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Connect with me!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/js_shoez_/
X: https://twitter.com/Shoeinvestor2
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Youtube: https://youtube.com/@justinshoemaker9582?si=DSsbCeNl1kgH3EKK
LinkedIn: Justin Shoemaker
I definitely don't, don't. I don't like to have it be like to to polish, right, I like to have real conversations, but yeah, no, like we're. We're in the process. Right now I'm editing a Well, it was 131 videos, but now I'm at, I think, 150 videos for this uh sales course that I that I spent a year and a half uh recording.
Speaker 1:It's geared mainly towards water treatment people, but I mean, if you're in home service or you do any in-home or canvassing, it's you know it should, it should capture everybody. And then, of, of course, alex from Ozy just made, you know, bought school, so Making a school community there, trying to be an early adopter in that space, because you know I've I'm starting to learn. You see people like Gary v. You see people like Alex from Ozy make moves. It's like you know what, until you get to that level like I'm just gonna follow that wave and try to try to be a part of uh, try to get in early If at all possible. So no, definitely, okay, that's sick man. Well, cool brother, well, tell people kind of about you Devin I mean we got introduced from Phillips or shout out Philip, um, yeah. Kind of talk about what you're doing right now what your hustle is and how long you've been doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I've actually been in the fitness industry for a little bit over. We're actually close to 15 years Um oh yeah, in the personal training space. Um, and that like stemmed from you know lifetime of athletics and you know mma and the whole nine. Okay, um, my business partner and I launched strive 11 fitness.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:It's a new style like fitness boot camp, you know. But with my personal training experience and when I had my personal training company, I had a six-figure company, um, but it wasn't. That was never the end goal, right? So, yeah, I was always listening to my clients and what were their complaints when they were going to these boot camps in between our sessions? Um, because that's what I'd recommend them doing, because even I know personal training was expensive, right?
Speaker 1:You know, I, yeah, I love this, I love, I love, I love, I love that you're on this podcast right now. I love fitness so much. This is gonna be fun, I love this.
Speaker 2:So like even I knew that personal training was expensive and I mean I was competitive in price just because I mean I'm not just gonna charge crazy prices just to do it. But I was also training 16 hours a day, every day, like full booked with clients. So turning people down wasn't because I Didn't want to, I just didn't have the time or they couldn't afford it, and it just time. You know, supplying demand right, what was your? What?
Speaker 1:was your rate when you're doing personal training. So, like that was, like the first business was just personal training, like you one-on-one, uh, or you're like you're working at the gym doing doing the house. Well, how was that structured?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean that was my first of official business. I mean, like back in high school I was I, you know started a t-shirt company and I've always kind of had that entrepreneurial drive, I guess. Yeah, um, but my personal training company, um, on average it was anywhere from 80 to 100 an hour, but I only sold packages. So you had to buy 10 or 20 sessions up front, um, just because if you wanted to pay per session, it was a little bit more expensive. Because, again, it's just like anything in life, the more you buy, you know, bigger discount, right.
Speaker 2:And then I took bits and pieces from Companies that I've worked with over the years. So I realized not every session needed to be at a 60 minute session and a lot of people actually would, could afford or just prefer to do a 30 minute session. So For me, realizing that I separated myself from a lot of the trainers because I'll, I'll sell a 30 minute session, no problem, I'll give you the rest of the workout to do on your own. But now I have 30 minute slots back to back booked up. So if someone cancels, I'm only losing 30 minutes, not an hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, that's, that's, that's sick. So that was how it all kind of started. Um, and then, even if someone wanted to come and train, let's say, every single day, I honestly didn't have the time. So it was one of those things where I would tell them to go to these boot camps and I would give them different references to who are now our competitors, but they would come back over the years with different complaints, you know, and I was just kind of what's the what's the biggest complaint With?
Speaker 1:like the personal training that you've seen.
Speaker 2:Not so much the personal training but with, like the boot camps, like it would be, like the class times that they wanted to go to Were always booked up right, or you know they they hated having to Schedule a day before the class schedule drop at 5 am and they'd have to wake up at 5 am To try to book the book the time they wanted to go. And then life happens. So if something happens and they weren't able to come Work out, they ended up getting charged for that workout Like a penalty fee, which I get it because the business is losing a spot that someone else could have worked out. At the same time, like members start to get upset when you're charging them extra fees on top of their already expensive membership, right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, that's interesting. So it's so strange because this is kind of like fun for me because I'm super into fitness but never have I had, of all the the businesses I've been involved in. That's just one that like for somebody just I never even thought about trying to get into. But it's interesting because it seems like you're being successful in something that I would assume would be pretty oversaturated and I didn't even think about. You know, these boot camps, is that like a big driver for people Like who aren't, let's say, not super into fitness? But as far as like the like the, the avatar that buys Like the most fitness packages, is it like a lot of this like boot camp stuff? Or you know how's that market segmentation work?
Speaker 2:So boot camps, the typical boot camps, it is a niche like Just a crossfit, just, you know, like any of the other niches, sure, but you have to think, with Typical boot camps you're going to be marketing to, you know, let's say that, 21 to 45 year old, because it's one trainer writing a workout for a group of people and you can only customize and tailor it so much With time, trying to demonstrate the workout every single time, right, right. And the hard thing is like it's more affordable for a member or at the boot camp, you know, because they're getting a somewhat of a Personalized workout, not really personalized, but they're getting a tailored workout to like here, this is today's workout and this is what we're doing, kind of deal.
Speaker 2:We're just paying for a personal trainer. But that was one of the reasons why we created strive 11 was we wanted to take that boot camp approach where you get the group Community feel and the motivation, the energy and everything from that. But take the big box gym where you have no class times. You come in whenever you want, you come around to your schedule, not the gym schedule, and then throw in that flare of personal training. So now, not all, all of a sudden our Competition isn't just boot camps but we're actually competing on what people would be paying for personal trainers, right Gotcha. So that's why we created strive 11. Um and I mean I'll go ahead and say that in a second and Going into personal training thing, like you mentioned, it is definitely a saturated market right, similar to nowadays you see the social media marketing like companies like I mean.
Speaker 1:I mean that's what I was just about to say. I mean I feel like when you think about physical fitness, all all you see is social media V trend. All you know what I mean. It's just like, and like the amount of misinformation, too, that just gets put out there. But I feel like that is one of the I mean it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's an interesting market because it's a hard market.
Speaker 1:But I know, for me personally, like I prefer like having like a coach one-on-one or being a part of a program one-on-one, not even so much like and I've been working out for a long time right Like I know how to work out, but I know for me, I love having to be accountable to somebody else and I think that's what it offers. So there is almost that like if I just like you as a better trainer and you can like hold me more accountable and like actually respect you and enjoy talking to you, it's like that seems to be a different like factor as far as like you know who you go with, because at the end of the day, you know if you look at fitness as a whole, there are only so many workouts to do and you know really, if you're trying to lose weight, eat less, move more, do a little bit more volume, you'll be good, right. If you're trying to get strength, lift heavier, eat more calories and you'll grow.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean it definitely. It definitely comes it the simplest form. Yes, like it does. There are different body types and different things and that's where, like you said, v shreds and stuff, like these online coaches or these people that are promoting how to become an online coach, that's like a super saturated market and it's one of those things where they can sell to the masses and that's what's appetizing to these trainers. Right, you can sell to the masses, but, realistically, how much customization can you have to the masses? Right, it's not like you're a one-on-one coach online. You're trying to do these things that you'll see. These instagram influencers sell a meal plan and now a thousand people get the same meal plan and, yeah, it was 20 bucks. But, right, realistically, that that meal plan is not tailored to you, right? So For me, like, even though personal, and even with being a physical, like one-on-one coach, um, it was one of those things where everyone and their, their mom thinks that they're a personal trainer once they start getting, you know, fit, and I've seen clients become trainers of other trainers and stuff like that, and no knock on them whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Like, I love that they're trying to impact other people's lives as well. Yeah, but, but what it allowed me to do and separate myself because I had other trainers, I moved around to different gyms and I was basically started over at each gym and I would always grow to the the busiest trainer again, every single gym, you know. And it was one of those things where I started to develop business systems, you know, from referral systems to pricing structures, to Commission like outsourcing, commission sales to you know other places, like all those kind of things. And it allowed me to adapt that when we actually opened the gym, doing that because, honestly, I wasn't even on social media when I was doing personal training. I didn't post my clients Transformations, I didn't use my social media for for fitness Right, it was, you know, just me so.
Speaker 1:So you're supposed to be getting some good results with your clients and they just did work for the mouth for you 100% and then using them as referrals, like so if they refer to a friend, they got a free session.
Speaker 2:If you know, I had the sales staff at the gym. Since the gym didn't have a personal training staff, there was, I think, the 10 independent trainers and the sales staff would just hand them off one by one. So then I went up there one day and I was like hey, like Is, do you guys have an order or do you guys get you know any kickback from any of the trainers? They're like no. I was like, well, if you shoot them to me and I sign them up, like I'll give you their first sessions rate. And they're like well, what is that? And I was like 30, 30 minute sessions, it's this. An hour sessions, it's this. I was like I promise you like I'm not gonna screw you over, like you, if you're feeding me clients. I was like I'm gonna pay you and all of a sudden I'll be most packed again and then I would hand off my overflow to other trainers. I'd sell my overflow to other trainers, that's sick.
Speaker 1:What do you think so? What do you think that? Because obviously there's so many other, I mean even at that one gym, I mean how many other trainers are you competing against at that time? Or competing against that? How many other were there?
Speaker 2:That gym there was 10 trainers total, so nine other trainers. But then you would have those members that come in under the table and try to train people too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that whole thing, why do you think you're able to stand out amongst the trainers, like because, as far as you're, like, when you do, like your fitness program through your clients, like what? Because I'm assuming they got all these great results. Like what do you think that you did for them that actually got them to see results? Because, I mean, you're in the fitness industry. You know how it goes. Most people who don't actually want to, most people, I would say, when they go to the gym they always fall off after two to three months. They don't actually get to see the results and you know it's kind of a vicious cycle for people. So what do you think that you did or implemented that was able to flip the script a little bit?
Speaker 2:um, realizing that the term is personal trainer, right? Right, the first word is personal. Yeah, so you create a personal bond with each of your clients. It's not like you're sitting there chatting it up and getting a cup of coffee, but at the end of the day, like I would ask open-ended questions, so clients would leave Talking and working out the whole time and I would learn everything about them and they would feel like we had the best conversations, when in reality they know nothing about me, right? Yeah, so that's one thing to keep your clients.
Speaker 2:But then also, like I was always a straightforward person, so I'm not gonna sit there and you know that bs and stuff. So when you come into your session, like we're working, right so and that was one of the biggest things where you'd see a lot of trainers, kind of you know Lolli, gagging around with their clients, or if you were doing that with me, I know that the gym is all perspective of others, right? So you have to view yourself from not your client's eyes but from everyone else in the gym's eyes, right? So, for example, where you stand, like if you have a client doing the adductor or abductor, the leg open and closed machine, I'm not gonna stand in front of them and coach them right.
Speaker 2:guy or girl, it doesn't matter, yeah, even if they're comfortable with me and they know I'm not looking at them, and stuff Like what is everyone else in the gym thinking, right? What is that husband that wants to sign up his wife for a trainer thinking, right, it's got a common thing.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever even thought about that, to be honest.
Speaker 2:It's the thing that no trainers not a lot of trainers think about. But that's the thing, even with strive leaven at our gym, that we train our trainers on doing because we're not a personal training Gym, right? So even though we're not a personal training gym, again, your interactions with one of our members has a ripple effect on the view of you from the other members in the gym. Right, they get to go to you for advice. Are they going to ask you about selfless? Are they going to refer a friend to come, you know, work out because of the way you were training someone, right? So those kind of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean I'm sure that's how long has strive been open.
Speaker 2:Strive's been open since 2021. Oh, especially like we were actually open Right there in covid. Yeah, so we actually were doing it in the park for an entire year. Um, while everything was locked down like rain or shine, like we were out there um Covid.
Speaker 1:Covid was kind of crazy man. I think it actually pushed people into um, people that you know maybe wouldn't have otherwise gotten some pretty successful positions. I mean, covid got me into sales. You know, I got out of the navy, uh, right during covid. So I was primed to go work for a three letter agency. I had my ts, I was working out the pentagon doing all this high speed stuff. Uh, covid's like, nah, dude, there's nothing to hire. So I got into sales and it completely changed my life. So that's crazy. And if you can get through covid, you're good. You know, because, because you're making a gym ball, oh, just getting closed down, which is which is insane, that's awesome. So how'd you build that thing? I was a word of mouth.
Speaker 2:He's run paid ads and so For the to the launch drive 11. I mean during COVID and everything, I was still training my clients and I actually rented out a Gym that was closed down during COVID and I told the owner I was at, look like you're not collecting any membership dues or anything Like that like, let me just train my clients in here, it'll just be us. So I paid them rent and basically got to use the whole gym free, or I mean like three and here are better people, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, once things start settling down, we're doing stuff in the park and then basically we actually Launched our doors, getting a nice little COVID deal for the landlord. You know with the landlord, yeah. But initially the hard part was since we didn't have another model to replicate or promote off of, because drive 11 is like the first of its kind. It's one of those things where we didn't have pictures to pre-sell or anything like that. So it was like soft opening was on Saturday and Saturday and Sunday, grand opening was Monday and we actually broke even on overhead expenses our first month.
Speaker 1:Oh it was, we just sold well, maybe because we're in the gym space, have you ever like tried to implement like the Hermosie stuff? Just because I you know, I've read both of his books and I know he has like that gym one he launched before offers, but it seems like that model For like micro gym. It's super, super successful as far like running paid ads and getting people into doors with like the challenges Right, I think that's what his gym was was like more of you like a boot camp style thing and you, you know, do the 14 week free challenge or whatever. Then you upsell on supplements and a year-long membership. Have you ever tried some last up to that stuff actually work in practice or do you feel like it's kind of been overused?
Speaker 2:It's not that, it's very huge. I mean I've read both of his books and I mean I followed him like Since way back in the day With a few other people and, yeah, what was that?
Speaker 1:like, sorry, I'm 80, 80. What was that like following this guy before he was even who he was? Because when I first found him I was in solar and that's right. I don't know, I don't know if you get the same ads, but if you especially if anyone listens this is in solar. You all I would see on my timeline is we'll book you free leads, will book you free leads. And then I saw her movie come up with hey, I have a book called a hundred million dollar leads like this fucking scammer, but no, I'm. What was it like for you like following this guy during the come up If, especially with you being in the same space?
Speaker 2:I mean he definitely was different back in the day. I mean, say, preaches the same stuff, right, but sure it was different because it wasn't as, like you know, with the book and all that kind of stuff, it was YouTube videos. I was watching him, I was watching Beatrice Cooley in and some other okay, like gotcha how to sell right and all those things like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went through formal sales training and stuff. But I realized that I was watching people, especially with trainers and stuff. They would get sold the same way. They would try to get up. So up, sold down, sold the same way, and I was like maybe there's a different approach. So I just started doing research and Alice from Ozi is who I came across on one of them and and he has a lot of he's had a lot of great content and his growth is amazing. His stuff obviously works, but also you have to realize that you have to take with the grain of salt, right. Mm-hmm. A lot of the stuff I've realized in his book is very similar to. I don't know if you've ever read Russell Brunson's books. No, I haven't read any Russell Brunson's books now. So Russell Brunson's on like book five or six, you know, but essentially okay, he has. His is more tailored to like online sales from click funnels and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Russell.
Speaker 2:Brunson's is, or yeah, russell Brunson. Yeah, he wrote books, just like Alex from Ozi. Alex took Russell Brunson's that style on this, you know oh, okay. Russell Brunson wrote these books with the purpose of Showing you and teaching you how to do things. In the end goal of trying to either get you to sign up for click funnels or something like that, and whether you signed up or not, you learn to lesson right.
Speaker 2:But throughout the book he shows you, you know, how much easier would be just to use click funnels or this is how they use click funnels and referencing it so much time, so many times. You're like man, that would probably just be easier just to use what you're saying, right, oh, it's a genius way. On that, the some of the approaches on, like that, you know, selling the challenge and upselling them and flipping the script on like that, you can't. You got to be careful when you do it, because it's almost like a bait and switch. Right, it's like a car dealership when they promote a certain car that they have about one of their lots and they might only have one of that and they're promoting this, you know, toyota Camry, sale of you know whatever. And then you get there and it's like, oh sorry, that was only this one model, we're actually out of it, but we do have these things. Right, yeah, now you kind of leave a little bit of a bitter taste in someone's mouth.
Speaker 2:Whereas With the challenges and stuff, yes, you, you address that. But if for us that we have a paid challenge, we try to put them through that challenge. That challenge for us actually encompasses all of our services and at the end we don't have another challenge right afterwards, like a lot of our competitors. But I don't want to be another gym that just runs challenges after challenges after challenges. Sure, now You're not getting membership growth, you're getting challenge growth, which is just a membership and revenue wave up and down throughout the year. Right, I want baseline going consistently up. So we do one in the beginning year, one at the end of the year, and so if you liked the program and liked everything that you got, you have to sign up for a membership.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, right, yeah that's that's where the that kind of comes in, and then we do give them a deal after the challenge, basically as an incentive and and so forth. So I've so you've taken a lot of his models and other people's models and kind of blended them and molded them to fit our, our model. And that's what I think you have to realize in any business you have to do. You can't take everything verbatim. You need to take the nuggets and yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know that's so true because it was especially to a certain point. Like we just follow what they say or what other people have, like you'll get to a certain point, but you won't break past where they're at or what you know. You, if everyone does the same model the same way, like it's gonna over saturate, whatever that thing is right. It's like with day trading. I used to be. I still, to this day, love day trading. It's one of the reasons why I started the business so I can get back to music and day trading full-time. But with day trading it's it's all human psychology and there's a bunch of gurus out there and there's a lot of big chat rooms that you know People will hop into and follow. But what's interesting is especially for, like OTC stocks or certain things that you do, volume is super important. So it's like a guru might see a pattern, buy into it, and then everyone else sees that same pattern after they post like a trade like hey, I just bought into this. It's this pattern always becomes self-fulfilling because everyone dumps into it, but then by that time the stocks already gone super far, so you get in late. It's a whole thing. But you'll notice this on, like certain setups, like there's like a lot of common setups that every day trader knows, right, every single one. Like first red days Panicked, it buys. And first green days right, these are like the three biggest, most known patterns and what you'll see is if a lot of traders, the markets, are doing that pattern, they stop working. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of similar to that and even in my industry, you know, I Water treatment is interesting but I'm trying to actually brand it and there's really no knows branding water treatment. Like if you look at the ads that are ran, if you look at the business models that are ran, it's super boring. I mean it works but it's none of it is like playing the long game and for me I want to do make a brand play where I just make build around the brand. It'll be slower, but the idea is I can sell at a premium, go further to different markets quicker, because people will buy my brand, buy my price points compared to you know, my competitors, not make sense. So I said what's cash flow like at a gym like yours is? I mean I can imagine like what overhead cleaning the?
Speaker 2:I mean honestly that's so since. So strive 11 is actually a smaller Facility, right, where you're a bit about 2000 to 3500 square feet, and the reason why I'm saying the range is because we actually just launched the franchise or company as well. So we're actually now franchising a strive 11 nice. So we operate our goals to basically keep overhead costs as low as possible, right? Not just you know nickel and dimes, but you know for for reasons, right? So we don't have a front desk staff and we don't have a sale staff. Reason being is Front desk staffs all they do is check people in.
Speaker 2:When our someone comes in and checks in, but our trainers are showing them the warm-up immediately. So for us, like the trainer looks at the computer, sees that their accountants again standing, now, if they didn't know their name, now they know their name, they can address them by name and so forth. And then typically, with boot camps and group training classes, trainers Come and go, because there's no real like Growth for them there, right, where they get paid per class or per day or whatever the case is, but it's not like a typical job. So for us, we teach our trainers how to sell, they get commissions, they can earn bonuses and all that kind of stuff, like any other sales job, on top of paying them hourly versus per class, right, so they still get a 30-minute lunch, the whole nine, and it shows them a different side of training and creating a different side for trainers, just because I know from experience being in that field how it was.
Speaker 1:You know how much. How much is like an average trainer make like? If you're like the middle guy at a facility, what's like? What can you expect? If you're like just an average like trainer or an infracture top guy, what can they make like? What's like the range of you like your middle guys and your top guys as just a salesperson?
Speaker 2:I mean at one of our locations. I mean, the sky is a limit essentially, but it's one of those things where let's say, if you're a part-time trainer, I mean you could be making, you know, 30, 40 grand for the year. If you're just doing it on the side, you know, doing a couple days a week, you know, and not really trying to sell or anything like that, but it's all upwards from there. You want to become a full-time trainer, you know it's all paid hourly and then commissions after that. So you get a percentage of supplement sales, of membership sales, challenge sales, all those things. So again, you're getting a piece of the pie on all those things. So they're really. It really comes down to the location owner on how they want to Do those pay structures, but we do have recommendations on, you know, different bonus structures and stuff that do work.
Speaker 2:For us, though, the nice thing about the fitness industry is that in especially with our model, your overhead gets capped pretty much at a certain point, right, minus the cost of goods for supplements. But like we don't need to hire more trainers for more memberships, right. So our model is a bootcamp style model where we have 11 stations which is the 11 and travel 11, but you can come in at your own own time. So when you walk in, one of the trainers greets you, they show you the warm-up, you take your own time on it and then, when you're ready, one of the trainers will put you into the one of the 11 stations. You don't need to start on station one, you can start on whatever station is open and basically all the stations are on a timer. So that's how everyone's rotating together. So people are finishing every couple minutes, people are starting every couple minutes.
Speaker 1:So it's an ever-flowing, just workout, right, that's cool Is there the ability to you said, because he said it's kind of a hybrid. So I wanted to, you know, do my just you know, typical brosets. Can I come in there and do that? If that's my vibe or do you, is your model mainly still just that, that revolving workout.
Speaker 2:But you can kind of come in whenever you want, it's that revolving workout, like if, like if you wanted to do your own workout, you know it would be one of those things where the gym floor is already being taken up by all the stations. So typically, like if someone wants to lose weight or gain weight or do those brosets, you know, quote-unquote it's one of those things where the workout can be adapted around what your goals are. Okay, so you don't necessarily have to just go fast-paced and you know, like typical boot camps, like some people do, go slower, heavier reps. You know they still rotate on the time intervals and everything. But you can go around one time, two times if the if it's not super crowded, three times.
Speaker 2:Each rotation of one through eleven is thirty minutes, right, okay, nice, oh, and then after you're done with your workout, you basically do the ab station at the end, which is up, and cool down, which isn't times. You can take your time on it. So the nice thing is that people can still get that 30-minute workout. If you're busy or if you're just starting out in fitness, you come in, you can stretch out a little bit. You start out a station, go through eleven and be in and out in 30 minutes, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's up? Where's something like the craziest like results you've seen from that.
Speaker 2:We have. There's one member who came in at three a little over 350 pounds. He was at closer to 400 before he came to us, but once he came to us he was at 350 and now he's At 205 and 5% body fat. Oh yeah, how long that thing. That was over the course of about a year. But he was also doing like two days eating crazy clean like he had it. It was his mission. So that's not for everybody, but yeah, so it is attainable. It just depends on how Well I'm a location you're willing, you know to give to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting Like how quickly if you really put your mind to it you can really change. I think you know for me, and and one of the biggest hurdles I seem to have is I've been, I've been around 11 and 14% body fat for like the better part of the year now and I eat pretty dang clean, except for dinner, when my wife cooks dinner, and then that's whatever was on the table at that point. But I always like keep like my mornings, like you know, it's usually nine percent lean turkey shrimp, some rice pretty boring and then Some Giovanni yogurt here and there. That's that's pretty much my diet. But for some reason I just never seem to be able to to shred down past, like to get to single digits, which is very frustrating.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the nice things like that we've we've actually added. So when I told you that we're not doing things like other people, right, yeah, and doing the challenges like other people, that was how I took personal training and that's how we've Continue to add different services to strive 11. So we actually have a meal plan app at strive 11. We're members in logging their food and stuff like that, so the trainers can seat on the back end, give them nutritional guidance and so forth. But we also, you know, can sell meal plans, write meal plans and stuff, because what typically happens is We'll do someone's body composition scan because we have a scanner in the gym, right, so you stand on.
Speaker 2:It reads your body fat, your muscle mass, water retention, all those different things. But it'll also give you an estimated your basal metabolic rate, basically what you're staying at. You know just on average every day what you need to survive. But then you have to factor in your total daily expenditure and that's where people start to get lost in it, right? They just think I'm going to eat less and lose more weight. But it doesn't necessarily work like that. Sometimes, if you're under eating, then your body actually goes into a form of starvation mode because it doesn't know what it's going to get the rest of the nutrients so it slows down your metabolism so that it can make sure that you have enough to survive. So if you're staying around 10, 11%, it could be one of those things where you might not be eating enough of the right macronutrients. So carbs, proteins, fats, and then the other one people don't take into consideration, which isn't really a macro, but fiber, right? So if you're not taking in the right ingredients, that's like putting 87 gas into a Ferrari, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So that's one of those things where it doesn't always come from fast food and stuff. If you're not giving it the right ingredients, it's not the right mixture, right. So that would be my one thing. It'd be like, okay, turkey shrimp rice is cool, but it's like it'd be how much of that are you eating of each when you're eating the Greek yogurt? It's like, okay, if those are your two things, we're at, let's say, roughly 500 calories. Dinner, let's say randomly, 500, 600 additional calories. Right, you got 1100 calories. You can eat some in another meal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think on a typical day by lunch I usually eat a pound of turkey with 90 grams of rice, so that puts me at about 100 grams of protein, I think 600 calories, almost no fat, and then probably I got to think about 80, 90 grams of carbs at that point, because it's 90 grams of the rice is. And then meal two is usually either half, depending on what I'm. I mean, I usually get my another 40 to 50 grams of protein, either from like a protein shake or from the yogurt or for shrimp, and then I'll have some more rice with that and then I should, by the end of the day I should be around 1200, 1500 calories, and then all my macros at that point are hits and then I kind of just whatever the dinner is, I just try to end around like 24, between 2K to 2300 is like my goal as far as eating per day, because my base metabolic rate is 2000, 2067, the last time I did a scan.
Speaker 2:Okay, so then so are you. If you're trying to shred and if you're at 2000 for your metabolic rate, your basement uh basal metabolic rate, the thing is you might be a little bit of an outlier on your, your TTDE. So I mean, I would actually take you down to, let's say, 2000 calories and see how your body adapts.
Speaker 1:Right, it would it would cry so hard, it would hate life, you would cry.
Speaker 2:I would cry, but your body necessarily wouldn't cry because your body also might have adapted to what you're currently at, right, sure. So that's one of those things where what I noticed, also for me, 50 grams of protein not everyone's body can intake that at once. Right, and yes, when you eat protein it doesn't store necessarily as fat, you know. So people that will actually just overeat it, whatever, yeah, but you're, you still need to metabolize it. So the way I like to explain it is like think of Disneyland, right, you know those amusement park lines. That's all your nutrients trying to get digested. So, whether your body can use it or not, all that excess protein is still in the line and everything else is behind it. And if you don't use those carbs, those fats, then they get stored as fat.
Speaker 1:Mmm.
Speaker 2:Smart. Right, that's smart. So it comes down to timing. So I would almost say like, if you're doing, you know, the two meals and maybe a snack, maybe break up one of those second meals or some of the macros and add an additional snack before dinner to break up some of those nutrients. Because 50 grams of protein per meal is kind of high and I noticed even personally, when I reduced that to 40 grams per meal I actually saw my body changing. It was the same nutrients but broken down differently Broken down.
Speaker 1:No, that's super smart. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I mean I had a shot shot to one of my my trainers. Uh, he was a, he was a bodybuilder and it's out of Pomeroy, so he's an IBF pro. Shout out to him I. I was with him for a while and I gotta tell you I realized very quickly that that level of bodybuilding was not for me, just because I mean five meals a day broken down. But it is like and especially when you're dealing with a bodybuilder, because I wanted to get like, really just like at that point, I mean he helped me get down. You know, I got. I lost a lot of weight with him, so really, really grateful.
Speaker 1:But you could tell like when I would do my check-ins if I missed like one meal or I'd like. It was so funny. I had one week where I thought I was doing so good, um, and you checked in and like, hey, what else did you like? Go off on this Cause, like they, they can see your body and they just know, right, like they're so good. So I sent him my, my check-in photos.
Speaker 1:He's like, what did you, what did you eat? That was off your, your meal plan today. I was like nothing, man. I like I was super strict, like no, no man, I there's some what you ate, some stuff. Like what did you eat? I can tell. I was like I don't know, I mean I had some. Like, uh, I had some pickles. I mean that's what it was Like. I had some pickles on it. I was like don't eat the fricking pickles. I was like damn something, just picks. Like it matters, like it really does matter, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 1:Um, switching gears this is like usually a hot button topic, which I feel like it shouldn't be. But what is your, your, your view on using steroids, whether not even like the high end ones, but even some like other milder stuff, like the annivars and things like that that you know aren't super anabolic but still give you good retention? Um, obviously I wouldn't recommend this up to beginners, but if you have someone that's working out regularly and they're looking to maybe just enhance their physical features or maybe even get, obviously bodybuilding is a different thing, but I, if you just have someone that just wants to have a nice physique, feel good and wants to do like a mild stack, even if it was like a trend win, or a deep ball stack or something like that. Like what's? How do you feel about people trying to integrate those into their workouts?
Speaker 2:So I will say, with, like the disclaimer, like I don't promote the use of them, um, because they are so widely kind of promoted, like in the gyms right now, um, I mean, you see, you see, like 16 year olds, you know, on gear and everything at that, and so it's one of those things where there is a, a rhyme and reason for them and there is a place for them, right, do I think that they're for everybody? Absolutely not, right. So you have to think that everything that the typical person or even the above average fitness enthusiast can achieve through a first and foremost, dedication, right, consistency and dedication right. Yeah, like the pickles thing, right, that's. That's one of those things where, if you're willing to cut out all those extra things, which is extremely hard, like you can, you can achieve a lot right. So that's what I would say it would be.
Speaker 2:The first thing. Right Is some people are a lot of people look at it as like the easy way out, in the fast track, and they're not willing to realize that time is a virtue and time, you know, we'll show you who can separate themselves and go through that mental shift. Now, in terms of because I've had clients over the years that I've asked and stuff, not so much with strive 11, but my personal training and stuff. I have had clients so I mean I did ask professors back in college you know that I was cool with, I did talk to you know some other, you know IFBB pros and pro coaches and stuff to get their opinions and learn essentially so I can give my clients answers when they asked. But in terms of like, if you're doing like a trend D-ball Winnie's stack, that's a that's a big that's a big.
Speaker 2:That's a big, that's a big boy, that's not just dabbling. So the other thing is, I think, before kind of explaining stacks and stuff like that, a lot of people don't realize that the hormonal game is is a dicey game. If you start messing with your hormones and you're not doing it correctly and getting guidance by someone that actually knows what they're talking about, right, not just some bro science, I think dude in the gym like you can mess yourself up for life, yeah, and you will now be on TRT for life, right, hey, so hey. But TRT also isn't a bad thing, right, done, right, you know some people are not, and that's the other thing is, some people are naturally going to need TRT.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I have family members. I'm not going to put anyone in blast, but I have family members that are younger than myself, that have gone to the doctor and, like their test levels are are crazy low and it just just happens, right, and they're on TRT just to bring themselves to normal, yeah, right. So again, steroids have a useful place in that. But it's one of those things when you start to do anavar and do those things just to get even more cut and even more shredded. I think the first question you have to ask yourself is am I doing everything I can by myself first before taking that step Right, because otherwise, anytime you fall off, you're going to look for that that little cushion, that little you know catalyst to get you back on right. So then you start to develop that mindset of I can't do it and get back to where I was unless I do this. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So this is. It's funny I'm going to be doing this because when I was a little bit younger I did dabble and I was a pretty fit and I had a buddy of mine who was super fit and he but hindsight 2020, much more of a bro science guy, right, and you don't realize that like the same stacks of work for you to work for other people. But I feel like with most you know, I've I've a bit of a contrarian view on on most like drugs and things like that. Like I think a lot of it is overly demonized. And same thing for for gear, right, like I, I'm, I'm very much a I don't know if I'd be like it's called like libertarian or what but I feel like people should do whatever they want to do, as long as you're not hurting other people. Like that's my, that's my fundamental belief. And with gear, I mean in the United States it's it's illegal for pretty much everybody, yet everyone uses it in, like bodybuilding and I think it should be used in professional sports. Like imagine the NFL. If everyone was allowed to use gear. Just imagine how crazy that would be Right. And I think if you could regulate it, you would have better. You know stuff. That's not all messed up, but, um, you know, I, for me, I did a, well, I did a, a D ball, uh, stands and all in a trend stack um with a PCT and it's interesting. So, like you know, for me I didn't turn into like the Hulk or anything, but I noticed, at least for me, obviously you get the good gains. Your body composition changes quickly.
Speaker 1:For me, what I think, that what is the most dangerous thing about these compounds is how good you feel when you're on them. Right the mental side, because like you, literally it's you don't feel high, you don't feel tired, but the moment you step into the gym, like you feel locked in and it is just like you, just nothing can stop you, you can lift and it feels like you can just lift for days. It doesn't get tiring, like you just feel it's good and like. I don't know what happens when you normally work at whatever. If you go through a really hard workout, you leave feeling amazing, right, there's like it's an endorphin rush you get from working out in the gym and it's like you have that all the time. It's so weird.
Speaker 1:And when you get off, you know, you know everyone like talks about, like, oh well, if you do the gear, it's all fake muscle. You lose it, you know. You get off and everyone loses all this weight. Ironically, I don't think that's true, because it's real muscle you gain, right. Sure, you lose water, weight from, you know, water going into your body.
Speaker 1:But for me, what I think, what happens and what I noticed is the moment you stop, like two weeks after you go back to being a normal human being again, your body's going to get sore, your muscles get sore when they weren't normally getting sore, and so I think, mentally it's a lot harder, because now, instead of like just being able to rep a bajillion sets at 200 pounds, whatever, you now feel sore, it feels harder to push it out and it almost like zaps the motivation out of your brain because you walk in there and when you start lifting you don't have like that exogenous let's go Right. Instead you have to like will it yourself. And I know for me that that was like the hardest thing of getting back into the gym was because you didn't have like that dialed in and again, I didn't do any long term stuff. I mean, I can dabble to see how it felt, oh great, but you know, you can see how, if you start too long or if you do it too long, like it can really make you dependent. And for me, I mean I'm glad I only did like the short stint that I did, but it did.
Speaker 1:You know, once you start doing like with any HRT, I do think, once you start and if you do make the decision, I don't know if something actually ever really even if you do like a great post cycle, I don't know if you can ever really recover from it. Because I know for me, when a when I got out of the military and I was doing all my medical stuff, I mean I had really really low T and the only thing I can imagine of why I have low T is because I tried stuff I shouldn't have tried. And so now I'm on TRT and I'm probably going to be on it for the rest of my life, which is great. I mean I don't not a big fan of sticking myself every week. But you know TRT, you know it's cool. I mean I don't. It definitely doesn't make you feel any better.
Speaker 1:If you're, if you need it right, like if you need it, like you're back to normal baseline, you know I will say it has helped with, like you know, being tired and that was my biggest thing. I felt hired and unmotivated, my brain fog really, really bad. So I got my blood work done and, you know, luckily all my blood work is fine, but my TRT was super, super low. So now here we are. So something to consider, you know, and I and I can see how it's a problem with younger kids, because isn't that that new guy that's super big, ed Stilich or whatever his name is, he's like 19,. Sam Stilich, he's like but 19 and looks like he's that dude is here for a.
Speaker 1:He's here for a short time, not a long time. I tell you what.
Speaker 2:So the last thing is like I mean and I and I'm not saying like I'm a perfect angel, right Like I mean I dabbled back in my early twenties too Like I get exactly everything you're saying. I know the mental state that it changes. Like you said, right now you don't feel that high. Essentially you feel normal, but you got to think so. If it brought you from foggy and unmotivated to normal which is not foggy and motivated, adding more of it only increases those feelings, right.
Speaker 2:So the thing with it is again like you were saying you know, you got to know what you're doing when you start messing with, especially with just test by itself, like, are you taking you know other, basically estrogen blockers, or you know ashes, estrogen suppressants and stuff, which ones are you taking? How often do you take them? Are you taking, like Novodex, remedex, all those kinds of things? And then, from there, the after effect you don't lose the muscle, like that's the biggest myth, right, it's not fake muscle necessarily, you. There's only a few steroids that actually give you new muscle fibers. What you're actually in doing is increasing the size of your current muscle fibers, so that doesn't just shrink down after the fact, right, but you do lose some size right. So you roughly I would say you can retain 70 to 80% of that size If you continue after you're done in your off cycle and you continue working out, you know at the same consistency and everything like that and your nutrition, everything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where a lot of people, especially the younger generation, not just saying like no-transcript you lose that motivation. One part of it's the placebo of not having pinned and knowing that it's not in your system, because the half life is five to 10 days, depending on what you're on. So after that it's like okay, yeah, it's out of your system. But most people the next week they're already off of their swing of things and it's like, yo, it's still in your system, full. In effect, there's no reason you should feel like this. But you know that you're off cycle and just ended the cycle.
Speaker 1:So that's where why do you think it helps you gain so much mass? Like I know there's like the science behind it, but like do you think it's just because of, like, the recovery times? Like you do a hard workout and you just recover so much faster so your muscles are just building that much quicker? Do you think that's why people gain like on like a D ball, cause like D ball is known for being the one that gives you like the big round, you know, huff's you up. Do you know why that happens?
Speaker 2:or so I mean, if you gotta think that there's different compounds that do different things. So there is like a scientific like aspect to it. So like D ball will get you different results than trend, trend will get you different results than Deca, and you know so forth. Otherwise you would just take test, right, right? Yeah, so you know, but there's, there's plenty of different ones that do different things and have different results, right. So it's like I mean completely different. But if you smoke weed versus doing a line of cocaine, they're both gonna get you high, but in a different manner.
Speaker 1:Right right. That's probably the best analogy I've ever heard.
Speaker 2:Right. So there you gotta think like they're doing different things to your body. They have different responses to your body, right. So it's one of those things where you're able to for certain ones, you're able to increase your protein metabolism, right, and you can metabolize proteins faster, connect protein strands faster. That's why you take amino acids, not because amino acids help with the recovery. The amino acids are the base level of protein. So if you drink amino acids, you have free forms of proteins ready to go and be connected. You drink or eat protein. Now you can connect more protein strands to help your recovery. That's how the recovery helps, right, got ya?
Speaker 2:So, with being able to, you know, increase that production rate is, yes, you will get better recoveries. But as far as strength and all those kind of things they come from, it physically makes your muscular fibers bigger, right. Then there's other ones that will increase your thyroid production, which increases your metabolism, which helps you shred, right, yeah. And then you have different ones that do different things and work on different aspects of your body. Are you increasing your normal growth hormone levels? Are you? You know, doing this that? So it really comes down to those. It's not just, yeah, it makes you better recoveries. The recoveries is just a byproduct of it, but if you only got better recoveries, people wouldn't do steroids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, and I was. You know, when you do some research on this stuff, it's pretty interesting because it seems like a lot of them start off as like some sort of like medical grade I don't know what like the gear term is anymore but like Osempic. You see the commercials all over TV about Osempic, but people, at least in the fitness community that I see comment, are using Osempic to cut as like a steroid.
Speaker 2:So, which is interesting to me, Well, it's because, again, it's like think about what is.
Speaker 1:Clinbuterol, I don't know. I mean, I know it's a cutting thing, but I don't know what's in it.
Speaker 2:No so, Clinbuterol is actually what you use in inhalers.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:So if you have asthma, you should be getting this shred.
Speaker 2:But doing the inhaler version has a different response and it's a very minimal response to what actually happens to your body. But after doing studies and stuff on it there's a different aspect to it at higher dosages and pill form right. So that's why people will do the plan.
Speaker 1:So who is the psycho that was doing inhalers, Like you know what? Let me put this into a pill and just see what happens, Like how does that happen?
Speaker 2:Well, typically it actually goes backwards, right. So they'll be using it for some medical thing and then realize it has other implications as well, because Clinbuterol isn't the only inhaler. They have a few different kinds of inhalers as well. But a lot of the steroids and stuff come from actually like race horses and all those kind of things. A lot of them are from like yeah, a lot of them, if you look back in the day where they actually originated from, was more for like animal things, not just testosterone.
Speaker 2:But when you get into the crazier dosages of DECA, all that kind of stuff, right, and then they started doing science on what things have different effects on the body. There is different things like, let's say, clomid or Anivar or Arimidex. They have doctor use or pharmaceutical use for, let's say, women that need this, right. And then you start to notice there is a trend of a byproduct or a side effect. And now if I'm looking for that side effect and I know that gives me the side effect, I'll do it for the side effect as my primary effect and whatever else happens, I can counteract it with other things. I see that makes sense Interesting.
Speaker 2:For Anivar, for example. People will take Anivar thinking that they can cut weight. Right, If you take Anivar, yes, you can take it in pill form and everything like that. But for girls it acts as a steroid, even though it doesn't increase or produce testosterone. But if a guy takes Anivar, you actually need to be on test. Oh, really, yeah. Why is that? Because it acts like if your body thinks that you're getting tests or test production, but it doesn't actually produce or increase your test, so it actually slows down your natural test. For women, it actually has that byproduct in giving them some lean muscles, not crazy bulky or anything like that. For guys, it can actually lower your test. Yes, you'll lose some weight, but now you have lower test levels once you're off too.
Speaker 1:Weird, interesting, interesting. That's crazy, man. Yeah, this stuff is super interesting to me just because, especially you see like these Now with social media, you see all these just insane physiques and it's like that ain't natural. And it's so interesting that it all came from horses. I'm sure I don't do you listen to Joe Rogan at all? Yeah, I think it was funny because he was getting hounded because what was the? When he's getting sick, he took what was the one drug? They were like Ivermectin. They were like oh, you're taking Ivermectin, it's a horse dewormer or veteran. Oh, it's like huh. Well, maybe we should be taking more of this vet stuff because apparently it turns us into freaking superhumans. So, maybe that's the. Maybe that's the move, man. Maybe the next gym is called Animal Sups, maybe that's the next company. That's awesome, man. Well, I appreciate that insight, dude. So what else? What else you got going on? What's the? What's the? The end goal for Stripe? You do want to do like a big franchise and kind of blow that thing up, or is there?
Speaker 2:so we just another direction. What's the? So we just launched our, our national franchise and everything, and we're actually finishing and going to be opening up in Dallas. We're in Los Angeles for now, oh nice, and so we're expanding and the game for that is, you know, go nationwide.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be the next F45 or the fastest growing franchise, right, mm? Hmm, my goal is to create a franchise that is, in a community, almost like a mastermind aspect to it. But it's one of those things where I'd rather grow slower and stronger than just blow up. And my goal is essentially to have the highest retention rate of franchisees versus just highest number of sold. But there are some other avenues that are going to be released, from Stripe 11 to, such as, like that meal plan app. We have, you know, a supplement line that will be in the future for just our gyms and those things. But again, my my thing is I love seeing the impact I have on the members lives and now being able to impact franchisees lives on a positive note and give them an opportunity to franchise the way franchising.
Speaker 2:Franchising should be done, not just how other fitness is fitness. Franchises are doing it. So we kind of went against the grain on some of those things on the way, like different fees and stuff are being pushed out, or you have to order this through us, and then there's a resell, so we give you, give everyone the vendors that they order straight through them. There's a lot more transparency, and the reason being is we want to grow as you grow. We shouldn't be growing before you grow, right, and so that's our whole thing. So that's that's what we're working on right now and that's what you know. Our main focus is. That's sweet. And how old are you? I am 30. I just have my birthday at 32, I think.
Speaker 1:OK, all right, awesome. So when you said, what did you actually first launch? Because you said 2021, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first. The first physical location was 2021.
Speaker 1:OK, so you're what? Like 28, 29? Yeah, so I think it's interesting because I don't know about you, but I started this business at 30 years old around 31 now and, at least for me, I felt super behind because of like all my naval career. I was like, oh my gosh, I got out, I feel late to the game, but you're, you're kind of showing that you know our age. You're really crushing it at a very, very, you know, very quickly. You know, what would you say for people that are looking to get into business, want to start their own gyms or just start their own companies, and maybe they're a little bit younger or maybe a little bit older? Like, what are some things that you've learned that maybe you didn't know? Starting a business that, like, maybe was harder or less scary even, like, what are some things that you know? Maybe some people have fears on that? It's like, hey, man, don't even worry about that. Like, just do it.
Speaker 2:No, definitely. I mean, if you're looking to open up a gym, definitely reach out to me. I will save you a lot of years of headache and time. Like, believe me, I've spent money and lost money on things, trying different things out before launching the franchise for that purpose as well. As it's a more affordable way to open a gym, right, but as far as that business advice, entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial life isn't for everyone, right, and that's OK. Right, but if you are going to go down this journey of you, know that and be ready for the obstacles that are going to come, realize it's not an overnight thing. Right, you might see someone that looks to you that might be an overnight success, but in reality you don't know what they've gone through in the last five, 10 years. Right, they, they're, could, they could be a five year, you know. Overnight success, you know, and all you see is that tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 2:So for us, like, yes, we're growing fast. You know, we launched our franchise company after two years of our actual first location open. We launched a franchise company and now we're actually, you know, in the process of getting our second corporate location in the same, at the same time as opening up in Dallas as well and now looking at Miami. So it's one of those things too. You have to realize that. You'll hear the. You'll hear these people that are above us in terms of business levels talking about delayed gratification, right, right. And people hear that and say, okay, I'm gonna suffer right now, I'm gonna do this and it'll work out tomorrow or next week. Sometimes it takes a couple years, right? And it's not that you're not making money, it's how you choose to use that money, right? So for us, we reduced our like my business partners paychecks a lot so that we can just keep reinvesting into the business, not to keep it afloat but to let it grow as fast as it's growing, right. So our business essentially has funded the franchise company, which is the same cost as opening another gym. That business is funding the next gym, so we're just letting it grow.
Speaker 2:So when we finally do decide to, okay, like, let's slow it down a little bit, like on our corporate level stuff, and just start taking the full paychecks, like it's gonna be going from little little increases to all of a sudden you have a high peak in, like, let's say, a day trading trade, right? So that's what you have to realize is it's. Business is a never ending game, and if you're playing for an end result and playing for the next year, you're going to lose, right? That's amazing. So play the game that it's. You're playing the never ending strategies and knowing that there's always gonna be a tomorrow in business, whether it's your business or someone else's business, and look at that through that lens and it will start to open up your eyes to different possibilities. Yeah, that's great?
Speaker 1:I, obviously. I think one thing that's super important is, before you start a business, what you should do first is go the way I've written. You think you wanna go into, go work for a company that's already doing really well, or you can go to a startup in that space with, hopefully, an owner that knows the space. Because, one, if you go to an established company, you can make some good money, but, two, if you decide to go to the startup route, you'll have more hands on and almost be able to operate like an entrepreneur with very minimal risk, especially if you're in a sales environment. For me, that's one of the only reasons I was actually able to grow my business and survive is because, one, I worked for one company and I got really cool the VP of that company, so we got a really good relationship. And, guys, I wanna tell you something right now business is all about relationships, life in general just all about relationships. So how easy or how fast something can happen is literally on the value of your network. I swear to God, and when I went to go, I did really well there and a family friend of mine had me come down and moved to help build up a solar startup and at that point I really gotta learn, because I became the top guy there. I basically came to the VP of the company, own a bit of it for a little bit of time and then grew that thing from 600K a year to 25 million and I didn't even get anything out of that because I didn't own the business. So after seeing that I was kind of like huh, maybe this is something I need to look more into. And the company started not doing very well because the CEO was doing some so not so great things and customer experience was going downhill. So a lot of people started leaving and I saw the writing on the wall. It's like well, instead of trying to save this thing, I'm just gonna go do my own thing, build my own company.
Speaker 1:And the one thing that if I could relay this to anybody is when I started my own business, I knew it was gonna be hard, because everyone says it's hard, everyone who's in business like it's gonna be really difficult, it's gonna be really hard, you're not gonna make money for the first couple of years or whatever. And in my mind I was like hell, yeah, it's hard, this can be cool, like because you kind of like social media makes that look so sexy. Like that warrior story looks so good on social media it sounds so good to hear when you hear someone that's been through it or may not have slept on the floor for two years or whatever. Like that hard part of life sounds so sexy. But it's only because they made it through it.
Speaker 1:When you're actually in it and you feel it and you feel the stress and you feel that just that angst and it's like you don't know if you're gonna make it and payrolls do, and you have all these bills you gotta pay or an install doesn't go how it should and there's all these things that happen. And when it actually gets hard and you feel it dude, it fricking sucks, like it doesn't feel good, you know. Like it's not this, like hey, I won. Like even telling the story like this is why I think, whenever you hear these people talk about it, when the person that doesn't know what that's like, it's like oh man, that's so awesome for you, blah, blah, blah, and you see them people like you see that person being just like yeah, it was cool, I guess, like you get a little scarred from it. Like it sucks.
Speaker 1:You know, now, it doesn't feel good when you get past it 100%, but the business is definitely the way of wills and it gives you more perspective, because I remember being just an employee or an entrepreneur that I like to call myself at the time and I'd be like why is a person not making these decisions? Why aren't they doing X, y and Z and until you like, when you run and own your business like it really is, your dollars and cents, and employees don't tend to understand that, like when I was an employee, I didn't really get that because when I worked for the company, I would just you know, like yo just do this, do that, do this, do that, not realizing like it's that owner's actual money, right, like it's our money and we don't even get paid, like I am, me, me and my COO right now are the lowest paid people in our business, because we're just going into our second year and we did have our best month last month. But then you know, with that money that comes in, you're like, well, crap, like we got to keep going forward. So, yeah, we can pair ourselves a little bit, but it's like three. I think I paid myself $200 last week, right, and that's on a business. I mean last year our top line was what did we end up last year? Like 400K in our first year was our top line. This year we'll probably do a mill, hopefully do more, but that's the plan for year two is do a mill and you look at it, you calculate what that's going to take because as the business grows, what else will have to grow? Amount of equipment, amount of employees, amount of locations, like there's all these ancillary costs that go into the business. So even when you, if you're in a growth stage, you're making no money, like you're not going to make money, like you have to make a conscious decision of like I don't want to grow, I want to just get cashflow positive for a while to actually get paid. Which is so interesting Because when I remember when I went into this, I did the math in my head.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay, when I sold water treatment, I was selling 30 to 50 deals a month on average. So I did the math on my end I was like, oh, my God, that's like 500K a year or 500K a month. I was like, oh, this is going to be the easiest business in the world, right, cause I come from sales. And then, when I started the business, even when we started hitting numbers like this one, I can't sell everything Cause I have to run the business. That's what like the hardest thing for me is not being able to be the guy that could sell all the deals. So that was number one, something I didn't expect. And then number two when I started seeing the numbers like calculated not taking into account those ancillary costs. So even though the business might make 40, 50k a month, the business made that I don't get to take it, I don't get that, and that was like the hardest thing for me. So you know, definitely save up your money before you start a business, cause it's tough man it is. It is a tough, tough, tough game. However, whatever is the hardest definitely has the biggest payouts in my opinion, which is why I love fitness in the gym.
Speaker 1:I think if you can get really fit, that is a barometer for success Because, like you mentioned right, it's a long game. It takes a long time to change your physique and even if you want to introduce like steroids and stuff like that, like one, you can't do it forever, right? Or if you do, you're really going to jack up your body. But you know you also have to do work on that stuff right. Like you see I think a misconception. You see these like huge people are like, oh, they take steroids. Like no, no, you still got to work out. Like you still got to be disciplined. Like it's not just you take it, you get fit.
Speaker 1:And I think you know if you can dedicate yourself to fitness, whether you know natural or unnatural, however, you know whatever you want to do, that dedication for a long, long, long long time horizon, if you can do it, I think at that point you can do anything. And that's why I push people on like, get fit first Before you do anything. Get fit first, because if you can do that, you're good. Like there's nothing in the world you can't do, because that is the cheapest and easiest way to prove to yourself can I be self disciplined on my own and can I face my own inner demons of like I'm not going to eat pizza today or I'm going to stick to a diet, and it just teaches you these meta skills of how to be determined, how to stick to something, and I think that translates to anything Definitely.
Speaker 2:So just my, I agree, I agree 100%.
Speaker 1:So my man. Well, that was an hour and 18 minutes so far. I went by quick. Do you have anything else you want to add, brother, Anything else you want to share?
Speaker 2:No, I definitely agree with what you're saying, and one thing you can do you know it's not every industry, or not every business, is going to have startup people or startup owners that are one can be willing to take someone under their wing. But the big thing also not right now is mentors, and you'll find these gurus and whatever you want to call them or whatever they call themselves. If you do hire someone like that, make sure you hire someone that is currently actually doing what you're doing or trying to do, and not just saying they're doing it. Like you know, you can see that they're physically doing it, or someone that has done it in the past and has a track record right. So, like when we launched our franchise company, I hired a franchise advisor, not from a company that just has franchise advisors. Like I can read a textbook and I actually did read the textbooks and stuff I wanted a mentor and advisor that already went through the journey I'm about to go through, so that I can save myself some time. I'm valuing time in the sense of I can shorten my distance from A to B by taking all of your obstacles and learning the over. You know how to get over them. So that's one thing.
Speaker 2:And then also, like with business, there's so much information on the internet and you know, in podcasts on, in books and so forth, that you don't necessarily need to hire, you know, a mentor or something like that. Like, if you're just starting a business, you might want to consider saving some money. You know, buy some books on business. You know, buy a business book, buy. You know how to create a company culture, how to sell, like all those things. You know you can find it on YouTube and don't just watch one and be like, okay, I know how to sell, take notes from different people, different perspective, different techniques and so forth, and you can teach yourself any skill nowadays, you know that way.
Speaker 2:But I do agree that if you can commit to yourself in a physical aspect, you know, in your personal development journey, that will allow you to develop the skills that you need for business. Right that I had a call with one of my friends, trevor Cowley, and we were talking the other day and he was like you know, so how's the franchise going? And I was like it's good, man, it is what it is, you know. And he's like I can hear it in your voice, like what's up?
Speaker 2:And I was like no everything is good, like it's the life of a business owner. I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna tell you, like yesterday was the day I wanted to throw everything out the wall and today we're on a good note again. You know, tomorrow, in an hour, I might want to, you know, break my laptop. You know it's those ways, but knowing that there's always a solution to the problem, right, and you can't fail if you don't give up Not saying you should never give up, like some things. You might need to not give up, but change direction, right, yeah, adapt. So that's what that's.
Speaker 2:One thing I would say is, if you're gonna get a mentor, make sure they're actually doing it. They're not just preaching off theory, because if they're doing off theory, just buy the book. You can do it off of theory, yeah, and then surround yourself or join a network or marketing network or you know whatever business network, and get around to like-minded people, because, as an entrepreneur, no one understands it, like you said, like hearing the stories on Instagram and stuff. It's cool, it's sexy, but when you're going through the thick of it, that shit's tough and it sucks. It sucks and you have to love, or love the game of business or have such a strong why you're doing that business to get through those. But having a network and a community of like-minded individuals that also know what the suck feels like is nice to have to make sure you know, to kind of keep you grounded.
Speaker 1:So I would definitely say I recommend that and that's so true, like I am so pissed when I see these sales trainers or business trainers who don't own a business anymore, like that. And the thing is like you know, like what is what is happening today in business? It do that target move so much, so like. For me, I don't really want to take advice if they're not actively running a business as well as doing the other thing, like I don't. I mean, you can make the argument that having a like a coaching thing is a business on its own.
Speaker 1:Sure, there's massive ones about it, but I would much rather like pay somebody who is running the biggest water treatment company in the world while coaching, compared to someone that used to run a big treatment company 10 years ago, right.
Speaker 1:So I'm much having like someone that's actively and I think that's why, you know, gary Vee's content is so powerful, because he has his personal brand, but he is still actively running, you know, v friends, VaynerMedia and almost using his brand as like a lead magnet to then, you know, jumpstart these other businesses that he still actively runs.
Speaker 1:So that's to me why it's like I like watching that kind of content is because, okay, this is like someone that's in the weed, runs the companies, runs the business and is able to grow these really, really big organizations, which, to me, is what you obviously, I'm sure we all want to do. But I can tell you if you, if you're in it for the money yet obviously we all want to make a ton of money, but if that's your only motivation, you're going to lose so fast because the work you do, I can tell you right now, the moment I make a million dollars, the amount of stress that I've undergone, that million dollars, it's not fucking worth it at this point. So it's more about wanting to build like a legacy and have something that is mine, that I can say that I built this. This is real, that's the real motivation, um, and everyone has their own, but that is, yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:No, lastly, I mean yeah. Lastly, I would definitely say I agree, like and as an entrepreneur, like, if you're just chasing money, I agree you're going to lose. Like you said, when you hit a million it's going to be like hell, yeah, we hit a million, but as entrepreneurs, you're always ready for that next level. You hit a million, okay, now this year we're hitting two million, right. So it's like you give yourself on the pad on the back, but you're not stopping there. And that's what happens with entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:And going into, like, what you said about the mentors and stuff, like, yeah, you could hire someone that did it in the past, but if their system and stuff is so valuable and makes that much or can make you that much money, why would they not still be doing it? And if they're promoting you being able to run this and gain all your time back, then why aren't they doing it and doing doing the mentoring stuff on the side? Because they have all this time, right? So you need to look at the whole picture and not just the sales pitch necessarily.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, and we don't not to be so doom and gloom. Listen, guys, especially if you're a small business, there's one amazing thing that you will get even if you don't become like the next Hermosy or the next Gary Vee, because you know we all want to get there but you know, not everybody really can. We don't all have the skills. But number one, you can still build a business that pays you and your family well. It gives you freedom to, to, to do the things you want to do, but not even like. For me, one of my biggest benefits is what you guys are listening to and seeing right now. I did not know of of Devin before you know, meeting some other entrepreneurs. We got introduced from a colleague of ours that we all know, phillip. He's one of my podcasts previously and he connected us Right. So for me, I've always liked just meeting people and like having like genuine relationships and getting to expand my network, because for me, I've always been a people person. I love hanging out with people, I love meeting cool people, and what's awesome for anyone that's in business is when you get to meet other people in business that are on the same journey as you. It feels so much less lonely, you get to meet some really badass people and it's the only way to get into groups of individuals that have the same mindset as you of being like that top 1%. And then it just becomes fun because you, you know you're in the race together and the what's awesome is the people that you're on the level with. The people that you get to meet, like you know, devin and me and all these other people as they grow and as you grow, you bring them with you. So now you have the opportunity to grow with a group of people you actually enjoy and like and then, when you do get to the top, what ends up happening is, when you get to a certain level and a certain caliber of success, there's going to be people that are just going to want to use you and it's going to be really lonely because you're not going to know who to be around. But if you have these, this core group of people you meet while you're building your thing, you're building your machine, you're building your business, well, those people you meet will be your core people that you still get to. You know, you know have your best interests at heart, you know you have aligned, you know interest and then you guys build each other up and that's actually how you build the biggest building.
Speaker 1:I don't think you build a big old business by yourself, like you have to have badass people around you, and that that is honestly why I started this podcast, why I'm documenting my journey One so when I do build a big thing, I can actually show people what it was like to be from zero to where I'm at.
Speaker 1:But also you get these kind of introductions and you get to network and meet people, and it's an awesome feeling knowing you have all these people in these different industries that are all hustling with you, and I think that's one of the no matter what happens to a business, that's going to be your biggest win is the people that you meet really will change your life, definitely, be a lot of it. Well, awesome brother, tell, tell people where you can find you. Um, I'll also try to put them in the show notes as well, but you know, plug yourself. Where can they find you? If they live in California, if they live well, soon to be Texas, right Um, how can they come to your gym, be a part of what you're doing and get super, super fit and change your lives?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, my socials are Devin D, e, V, e, n, uh, doc Gonzalez, with two Z's, um on pretty much every platform. And then the gym um is strive 11 fitnesscom, and then you know you can see the locations on there. You know, if you want to come try out the gym, by all means, you know, come try a free pass, um. But if you want to get any information on franchising, you know there's a link on the website as well. Just fill out the form and you know you and I can have a talk. And if you have any questions or anything like that, I'm more than happy to you know, inform me a little bit more on what strive 11 is doing.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, dude. And if you are an entrepreneur 10 99 and you want a free hub to connect with like minded individuals, I have made a school community. It's called a hive mind 99. It's mission is just to bring every 10 99 employee and entrepreneur into one space so we can all share what we're doing, what's working, what's not working. It's completely free. So if you guys want to come in, join, please do. We're here to help each other out and build some bad ass businesses. Devin man, you're amazing. I'm so happy that you came on. We're going to have to do this again and talk more because, uh, this is a lot of fun. No, thank you, I guess. Peace when.