Bootstrapped Business Wisdom
Welcome to Bootstrap Business Wisdom, the podcast where we dive into the extraordinary stories of entrepreneurs who started with little or nothing and built their empires from the ground up. I’m Mark Burgess, I have built both 7 and 8 figure bootstrapped businesses, I will be your host, and every show, we'll explore the real journeys of success – unfiltered and authentic.
In a world where start-up narratives are often overshadowed by tales of billion-dollar investments and overnight sensations, we focus on the underdogs – the innovators and dreamers who transformed their minimal resources into thriving, profitable businesses. These are stories of grit, determination, and ingenuity, tales that don’t always make it to the headlines but are equally, if not more, inspiring.
Through candid interviews with these successful entrepreneurs, we’ll uncover the strategies, challenges, and turning points in their journeys. We'll delve into how they made the most of what they had, the crucial decisions they made, and the sacrifices they endured.
Our guests come from diverse backgrounds and industries, but they all share a common thread – starting with the bare essentials and building something remarkable.This podcast isn’t just about celebrating successes; it's about learning from the experiences of those who have walked the path.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or just someone who loves a good success story, there's something here for you. So, join us on Bootstrap Business Wisdom as we get up close and personal with the real heroes of the entrepreneurial world.
Bootstrapped Business Wisdom
EP5 Chris Marco Flores: Army to enterprise
Chris shares how his experiences in both the British and American armies provided him with the discipline and ambition needed to fuel his entrepreneurial spirit. From selling tickets in Ayia Napa to creating a unique weight loss gym, Chris's story is a testament to the power of determination and adaptability.
Discover the transformative role of gamification in business and personal growth. Chris delves into how he applied gamification techniques to his weight loss program, creating a structured customer journey that boosts engagement and retention. Drawing from his military background, Chris emphasises the importance of a process-oriented approach in business and reveals the challenges he faces while scaling his unique gym. This episode sheds light on how a strategic mindset and a focus on customer experience can drive long-term success.
On this episode of Bootstrap Business Wisdom, I talk to Sonia Leasing. Sonia talks to me about her journey through entrepreneurship. That started with her being homeless. She had a son just after her 18th birthday and has built businesses from nothing. She knows how to survive just on fresh air. She knows how to get you into the mindset of being able to actually move the dial of your business. So when you're sitting there thinking to yourself, I'm not sure I've got the money to do this. This is the podcast that you need to listen to.
Speaker 1:All right, Chris, thanks for coming in. Before we go into it too much, I'd just like people to give a bit of a background on their or their background to the listeners. So where did you start? How did you become an entrepreneur, what's your business like at the moment and anything else you think is relevant.
Speaker 3:Okay, so my journey, journey. I was in the army. So when I was 16 I was pretty lost. I didn't know what to do and, ironically, um, my friend said he wanted to join the army. And I was like, what do you want to do that? For what the hell would you want to join the army anyway? I didn't want to be left behind. So when they went into the army office I'd follow them. Oh jesus, and when I was, the sergeant pinpointed me. He's looking. He's like would you like to join the army? I said, what me me, join your army? I was like. And he was like, giving me appraisal that I could do. I never thought I would be able to be good enough to join the army. Anyway, he sold me. I went in the army. None of my other friends did wow, you got.
Speaker 3:You got proper mugged off there by far the best thing that happened. I just instilled something in me. Um, I've done the british army. It was a bit of a scattered uh duration, should we say. And then I left and went over to america. I joined the american army, and it was a bit of a duration, but both of them taught me a lot. I was was very institutionalized, definitely. I was always ambitious, but never really from an entrepreneurial perspective. I always felt I was in the mode of kind of the rat race going through the ladder and up that way. So when I left the army in America I felt I was going to do something along that trend. But then I wanted to have a bit of fun. So I went over to Ayia Napa for a bit of uh for three months just to unwind and then go back into the real world.
Speaker 3:When I was in ayia napa, when I was a lot younger, you had two options. You could either work in a bar and you get like 25 pounds a night all night, or you could sell tickets and if you sold tickets, you're commission-based only, um, and if you don't sell, you don't eat. So when we, when I started doing that, I was selling nothing, you know. I got right down to. I had no money, so I rang my mom. She gave me 50 pounds. I thought I'll give 50 pounds a go and ironically, we uh figured out a way to be able to sell a lot of tickets and then we ended up selling more. Well, I felt like I was the best ticket seller on the island I know it's a bit arrogant, but it was.
Speaker 3:But it was my first taste of having my destiny in my own hands, so what I'd done was the outcome of what I wanted. Yeah, so we're selling over 100 tickets a week was getting, uh, 10 euros commission per ticket, so he's making over a thousand pounds, which obviously dropping the ocean for a lot of people, but for myself that was loads of money so like I was living like a king and we've done that for three months every day non-stop.
Speaker 3:So when I come back it just sparks something and it's like it kind of helped me understand you could do. You don't have to be in a rat race yeah, you just make money your destiny's in your own hands.
Speaker 3:So from that time I was doing loads of little different things, you know, starting little small businesses that didn't work, learned a lot. Um, my passion is health and fitness, due to the army. So, um, I've become a personal trainer. I went to Cardiff and it was one of my first tastes of being a self-employed personal trainer in pure gym, and it kind of cascaded from there. So when I started as a personal trainer, I wanted to train. I thought I wanted to train people who were like me at the time, fit and become fitter. But I gravitated towards the people who were once like me. So before the army no fitness, you know nothing at all. But the army no fitness, you know nothing at all. But the army got to level fitness I could never imagine. So I veered to a lot of people who went to the gym because they felt like they needed to, not because they wanted to. Yeah, and I enjoyed.
Speaker 3:They all tell me they want to lose weight, but I didn't really care about that. I knew if I can instill something into them, it would be like an ongoing life thing and getting them to achieve things that they never thought they could. You know, for for some people, just running one mile, being able to run one mile is unknown to people, but getting people to do that knocks down a barrier. So then I started doing it. So the majority of the people wanted to lose weight. And then I figured out people would go through a weight loss journey all their lives and I said why are they going through a weight loss journey all their life? Always start. So then I started thinking right, I want to try and create a weight loss program that becomes one weight loss program and since 2014, I've been developing, testing, trialing, redeveloping a program and, ironically, it's quite simulated, how the army done with us. So in the army, when you first start, you start as a civilian with a basic training. Six months later, you become a soldier. Everyone who starts and finishes becomes a soldier, no matter what. So with the, the weight loss program, it's kind of similar, it's the same, and the way it works is um, you put everyone in the same boat. Who's going in the same direction on the same program creates battle buddies.
Speaker 3:Of course, I'd like to say I'd have 100 success rate. That doesn't happen, but we have a very high success rate because of that. But it's never been plain sailing because when I was trying to create the business model for personal training and that kind of thing, I had none of the wiser. So I used to reach out to people, mentors and stuff like that. I feel I've learned a lot of every mentor that I've brought, but some are better than others and some probably didn't lead me down a path that you should.
Speaker 3:And within a personal training world, you've got this um, the box gyms or the pure gyms and stuff like that. We've got a lot of money. Who can create a low membership and wait till they get the volume, because they've got the capital to be able to hold the breaths? So the majority of personal trainers they will do high tickets, so a high price of personal training, which only lasts so long and it's always pushing custard uphill. So over that time, I created multiple different business models for personal training and some of them win, some of them them failed. Covid can be a big hit.
Speaker 3:And then on september 2022, I always had the idea I wanted to try the slimming world model, but with my methods, my uh my practices, and I thought I'd give it one little go, one last little go, and it's like my one last little shot into the personal training world. I was just going to do something else and I just hit the ground running, so I've kind of held my breath a lot because I've gone low. Ticket was it's um, we charge only 40 pounds a month, yeah, but obviously the revenue's low for a business to be able to start, so we've been scraping the barrel throughout. However, we are tapping into an audience of people who don't have a gym to go to. So people the people come to us are ones who who don't particularly want to go to a gym, who are too self-conscious to go to a gym, and it's their place. So there's a huge market, um, and it's just been blown up wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So I've got a few questions actually, um, the first one is on your learnings. Yeah, there must have been some things that you thought, um, oh wow, if I could just do this and I could just get like a thousand people, I'd be laughing yeah and then at some point, you realize, like, is that? That's just impossible, you're not going to get a thousand people. Um, so what? What was it that happened where you started to realize that? And uh, what have you? Have you changed your thinking since then?
Speaker 3:okay, so I get this because for me I probably need a thousand people for the volume that I need.
Speaker 3:But, um, to try and get it overnight, it doesn't happen yeah so when I my process is getting people in, we've got loads of process. But one of the main processes we use Facebook ads, which works very well. We phone call them and there's only a 40 pounds sign up, so it's not a lot of money at all. So you think you need to do a good five to 10 a day to be able to make it worthwhile. So at first when I started I was like, right, I need to get five or 10 sales a day, five, 10 sales a day. But it's killing me mentally because it just wasn't happening. And then you know, sometimes I could ring ten people, make ten sales. Sometimes I could ring a hundred people and make no sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So then on top of it you've got all the other business stuff to do, business development and stuff like that. So I had to completely change my thinking. Normally I get more than that, but as long as I get one cell a day it helps hit the the endorphins that I needed to feel like I'm winning. And I normally get more than one cell a day, but by doing that it allows me and weirdly it's actually enough to grow it, because you don't just get the one cell, which is particularly my business. I get one cell. They tell their friends, they tell their friends that are friends, and I get more, and then I can spend the other time working. So it's kind of like time blocking. Time blocking just for that one percent improvement, yeah, over a long period of time and it builds.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that because in the beginning it's like you just you don't account for having to do anything else, do you just like? I'm just going to go and get these thousand clients and that's what I'm going to do, yeah, and then, like, everything else just seems to get in the way of that, doesn't it? Like you know your computer's not working, like you know your outlook's not opening, you've got to do a vat return, you've got to do this, you've got to do that, like all of these things. And like you say like, and then you, you do find time to make a few funnels, don't make any sales, and it's just like this isn't what I was supposed to be doing at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought you're rich by now. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and what about, um, the other side of it then? Because it must be very important for you that these customers don't just churn out the other end yeah and is that something that you have had to learn the hard way or, uh, you know what? What's been your learnings around that?
Speaker 3:all right. So weirdly, uh, when we first started, we obviously had a big churn rate and it's dropping down and it's. And one of the reasons why it changed is you taught me something a little while ago. I'm not sure you remember was that seminar when I didn't send a mask and we spent about five, ten minutes and you talked about gamification. I understood gamification, but you just explained it in a way and it just hit light bulb and you explained it in a way. It's like everything you do is gamification. You know, people don't even realize, but the gamifier so this is what you said. You said, um, when you're standing at a train station, people don't just stand anywhere, they try and stand when a door stops, yeah, and the gamifying just to get onto a train. And because of that, um, and I think the, the, the, the luckiness we went on the same business program, but the value of stuff creating a customer journey yeah is creating as much as we can to keep them in play, with the gamification to stop that churn rate yeah, and it's
Speaker 3:working, oh, massively so. For example, we, um, when they, when they sign up, we make sure for the first three days they get enough information that's going to help them. We've got something in place for seven days that they'll get quick results and they're like oh wow, this is working. So we have something called like a seven-day detox, amongst other things, but this is one of the things. They'll lose between four to 12 pounds within that seven days. Granted, it is water weight weight, very honest with them. You know, not all of it a little bit as fat, but what it does, it creates that placebo effect. It's like, oh, um, you know this is working, he knows what he's talking about, what else has he's got. And then the next step is the 28 days so we can get past 28 days. They normally stay, yeah, absolutely before 28 days. Obviously we have a lot of people who still don't.
Speaker 1:But yeah, who do? But the ones that don't, I imagine, are not not following it at all. They've signed up and are doing something else so, yeah, weight loss is.
Speaker 3:It's like, weirdly, people, the majority of people, have made a decision before they even come to me. Yeah, so anyone who's done a weight, who's on a weight loss journey, who gets great results, they're already dedicated before they come. I just put them on the path. Yeah, there's a small percentage where I can help mess with their mind a little bit to help them, and the majority of them, the unfortunate is, the reason why people don't change is because of the lack of belief. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 3:So, in a different terms, let's say, if I said to you I want you to make a million pounds but you're only going to get paid £10 an hour, how confident would you be that you're going to make a million pounds? Yeah, not that confident, all right. So what would? How easy would it be to try and save and stuff like that? You think what's the point? What's the point to save in? Because I'm not going to make it anyway. So a lot of people in a weight loss journey, they don't feel like they're going to ever make it to the end. So when you tell them, you know they should cut down this stuff and this stuff. It's a blimmy in the back of mind. So what's the point? I'm never going to make it anyway. So for me it's like lifting the chamber doors. So it's like, oh belief, all about the 1% improvement. So hopefully.
Speaker 1:This is a good point. Actually, you know, it's not that different to a business in a way, because one of the first businesses that I had, I had some business partners and we all went our own separate ways in the end and most actually all of those went back to employment. And when I talk to them now they say things like, oh yeah, but you know, you was always different, you was destined to run a successful business. And it's funny, only because I can see both sides of it now I can see how, how, how close they were to having a successful business. But just the belief, like you say, just the belief that you're going to be able to like what's the point? Do that, yeah, what's the point? Absolutely waste of my life if it's not going to happen, such as. It's such a good point, I think, with everything in life, not just weight loss.
Speaker 1:So going back to the army side of things then, yeah how does it work in the army in the sense that I come, I, I joined as a civilian, I become a soldier, and everyone who joins a civilian becomes a soldier, unless of course, they quit. I guess Correct. And you went through that process in your mind. You say maybe it institutionalised you in other ways, but it also allowed you to see that everything's just a process. Yeah, a sausage factory. Everything's just a sausage factory right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Follow the process and it'll work. And business is probably the same as that as much as everybody feels like they've got a unique business. We're all going to go through the startup phase. We're all going to go through the phase after that and, ultimately, wherever you get to in your business someone's already walked that path pretty much to in your business. Someone's already walked that path pretty much um with your company. Would you say, um, that you're still in the process of trying to find what it is that you want to offer to people, or would you say that you're in the phase of, uh, trying to find the right marketing to attract them, or scaling the business in order to be able to manage it, like what's the one of the main issues that you kind of face at the moment?
Speaker 3:uh, the the process we've got.
Speaker 3:I think that's very solidified process of attracting leads and getting them to sign up, and keeping them keeping them and taking them through a journey that's going to be successful for them, that that's covered and it's proven through the results of our members over the years. Um, our main thing is what's happening to a market, uh, which is he's educating. So when weight loss, they feel like they need to go to a gym. They just think of gym. So when they think of something like pure gym, even though it's a great place to go to, a lot of people are not confident enough to go to pure gym for multiple reasons not fit enough, you know, not skinny enough, or whatever. They want to feel like with ours. Ours is a place for those people. So there's so many people out there who don't really understand that when people sign up to us, they see we call the weights over academy, so it says the name on the tin, so they kind of got inkling of it, but until they walk through their door they don't realize it's actually a place of all sizes, yeah, and comfortability. So at the moment, uh, there's two things more awareness, getting people to understand exactly who we are and who we're for, educating the market, um, and the next thing is we've nickel and dimed our gym, so we didn't have funding and everything. So we my gym's got no showers. It's got a communal toilets for everyone else in the unit. I've got a lot well, most of my kit from facebook marketing, so my kettlebells are all mixed kettlebells and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Luckily, I've proven the process by doing one session a week. This was in september 2022 in in the classroom. I can only hold 16 people in there, so once a week they come into us and we talk about weight loss and I take it for a process and that worked really well. Um, we fill up very quickly, so I got another room and then we end up getting 32 members. So two sessions a week.
Speaker 3:And in february there was a chance to get this unit big unit, 2500 square feet and I didn't really have the capital to do it. So, um, I pre-sold a lot of it just so I can get the money, and I used the money that I pre-sold that could have refunded to get this unit. And, um, um, so cost me like £13,100 to go from the two rooms to the 2,500 square foot and I only had 32 members. 32 members At that time. It was only £25. So I only boosted it up to like £30 to £40. So do the calculation. That doesn't last very long, so I had to explode it enough to be able to keep it going and we're still going.
Speaker 3:So the next thing is I feel I'm at a stage where I've proven the first one. I've proven the second one. We've bogged standard equipment, no showers, nothing like that. We're not an open gym, we're only class based. I reckon if we can layer that it would go to the next level. I feel the best way to explain it is if slimming world and pure gym had a baby. It's us slimming world. I don't want to knock them. They clearly had to help a lot of people, but it was created years ago, so they're they're. At that time that stuff was the stuff that works yeah and they've got like 9 000 ambassadors.
Speaker 3:So to try and change the the practice, you'd have to change a spider web. So we've got the modern practices of what works with um weight loss theory and mindset, and we got the comfortability of a gym for people who are too uncomfortable to go elsewhere yeah so I I know I'm probably the same ambitious, optimistic I feel like if it's done correctly, it could be one of the most respected weight loss company in the nations yeah, I think you're probably right.
Speaker 1:I've got a friend who is very much into um stretch goals and all of that sort of stuff and mindset and stuff and uh, you know common thing that he often says, which I don't know if you agree with, is like um motivation. You know it's like overrated yeah um, it sort of it'll get you up off the sofa once, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what you really need is discipline yeah and, um, it sounds like you're kind of saying the same thing there. It's, like you know, I can be motivated to go to the gym to lose weight, but then, like you know, if I don't actually believe that I'm going to end up like this, yeah, that motivation is going to drift away. I'm going to go back to eating crisps on the sofa and no discipline. Like the discipline is. I'm going to just do this until I get to the end result. Like, um, the people that you see in your gym that do that, what, what would you say, is the main difference between the ones that?
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Succeed and don't yeah, I know, I know you could just say discipline, but like how?
Speaker 3:it's um, multiple fact, like I think, like I said before, majority of people who come are ready, they're to the point where they're done. So they, they just need to be told. And if they come to me I know I'm going to sound a bit arrogant here I know I'm going to put them on the right path and, like we teach in a hard way rather than an easy way, which is a better option? Um, the ones who don't have it is breaking everything down. So you, we do two. Well, we do multiple things. But this is one factor.
Speaker 3:So when we sit them down, we create a belief in their mind, get them to think like outside the box, get them to wave a magic wand like what would you absolutely love to have? You know, if you could have anything in the world, what would it be within your health, fitness? And I'll create it. And it's like right, think about it. I know it sounds hairy and fairy, but it works. And so we're like right, that is your goal.
Speaker 3:So just say hypothetically, I'll put it into fitness terms let's say, someone wants to run a marathon. They can't walk around the street, you know. So that's completely delusional, so far out of reach. They don't think they're going to be able to touch it. If they're looking in the tunnel, they can't see the end of the tunnel, but that's the end goal. Then the first goal is running half a mile. All we care about is running half a mile and we have like a little dream and it's like right one, right down half a mile. Once you've done that right right, a mile down and there's all different factors it could be like, um, doing one push-up, it could be losing half a dress size, one dress size. So it is helping create the discipline by breaking the goals down in bite-sized, believable wins, and also along the way, every time they hit it they're hitting the door, things like oh it's working, it's working.
Speaker 1:It's working. That's like how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, right, yeah, um, so so what's gonna happen then? Because it sounds like you, you could motivate me to do this. I could join your gym, I'm gonna work with you and it's all gonna be fine. What's gonna happen when it's not you doing it? How are you going to scale it on from there, or have we already reached that stage?
Speaker 3:No, I think again. I think some of the programs one of the ones we went on, I think helped us, you know, with systems and processes. So I've just been creating loads of processes and processes when people sign up to me. We've got close to 200 members at the moment. Wow sign up to me. I've got close to 200 members at the moment, wow, which is small in the grand scheme of things, but and it doesn't take much of my time at all.
Speaker 3:So when they sign up, they should go for a complete process and do this, do this, do this, do this, and they can reach out to us anytime as one, but very rarely do they do it. Also kind of create kind of bit of a flywheel, because a lot of people who in the in the program, who come through the program, they're in the groups and facebook groups so to ask a question and all the people in the group help them. So I don't really need to do anything because everyone before them already knows yeah, they've got their own accountability for systems.
Speaker 1:What do you think um? You learned in the army that's helped you in this business.
Speaker 3:So much, so much like um, well, I think one of the main thing is when I was in the american army this is one I can off the top of my head one of our drill sergeants was special forces and he had a model everything's last, no, eating and sleeping's last. Everything else is first, so clean your weapons, do your admin and everything else. You're not eating, you're not sleeping until it's all done and sometimes you'll be up all night long and I think because of that, obviously sleep's important and stuff like that. But if you want something in life, there has to be sacrifices, and if you don't sacrifice, the one becomes the sacrifice.
Speaker 3:And that might mean sacrifice to sleep, sacrifice, partying, sacrifice, and you hear this all the time. But it's so true, you have a choice what you want to do. If you want this all the time, but it's so true, you have a choice of what you want to do. If you want to get to there, you can, but it's up to you whether you create a sacrifice or not and think eating and sleeping is the last. What's always stuck in my mind?
Speaker 1:Yeah, such a good point. I see so many people that haven't got. You know there's just thing. And then the next post I see on social. They're asking like who can recommend a box set? It's like, which one is it? Yeah, not got time to do it, but I'm in the middle of watching a box set. Yeah, all right, people need it, need a release, of course, but like, like you say, like priorities yeah, what's more important.
Speaker 1:um, on the last podcast I was doing, I was just talking about um story that I was telling this guy but one thing he could do to really make a massive difference in his business. It wasn't going to cost him anything, it was going to take him about 20 minutes. Yeah. And about a week later I spoke to him and like just not done it, you know, so it's hard, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can see it.
Speaker 1:Just think to yourself like do you really want to do this? Yeah. Or like, Do you really want to do this, yeah, so how do you deal with that? Then you must have customers. Someone who's listened to this has got customers that are blaming them at the moment for not delivering what they said they were going to deliver, and you're in an industry whereby that's going to happen right.
Speaker 1:People are going to go well. You've happily taken my money, Chris, and I'm still the same size that I was when I started. How do you deal with that other than just saying, well, it's your problem?
Speaker 3:I think before anyone comes in, I always tell them it's going to be the hardest journey. You go on. So I never put a wall under the rise. Their expectations are set and I always tell them I'm going to tell you what you want to hear, but what you want to hear, and that's the same throughout the process. So when people say to me they're not changed, I could be like you're not doing it and it's as simple as that and um, I'll help them. Of course, I'll help them. A lot of people can help. A lot of people listen. There's lots of things that we could do, but unfortunately there's some. No matter what you do, what you say, it's a sad and see, but they just don't do it.
Speaker 3:They're just not ready, sometimes not ready, or they just won't do it. It's not even being disciplined enough, they just won't do it. So it's hard. It's just casualties part of the process. And I know it sounds bad. I'm not trying to be like a un-moral business person, it's just the reality. It's like we've got everything to help you. We've got all the support to help you. We can reach out to as much as we can we know it will work.
Speaker 3:We know it'll work as long as you help. Uh, if you're suffering, speak to us. Yeah, we can put in the right direction.
Speaker 1:If you're suffering, you're not telling us we can't help you I think the key there, with what you're doing for people as well, is, like you know, you're giving them a place, uh, psychologically as well as physically. Absolutely, you know, because losing weight it's not that complicated really, is it? I remember talking to a guy who, you know, uh is specializing all that stuff. Once I wasn't talking to him, actually I could overhear a conversation he's having with somebody else and this person was saying to him I just need your advice because, like you know, I ate all the right foods, I make sure I do this, I make sure I do that, but, like you know, I'm not losing any weight. And he went you eating too many calories. And he went no, no, I've done this, I've done this, I've done that, I've done that, I'm all good. And he was like no, you're eating too many calories. It's like pretty straightforward, because if you weren't, you'd be losing weight.
Speaker 1:So it's not even that complicated. But what's complicated is that it's not as simple as that when you put it in the context of the rest of the world, is it? Like you know, we've all got like psychological reasons why we're eating too many calories. Like you say, like I don't want to go to the gym, I don't feel comfortable there, or, you know, I don't want to stop eating these things because I quite like them, or I'm never going to be able to run a marathon, so why will I even bother start running? So you know, pulling all that together into one place must be quite rewarding for you. I guess. When people actually hit their goals and feel like they've pretty much changed their life, that's great. Is there something that you have done in your business that was a big mistake?
Speaker 1:um whereby you sort of think to yourself like, oh yeah okay.
Speaker 3:So my fault. I took the advice and I done it. You know when you get the advice, go all in. So I think some businesses you can and if you're at the right stage you definitely can go all in. But definitely with a business that I created, especially with fitness industry, by going all in put me in probably the worst position I could have. So I've done other jobs to help supplement the finances along the way and I quit them to go all in. I think it's all going to work and it hasn't and it's put me on my backside and to the point where I've had to shut the businesses, go back into employment just to get a bit money in and try again. Yeah, so I'll take like. Some people can definitely go all in, depending on the business model and the business and how much knowledge you got towards it. But I think sometimes you can listen too much to people giving you advice that probably not the truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah and do you think that that if we analyze, if you was to analyze that, would it be because the expectations of how much you were going to earn in the business were unrealistic, or would it be because you didn't have enough money to survive for that long? Or what ultimately caused the issue? Was it lack of, like I say, lack of sales, lack of funding? Like you know what I think? Uh, because you needed money. Clearly, you needed money just to live, yeah, um, so you cut off that supply to do this other thing, but you must have thought that thing was going to replace the income yeah, so I thought I was going to be a millionaire by next month, as you do.
Speaker 3:I think someone pinpointed then it was the business model. So the business model was what should restrain it. So this was a gym that I had in 2017, and it was high ticket. I was charging people £600 a month for three months. And there was eight people per session. So the first month I'd done it, chucked up some Facebook ads, got the leads in. I'd turned over £7,070. So I thought this is amazing.
Speaker 1:Done.
Speaker 3:yeah, this is going to work, but I didn't realise I was pre-selling before I started. So when I was going into it, I was doing the training, I was doing development, so trying to sell, I wasn't able to sell as much as I was, yeah, so I couldn't sell as much. So that was the first hurdle. I didn't have enough time to do is what I did on the first month. The second one was, um, by the end of the three months I never really had a plan of what to do with them, like what was the best thing? Do I do another 600 pounds a month, although I put them on lower price and stuff like that? And so because of that, that's why it trickled down, because obviously there's a lot of people who can afford it, but where I live that's not a sustainable model yeah, or foreseeable.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, isn't it? Because, like, I reckon, like, as, as entrepreneurs, a lot of us, um, are probably tempted to do that, and even though we might look at that and go you haven't planned any further than that. Be sort of tempted to do that, and even though we might look at that and go, you haven't planned any further than that. Be sort of tempted to go, no, but this is going to be all right. Yeah, exactly what it was.
Speaker 3:It was all right.
Speaker 1:You haven't looked any further than three months now, but it'll be fine because I'll have made seven grand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll make 10 grand next month because I know what I'm doing. That'll happen and I'll make 10 grand next month because I know what I'm doing, that happens.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, like you say, like the reality, because even if a mentor had come along and gone, yeah, but when you've got those 8,000 pounds worth of people and you're training them, you won't have time to do the sounds. There would have still been part of you. I guess that would have gone. I'll figure it out, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, eat and sleep last Optim, eating, sleep last optimistic, arrogant, you know, think of no best, no, so, so so really, what we're saying, then, is like it's not necessarily about going all in. It's more like how solid is your plan? How realistic is this plan? Like you know, because you know there wasn't a realistic plan there, really, by the sounds of it, like you know, you went all in and, and you know, all credit to you for the, for the sort of courage side of it, yeah, and you pulled it off in the first month, but the plan was was you know the plan was not right, was it the?
Speaker 3:plan three month plan.
Speaker 1:It was a three month plan so basically it did work, but it was only a three month plan after three months.
Speaker 3:It was that four month plan.
Speaker 1:Four months back to work.
Speaker 3:I think the army improvised adapt and overcome in that situation. There was no improvising adapt and overcoming, it was just shut down.
Speaker 1:Shut that down. Go back to work.
Speaker 3:But if I went back now, I'd know exactly how I'd do it differently and that model would work really well, really well, really simple. And what would you have had to have done differently? Then, on the third month, you pay 40 pounds a month. Done, right? So we, there was, um, a small group session, so only eight people at a time. By the end of the third month they could drop down to 40 pounds a month, but the groups would be bigger. So, um, and it would be repeatable customers, yeah, I was attracting customers. I was getting customers. I turned them into raven customers. I was attracting customers. I was getting customers.
Speaker 1:I turned them into raving customers and I was letting them walk out my door. Yeah, that's amazing. I think that's a big part of my learnings over the years have been exactly that In the early days, you focus on the initial sale, but the money is in what they buy after that yeah you know, the initial sale is actually the market and spend yeah, it's the market and spend.
Speaker 1:It keeps the doors open. It's like allows you to live. Yeah, that probably doesn't make you rich, but it allows the business to function. And then, and then what? Because whatever happens after, that is where the actual profit is right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, why get rid of them when they're already a customer? Yeah, they need, they need something now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something they need. Even with your customers, like you know, when they reach their goals, there's still something they need. There's someone they're about to go and spend some money with well, luckily, health and fitness is a forever thing yeah so some people should do forever.
Speaker 3:So, luckily for me, if I get someone and they go from an unhealthy weight to a healthy weight and we've done it they're probably going to stay with us. Yeah, so we've got things into place which makes them stay I love it.
Speaker 1:Um, so where does the business go next? Then you say, like you know, you've got the uh, you've got the kind of blueprint. Now, obviously, like you know, next you're going to probably level up the gym, I imagine, and you know. But then then what?
Speaker 3:so I believe the model's proven. I it just proves in a pudding. People keep turning up month after month and we've had them for a long time and they've changed. So I've got two options. Option one stay where I am and build it to where it's really profitable, or give it to someone, let them build it and then create the others. I like the second option better, um, because I feel like it's just more of a sausage track now, like everything's in place, the program's in place, you know, even down to like the timings of the classes and the structure. Um, and there's we. We get in people from well, we get people from london, we get people up country asking us to create the weeks of academy where they are. So we get a market pool. So I'm like, what do I do? Do I just sit and develop it and then duplicate, or just crack on duplicate?
Speaker 1:now, so in a franchise, kind of model franchise, and then how would you have you thought about how you would sort of stop those franchises from basically just becoming something completely different?
Speaker 3:yeah, ours is real structured is you can't go wrong, like if someone signs up it's like day one, do this, day two, do this, day three, do this.
Speaker 3:We've three elements mindset, exercise, nutrition. Like someone from a personal training background or health background, they can follow it and they can teach it easily. Um, so the another reason why it should franchise there's a lot of fantastic health coaches out there, like really great health coaches, but you find a lot of health coaches, fitness professionals, stuff like that. They do not continue a fitness career because it's too hard to figure out to make it worthwhile living, and you'll find a lot of health professionals go do other jobs completely different to help and but they should remain in the fitness profession because that's what they're good at and there's so many people that need it. So I think we're actually helping people. We can get the people who are really good at fitness we got our business marry it together. They get to do what they want and we can help them with the business side when you, um, when you took the big warehouse, yeah I'm just thinking back to when you was talking to me about that like that is uh.
Speaker 1:That is another example of being all in, though, isn't it, like you know, because that must have been a pretty scary step so I'm contradicting myself.
Speaker 3:I think the best way to say is when to go all in right. So before, like the first gym I had, I went all in. So from day one I quit my job. When I started selling. This time, when I had, uh, the room and I was doing one session a week, I was still doing my other job. So I had a daily day job whilst I was doing that on the side. And it's grown up to the point where this is working. People are talking about it. So we either create another room, a third room, and go to like 48 people, or get this unit and just try and flood it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it Is there. You say you run Facebook ads. Is that the only form of lead generation?
Speaker 3:So well, not so much lead generation, so attracting clients. I think a lot of people will discount the old school marketing tactics and I think they're the best Flyers, posters, stuff like that. One of the best marketing tactics I've done, particularly for a gym, is I've just gone around to all the businesses in my town and we create competitions. So, ironically, a butcher, we do competition like share comment and they'll give a prize. We'll give a prize. Ironically, one of our favorite business partners, shall we say. It's a cake shop she's called. She runs a shop called binge box, which goes against the grain because cake and us. She keeps us a business. I keep her in business. Yeah, uh, but we've done a lot of stuff together. So we tried creating a healthy chocolate bar and I wasn't. It was going all right but we could tell it wasn't going so well. But we knew just from the awareness of us trying to do that because obviously we were posting about it. It was creating attraction, we was getting her audience, she was getting my audience and that is probably the quickest.
Speaker 1:Another thing, my time Partnerships with people that have got your type of customers, basically Correct.
Speaker 3:The next is so. Our target audience are parents with kids under the age of eight. That's our one. We go to. Why.
Speaker 3:So we've actually got two audiences. So kids with under eight tend to be parents that have kids. They stop and their kids get to an age where, like right, I want to sort myself out again. Um, the next stage is people like above 50 years old or 55, and their kids kind of flow in the nest. They've gone to university and got their life back. So those are the two demographics that really are our members. So we create kids classes and by creating kids classes I can create flyers saying kids classes which I can go to the schools and give all these flyers to the schools to give all to the kids, to give to the parents and when they go on to the kids classes, oh, my website's there. Oh, that might be for me. I'm also creating kids books at the moment because they'll go into the kids school with our logo and you know 7114, um, seven locations. People don't understand it, so when, when they read it, they're like sublimely tapping into it.
Speaker 1:So I love it. Okay, and so, really, what you're saying there is, like you know, in order to find your customers, we need to find out, okay, the obvious one, where they hang out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But not just where they hang out. Like what service products might they be using that you could somehow link in with? And not in an obvious way, because the obvious way would be like oh so, basically, I want parents of kids under eight. I'll go and deliver a leaflet about my gym to parents in that school. One, you might not be able to allow to do that, and two, yeah, I've heard it all before. It was like you know. What you're doing is a little bit smarter. It's actually provide something for the children under eight that the parents are then going to accidentally, on purpose, discover an extra revenue for us through the kids classes. Brilliant, and and would you say that that stuff works like that?
Speaker 3:stuff's really been a driver for your growth massively and touching on the demographic, I think people think they need to know their demographics straight away. You don't, you learn over time, so you want to do something. I want to help people weight loss.
Speaker 1:Obviously I can help anyone in weight loss, but you get to realize who becomes yeah, good customers yeah, yeah, that's such a great point because in the beginning everyone's a customer, right, we just need some cash flow. Anybody who wants to come and do some weight loss, you can come, no problem yeah and then, as you say, you'll find it seems like all the ones that really like this are like that. Yeah. But never something that you probably would have been able to plan out before you started the company, right?
Speaker 3:Maybe small people, the majority of people, no, it's market pool, I think.
Speaker 1:And the plans that you have, the workout regimes everything starts to tweak around those people as well, don't they? So everything kind of morphs into a company for those people people, whereas in the beginning it was probably a bit more generic, constant redevelopment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you, you build the program and it works and you've got build again and build again. Not completely do it over again, but just cater it more towards who you're helping love it, love it.
Speaker 1:Um. One last question then. Yeah, um, if someone is sitting listening to this and they're thinking to themselves, um, I've got yeah, I've got a business and a similar, similar sort of journey with chris, I tried, it didn't really work. I, I, I sort of. Now I'm back part-time doing a bit of my job, or even I've gone back full-time and I've still got this thing alive in my heart somewhere that I want to do this thing. How do they, what should they do to kind of give themselves the confidence to be able to eventually step away from doing these jobs that they don't really want to do and move to the thing that they are gonna?
Speaker 3:I think we're very lucky because whatever you want to do, there's probably a thousand people who's done it before you. So if you have an idea in your mind and no one in the world has done it, there's probably a big risk that's gonna. It might not work. If you've got an idea in your mind and there's a thousand people have done it very successfully, you're good to go. Yeah, so it's just then finding your way of doing it yeah and it's like your personality towards it.
Speaker 3:Example someone who wants to open a barber shop. It works. You know many barber shops but everyone's got their own personality towards what their barber shop is. Yeah, people get drawn to it. So if you've got an idea in your mind, have a look how many people have done it and just read their stories. Biographies of those people will help you understand how they've done it and created it and just follow it. I love it. Success leaves clues yeah, big believer in that. You just copy what they do.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, brilliant. Thanks very much for coming in pleasure.
