I don't really focus too much on like putting out content and all that stuff because that's great.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

You don't have to worry about that stuff. I love it. Thank you for taking the time today and looking forward to meeting you sometime in person. All right.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Yes, sir. All right, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

This was great, thank you. This is awesome. I'll throw it out there and then uh uh we'll um at the very least we'll meet in at uh coaches summit if you go out there next year.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

Yeah, and you're always welcome down to come down. Yeah, if you really want to, I'm pretty sure people would want to come to the show. If you guys want to do like a certification or something here, I make a vacation out of it. Yeah, just let me know the details. Love it. It will definitely be here.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

All righty, all right, my man. Well, thank you for your time. We'll see you.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

All right, guys, thank you. See you later.