CareerJitsu Episode 54: The Hidden Customer Experience Secrets Behind a Succesful BJJ Academy Owner, Ben Timm

Unlock the secrets to growing your Jiu-Jitsu academy! In this episode, we chat with Ben Timm, owner of Athens Jiu-Jitsu, who transformed his school from 20 to 150 students in just one year.

Key takeaways:

•The importance of immediate responses to inquiries
•How to create a welcoming environment for new students
•Strategies for retaining blue belts and keeping students engaged
•The role of communication in managing staff and students
•Tips for leveraging technology to streamline operations
Timestamps:00:00 Introduction00:30 Meet Ben Timm01:00 Growing Athens Jiu-Jitsu05:00 Importance of Immediate Responses10:00 Retaining Blue Belts15:00 Managing Staff Effectively20:00 Leveraging Technology25:00 Final Thoughts

What's your biggest challenge in running a martial arts school? Drop it in the comments!

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Check Out Ben"s Info Here:

https://www.wodify.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ben__timm

https://www.facebook.com/share/17EBAzW6KK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Career Jitsu podcast, where we connect the art of jiu-jitsu with your career. Our mission is to empower and inspire you with engaging conversations and valuable insights from people just like you who benefit from the shared relationship between your workplace and the art of jujitsu, leading you to a more fulfilling and successful life. This episode is brought to you by Nine Lives Jiu Jitsu. Nine Lives Jiu-Jitsu was built for people who understand what it means to tap, reset, and come back stronger. Cats have nine lives and grapplers do too. Since 2013, 9 Lives has been creating premium classically designed geese for practitioners who respect the art, embrace the grind, and truly love the game. 9 Lives Jiu Jitsu has a clean design and a timeless style built for the map. Because when you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you roll good. Check them out at 9LivesBJJ.com. And enter the promo code Career Jitsu to receive 25% off your first order. Thank you for tuning into the Career Jitsu podcast this week. Frank and I are really excited. Um, our your favorite hosts here of Career Jitsu have a special treat for you today. We have uh Ben Tim. Um I'll spell that it's T-I-M-M, just in case you want to look him up. If you want to look him up, you gotta put two M's, right, Ben? That's right. Long M. Okay. Okay, and uh so Ben is uh from Athens, Tennessee. He is a BJJ Academy owner. He bought an academy in Athens, uh, it was called Athens Jiu-Jitsu in Athens, Tennessee. And he bought it in January of 2025, and he has a really impressive story about what has happened in that school from January of 2025 when he bought it till now. That is gonna be really valuable insight for our for our guests. Sorry, for our listeners. He also has a lot of experience in grappling because he, as a child, um he did catch wrestling. And then after that, in high school, he did wrestling, and then he was telling us that he was an Olympic powerlifter as well, and then started getting into jujitsu about four and a half years ago. He has experience in sales, digital marketing, and he has a wealth of experience. He would, I would consider him an expert in customer experience and customer relations. So right now he holds a position with Watafi as a VP of revenue and customer experience. So uh I found a quote earlier, um, and it said it is customers don't quit businesses, they quit experiences. I thought that was an amazing quote to um kind of lead lead us into our conversation today. So welcome to the podcast, Ben.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Oh, thank you so much, Jason Frank. Really excited to be here. Uh, I was telling my wife uh this morning, because she's like, What are you doing today? I was like, I'm I'm doing a podcast with these guys, Jason and Frank. And she's like, Well, what's it about? It's called Career Jitsu. And she just looked at me and she's like, Where do you find these things? One. And she's like, Two, she's like, I don't know if you could have come up with a better podcast to be on, considering the way that my life is just kind of wiven or woven around and where I am today and what I get to do. You know, I I just I'm super excited to be here, guys.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Well, if we have your wife's approval, then we're happy about that, right, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

That's right. Absolutely. And Ben, this is um, this is gonna be so exciting for us. I want to tell my listeners, and I tell my high school kids this when I have a really good lesson plan. Listeners, buckle up, put your helmets on, put your goggles on. Because Ben is like a modern renaissance man. He's done so many different things. The Marine Corps has been deployed six times, defended our country. He taught their combatants, and I definitely want to hear a little bit about that. And something else that we didn't say in the intro, he is a beyond being an Olympic limp um lifter, he's also a professional, or he was a um competitive, he was an arm wrestler, and and won third place in a in a massive giant competition. So maybe we'll get some arm wrestling tips from him along the way. But we're gonna get I don't I don't even know how we're gonna fit all this into a podcast. This might have to be part one, part two. But thank you so much for you. Obviously are a busy man. Thank you for taking the time out to let's get started. I g I guess let's get started with you as a kid. You said you started doing wrestling when you were very young, and then you didn't and so tell us a little bit about your your martial art combat training.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah, so my dad uh my dad was a catch wrestling coach, right? So he grew up catch wrestling, and I it's funny, I didn't actually really understand that there was such a big difference until I was a lot older. And my like it was just what we did. My mom will tell the story that we would just like there'd be nothing going on, and I would just run at my dad from the smallest age, and my dad was a very large individual, and I would just run at him and just start trying to wrestle and take them down and try to submit them and do these things, and we would just go basically until I cried. And my mom would finally be like, Ed, Ed, stop, he's crying, you know, and he'd be like, He's fine, he's fine, you know, just let him be. And he'd be like, All right, more tomorrow. And then we just keep going. And we just did this on a regular basis, I mean, numerous times a week, and we would just go, and I would just go as hard as I could, and he would just keep trying and not.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Like, is this in your living room on your lawn?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Like living room, lawn, bedroom, like anywhere that we would be at, and we would just start slap fighting a little bit and then grabbing each other and trying to take each other down. And uh, I remember, so I was it was finally, you know, I did that and then wrestled and football and other, you know, just athletics in in high school and stuff. I was I had just turned 18. My dad and I were uh he was a mechanic and we're hanging out and he's got these big mitts, and we're just and all of a sudden he like reaches over and smacks me a little, and I like, oh, and we start slap boxing. He reaches up and I grab his wrist and he goes and I grab his other wrist, and he like, we're so I'm holding his wrist and he's got my hands, and we start he starts trying to like bring him in, and I like pulled him back out, and he's like, All right, before somebody gets hurt, let's knock it off. Let's knock it off, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Ah, for the first time. That's when you knew you were arrived. The last time that we knew you were arrived. I does he remember that day?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, he's no longer with us, but I we've definitely talked about it a couple times. But it was yeah, so I mean, wrestling and grappling was like a thing that we just did. And I know that my dad really got a big kick out of it. I loved it. I have an older brother, and he was not as big into it as we were. And I think I was like 14 or 15, and he's 10 years older than I am, and we're in the living room wrestling, and I got him basically in a um, like I guess you would describe it as like a belly down, full Nelson, right? Sitting on his back, full Nelson, belly down. And he's like, Stop. And I was like, You gotta tap, you gotta submit, you gotta say that you quit. And he was like, No, and I was like, Well, I'm not getting up. And he finally said, All right, I quit. And that was the last time we ever wrestled. And my mom was sitting there and she's like, Looks at him, and she's like, You just gonna let your little brother just kick the shit out of you like that? I apologize. I swore. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

That's okay, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

It's good. Uh and that was it's just what we grew up doing. I do it now. I have an 11-year-old son, and I mean, he's been training in jujitsu the whole time. And I mean, we do this now, and people all the time are like, What are you doing with your son? And I'm like, Yeah, I mean, we're just just fighting and wrestling and you know, just getting better at stuff and learning. And I mean, he's gonna be a problem.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Well, I'm sure he is. He's got the he's got the good genes, and then he's got the training and the desire. Um, and I and Jason and I have a few podcasts that talk about the bond that if you do jujitsu with your child, like the bond that you build, it's just an extra dimension of closeness, you know, and like camaraderie and competitiveness, and you know, it's just a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So it really is. It's I'm super fortunate. My son, I mean, and Jason, no shame, right? My son came home about five years ago. So I I I feel like I'm gonna jump around on this, but a little backstory on this. So I was I did that, I was in college, I went to the Marine Corps, I did 10 years in the Marine Corps where I taught Marine Corps combatives, the McMahon, the Marine Corps martial arts program. I taught that as an instructor trainer. And then I got out in 2014 and I stopped. Not because there was anything reason, but I I had never made the connection in my brain that this could continue. And so I just stopped. Have my son start some businesses, right? And we're in Tennessee, and my son comes home. I he had to have been in first grade, and he comes home, he's like, I want to learn karate. I was like, we're not doing that shit. I was like, I'll let's go find jujitsu and I'll take you to a jiu-jitsu class. And he was like, Okay. I took him in, he did his first kids' class, and he was like, This is awesome. I was like, sweet. I did my first class. I was like, why did I ever stop this? I went home and I looked at my wife. I was like, why didn't you ever tell me that I should keep doing this stuff? And I loved it, and I I'm so glad that I'm gonna start doing this again. My daughter had to wait three months so that she could start because she was only three and some change, and the program that they're in, you had to be four to start. So she had to sit there for three months and watch her brothers do jujitsu and me juj do jujitsu. And now three months go by, she's four, she gets in the program she's now been training for basically four almost five, yeah, almost five years. And I mean, she's eight and has been training for more than half of her life.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

And the three of us, my wife is not a jujitsu practitioner at all. She's like, you guys are silly. But we, the three of us, just start wrestling and playing and it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

The whole family. When you went back into it and it was your first class of jujitsu, correct? Were you automatically really good because of all your wrestling?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Were you like, was everybody like, oh damn. Like so, really funny story. One of our one of our members at our school, so the same school that I started at, the school that I'm here now or that I own now, I walked in, was like, hey, I've never taken a jiu-jitsu class. And I was super up front. I told our head instructor, who's wonderful, I was like, hey, I've got a background in grappling, but I've never done jujitsu. And he was like, No problem. We're going through. I was a little heavy because it was, you know, we had come out of COVID. I'd put a little bit of weight on after that. I think a lot of people did. And I was like, all right, cool. He grabs me after we warm up and he brings me over to this guy named Joel. He looks, he looks like my older brother, but just a little taller than I am. He's got a shaved head, he's a big guy. He brings him over. He's a blue belt with a couple stripes. He's like, hey, Joel, I want you to roll with this new guy. His name's Ben. You're a bigger guy, he's a bigger guy. It'll be, you know, show him some stuff. And I was like, okay. We sit down. I'm sitting down, and he like he's playing like from knees, I'm on my butt, open guard. We slap hands, bump fists. We start going 30 seconds in, guillotine, and he taps. And he like stops. He's like, All right, all right. All right, let's do this again. Go again. I sweep, get on top, arm bar. He gets up and walks over to Terry and he's like, What do you no? Bullshit. No, that's not. He's this is not his first class. What is that?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

He thought you were sandbagging.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

He thought I was sandbagging. And I was like, No, I I swear to God, I've never taken a jiu-jitsu class ever before. We teach armbars from Mao in the Marine Corps, and I have probably done this move 10,000 times. And he was just like, Okay. Joel is still a member. He comes to my morning program, he loves it. I love him. And he's just like, every morning I'll be like, hey man, you want to roll? He's like, I don't want to roll with you. Get away from me. And I'm like, oh come on.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

What a what a different experience because almost every person we have interviewed on our podcast has said, even the guys who are really like physically gifted always say, like the football players and the and the you know, the weightlifters and the people are like, oh yeah, I'm just a boxer, whatever. I'm like, I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna destroy. And they always come out like this little guy just wrapped me up into a pretzel. And for almost everybody else, when they start it, they feel humbled. But you did not feel humbled when you started.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I mean, I definitely, it was still hard. Like I wasn't in the right, like cardiovascular kind of uh position for Jiu Jitsu. I mean, I tell people now when they come in, especially when they come in and they're like, they're breathing heavy and like this stuff's really hard. I'm like, yeah, it totally has. Hey man, like it's okay. Like, it takes some time to get your body and your cardiovascular system kind of ready for this. When I started, I would do that, I would do a round, and then I had to take normally two rounds off. I'd like hit my inhaler, I'd be like, oh man, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

So it still killed your cardio.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

It still killed my cardio. It had some baseline skills and kind of fundamentals in it, but my cardio wasn't there because I don't like running. And I was like, all right. And it took me some time. It probably took me six months to go from being like able to do a round, take two rounds off, to hey, I can do a whole class and do all the rounds back to back. So it was definitely humbling in that. But I I mean, day one, I walked in, I was like, I'm hooked. Like, if you would have said, hey, you can pay for your lifetime membership right now, I would have signed up right then.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

No problem. You knew it was your thing. That's yeah. Because you do see the magic of it. It's so cool with all the movements and the techniques and uh the art of it is a beautiful art.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

It really is. I mean, I it's the gentle art and it's my favorite. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

I I know for for speaking from my own point of view, when we have wrestlers come in, I don't like it because uh because they're hard to deal with. Because they never stop moving forward. They don't rest. You can't rest with a wrestler. That's the problem with wrestlers. I I I want to ban them from jujitsu. I don't know if that's wrong, but they're so hard to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

You just gotta figure out how to direct them a little bit, right? Like, all right, all right, listen, you're doing great. Let's go this way. I want you to work on these things, and if you can direct them a little bit, I feel like they can be great additions to the team.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Right. Well, you know, sometimes in the very beginning, they're easy because they give you they give you their head a lot. They give you their neck a lot. They come right in and you're like, with their chin up, you're like, you just but after you get them in a guillotine once or twice and they know to defend it, then you're then you're smoked. So can you tell us a little bit about your marine combatives training? What's that like? Is it really hard? Is it like do those guys when they come out of that, are they are they able to hang with jujitsu people and wrestlers and boxers? Are they, is it is it really rigorous?

SPEAKER_02 14:49

It's it's definitely so it's really interesting. In Marine Corps Combatives, it's a belt system and it replaced the old line training. It was cool for me because so I joined in 2004, had the opportunity, they were just kind of releasing this program. In fact, when I got to the fleet, into the like actual like the fleet of the Marine Corps, where you're in a unit no longer training, there were guys that were there that were not had never done it. And I got to be put in this unique situation. I got to go to boot camp, and you learn what you call a tan belt, which is the whitest of white belts, right? You learn some real basic striking. They do silly things because McMah is this combination of jujitsu, krovmaga, judo, muay thai, boxing. So you'll do things like a round, you know, a round punch or a hook. You'll do uppercuts, you'll do an eye gouge, where they literally, hey, get in your basic warrior stance, and you like stick your fingers in your opponent's eye. And you're like, Am I ever really gonna do that? I was like, I mean, maybe, like in a combative situation, I'd totally stick my finger in somebody's eye. So I got to go through that training at boot camp. I go through the rest of my flight school, flight training, mechanics training, and all that stuff. And I show up to the fleet. I basically show up and they're like, hey, don't unpack. You're deploying right away. I was like, okay, cool. I deploy while I'm on my first deployment. They're like, hey, if you're interested, we're gonna do a um, it goes tan belt, gray belt, green belt. We're gonna do a gray belt and then a green belt sess or uh training sessions so we can level you guys up. And then you start to learn things like hip throw. So we as a tan belt, you learn like a leg sweep, then you go to like a show uh hip throw, shoulder throw, and then as a black belt in McMah, you teach a neck crank, which is a neck throw. You grab somebody by the head, break their neck, and you throw them. We don't do it to other people because you would kill them, but it's a movement that we teach and train. So I got this opportunity while I was on my first deployment to take these classes, and you do a lot of the same stuff that you would do in jujitsu. The difference is you're normally gonna be in like boots and youth. So you've got your like cami fatigue pants on and your boots and uh just a t-shirt. You go to go through these different training sessions, and it's very like, hey, I'm gonna show you, you're gonna do it. Really good way to instruct a group of people, and there's a lot of physical training that you do with it. And I came back from my first deployment, and all of the people that had never done McMahon before were still these, like what we would call a web belt. They just had like a regular belt. They didn't have a McMahon belt. And our sergeant major was like, hey, you're a green belt now. You're actually our most senior person. I want you to start teaching McMahon as part of Unit PT. And I was like, okay, no problem, Sergeant Major. We run out to the PT field early morning, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. Uh, the whole unit runs out. You're talking about a squadron. So I flew in helicopters. We're a squadron, HMH 361. Uh, and we run out to the PT field, and I get up on the bench and they're like, cool, teach McMahon. I was like, all right. So I just start teaching people the things that I had learned, break people out into like shark tank groups and stuff like that. Our major's like, hey, this is great. We're gonna send you to instructor's course. So sweet, go to instructor's course, come back, keep teaching people, go on another deployment, get on my brown belt, keep come back. I re-enlisted, got to go to instructor trainer's course, and just kept teaching people different things in the map. It's really fun because you get the jujitsu stuff where like we teach armbars, kamoras, americanas, we teach sweep from mounts, we teach how to break guard, you know, a lot of those basic things that you would do in jiu-jitsu. We teach that in the Marine Corps because it is a combative sport and it would be in com in combat, you would need to know how to do these things. The fun part about it is there's the moves that we teach in jujitsu or in McMahon, and then there's the what works, right? So when you're doing these things, you get to go through and it's like, hey, you two in the ring, go. What's the goal? Get that person to submit. And it's all right, no punching because you're, you know, you're training partners, but you get to do these things and it's a lot of fun. You there's there's a lot of really fun things about McMahon. It's not the same. Like a person who comes out of the Marine Corps, if you've got a green belt, a brown belt, a black belt in McMahon, you know how to handle yourself. There's no question about that. Would you would a black belt in McMahon stand up to a black belt in jujitsu? Not at all. Would a black belt McMahon wipe the floor with a white belt in jujitsu? Most definitely. I mean, for your average person and all that. I would say the skills are probably there. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Wow. So when you did that, were you drill sergeant-ish? Like, don't eyeball me, or were you more of like a peer with that?

SPEAKER_02 19:24

It's definitely so I wouldn't say like a drill instructor, like what I went through through boot camp, but there is a certain way that we do unit PT in the Marine Corps. And it is very like if you've ever seen a video of like a bunch of Marines out there doing push-ups and being loud and counting it off, like that's what it is. That's kind of actually how I run my kids' jiu-jitsu program. Parents love it because I'm like, all right, like we warm up, and then the last, before we go, we do like, you know, hey, jog, shuffles, you know, uh, stuff like that. And then we do break falls or we do sprawls, break falls, and then I lead push-ups and we all get into starting down. I say ready up, everybody counts. And then we, I say down, we go down, ready up. And then I'll hold, like, I'll ready up, everybody up, four, and then the kids will go down and like, what are you doing? I didn't say down. What do you? You got to learn to listen, right? And so we go through that. The parents love it because they hear it. In the Marine Corps, we use things called ditties. So you'll say, um, I'm trying to think of a good example, basic example in the Marine Corps. You'd say, Grant, who's the grand old man of the Marine Corps? You'd say, Archibald Henderson served 38 years, right? That is just a ditty that we would use, a way to remember certain bits of information. I use that in my kids' class. I will say, eyes on who, and then all the kids will stop what they're doing. They say eyes on you. And I'm like, cool. That's my way to gather their attention up. It's definitely a little bit more in line with a ROTC military style class than it is with a, hey guys, let's work on our jujitsu today. And parents love it. They're just like, oh yeah, this guy comes in, he, you know, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Well, you know what? It's something that's missing from our culture a little bit now. It's nice to see, I'm sure. Well, first of all, you're from the Marines, and I'm sure your group knows that, right? Yes. Like your people know that. And that little bit of tough love is something that I think our culture lacks now. It's just tough love. Like, you're not beaten on anybody. No, but you're probably also strict about like your push-up needs to be straight. Like, why are you sagging your belly? Get up there, you know. And with kids, you're right. Most people are like, just go ahead, go ahead, little billy. And a little bit of tough love goes a long way today.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah. My uh my wife tells people when they come in and they ask about the class, they're like, So my husband teaches that class. It's uh really fun. They have a lot of fun. We do a lot of game based training and stuff like that for the little kids. She's like, but he runs a tight ship. And that's and they're the parents are like, he runs a tight ship. She's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. He runs a tight ship. Like, you're gonna listen. You're not gonna go just screw around. You're like, you're gonna, you'll be putting time out, you know. A tight ship.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So yeah, having that balance and uh I you know, I think it's great that you were able to take your mil uh your Marine Corps training and incorporate it into your jujitsu academy. I think it's a nice connection for you, you know? Um leveraging that experience of that you have there. And I want to paint a picture, I want our listeners to hear like two different sides here. So let's let's let's take a contrasting uh customer, okay, in your gym. So you have a customer who comes in and is like this 240-pound, you know, ripped wrestler with all this experience, comes into the adult class and just starts crushing everybody, right? And everybody's like, I don't even want to be part of this gym anymore. Okay. And now let's take the contrast. All right. So let's say we have a 140-pound kid, young kid, like 18, 19 years old, no muscle, never had any experience with grappling or any kind of fighting art. Comes into the gym and he really wants to start learning jujitsu for self-defense because he's being picked on by his buddies at school, maybe, right? And then he comes on the mat and he has an experience, whatever experience that might be, right? So can you talk to our listeners a little bit about kind of finding that balance? Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think that academy owners need to really hear your perspective on finding that balance between like pushing people and making sure people understand that there are rules and you're gonna work hard and you're gonna build discipline, and also not being too strict and ending up losing them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Yeah, we uh we've we've definitely well, first, if a 240-pound guy walked in, I'd look at him and be like, what's up, Tiny? But when new people come into our school, it doesn't matter if they're brand new, 130 pounds or 260 pounds. If they're an adult, they come in and we go through our warmups. Their first role is normally going to be with me. Now, as a brown belt owner who's not the head instructor, I have, I'm very fortunate, we have a phenomenal base of black belts. We have over 13 black belts at our school that are instructors. Yeah, we we've got a great just roster of instructors from all kinds of different backgrounds. But anybody who's brand new, your first kind of live role is going to be with me. The reason we do that is I want to make sure if you are that 240-pound wrestler who's like, let's go, you have to deal with me. I am going to make sure that you understand that your speed, strength, all of those things can benefit you. But until you can learn to control yourself, they're just going to get you in trouble. Right. The same as the inverse of that. I look at that 140-pound guy and I'm like, all right, here's your goal. And I kind of start everybody off with a basic of I just want you to try to get your chest to my chest in some fashion. You got to get past my legs and my arms, get your chest to my chest. And then if you can, try to get to mount, which is where one knee's on either side, get to the top position and just try and stay there. That's all I want you to work on. And I will let them start standing and I normally start sitted. Uh, you know, hey, come on in. And I let them work through and I just kind of talk to them as they're going. Hey, there you go. Push that knee away. Yep, we go through that. So you've got to find this balance of letting the new guy who's 130 pounds have a win at the same time of taming and directing 240-pound wrestler be like, hey man, I'm glad that you've got this athletic background. If you use it wrong, you're gonna hurt people. No one's gonna want to hang out with you, you're gonna be considered a jerk, and you're probably gonna hurt yourself. So use that, and I'm gonna show you how we can direct that. Because if you just come in like a bull in a china shop, you're gonna get put in a bad position. But at the same time, you've got to encourage that smaller person to think about what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

That's a great answer. That's a great answer.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

I like that as a I'm glad it's a good answer. It's the answer that I've come up with at this point, and I hope that it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

You know, I think you're fortunate though, Ben, honestly, I think you're fortunate that you have, you know, you're you're skilled enough as an academy owner yourself to be in the room at the moment where you're able to control that situation, that customer comes in, and you can give them the experience that you want to give them, right? Yeah. So, and then from a leadership perspective, like you have, do you have coaches or are you coaching all the classes?

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Nope. I I I uh we're really lucky. I coach our early morning. So we have a 5:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'm an early riser, part of that military stuff. Uh so I run our early morning program, and then I teach our uh young kids program, I teach our advanced kids program, and then I help our instructors with certain things. There are areas that I may be a little bit more proficient at. Um, so I focus and I help with that. But for the most part, Terry, who's our uh second degree black belt, he's our head instructor. We've got another third degree, a couple other second degrees, a bunch of first degrees, and a bunch of just regular black belts. They tend to lead classes, and those are our coaches and instructors. They teach and they'll a lot of times just be like, hey, sometimes they look at me. Anything you want to add, and I'm like, nope, like, hey, you got it. Like, I don't ever want to step over somebody on that, but there'll be times where they'll be like, hey, what do you want to show on this? I'm like, oh yeah, hey, here's a detail I like, right? Stuff like that. It's uh I think it's it can be hard for somebody. If you're uh I have the the benefit because of my job with Wattify that I get to travel. I've dropped into 129 jujitsu schools uh and taken a class over the last couple of years. And so I have an opportunity to see what a lot of these other school owners are doing and how they're running classes. So if you're the, hey, I'm a second-degree black belt, third, fourth, fifth degree black belt, I'm the main instructor, I run all the classes. It can be really hard for them to show their efforts towards the new guy while also instructing the rest of the class. And I've seen it done really well where they'll say, Hey, I've got a senior purple belt, brown belt, black, or another black belt. And I'm like, hey, you go deal with the, you help me with the new guy, show him what it is to be a member of our school and what jujitsu training is like, and I'll handle this. And that's a situation I get to find myself in. We have a great roster of instructors, they lead the classes for the most part, and I get to kind of help with that experience of that new person. It allows me to help control the culture of how we do things at our school, which is really, really important to me. And it allows me the opportunity to make sure that that first person's first day, first week, first couple classes is kind of tailored towards them to help them get the most out of that experience so that they think to themselves, man, this is something I can do. You know, I try to do a lot of reinforcing. Hey, it is hard, right? It is hard. If it was easy, right, we'd call it karate. Boy, I knew he was gonna throw that in there. That one in there. It's and try to reinforce to those new students, like, hey, this is hard. And I always tell everybody, like, listen, I know you think this is really hard. I know that you're feel like you're not winning and you're not, you're everybody's just making you tap. And that's part of this process. Everybody that's in this room has gone through that same scenario, right? The thing that you should look for is like you keep doing this, and just like anything, to get good at it, you have to keep practicing and give it a few months. And I promise you, three, maybe two, three, four, five, six months from now, that new white belt's gonna come in and you're gonna be like, this guy doesn't know anything, and you're gonna be able to show your skills, but you have to work to get those skills, and that's what this part is. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah, yeah, Ben, it's challenging challenging uh retaining students and uh attracting them at the same time because both of those things are equally as important student retention and student attraction, you know. And if you're if you're able to master those two things, you will grow. Right? So you actually bought this school at Athens Jiu-Jitsu in Tennessee. You bought it in January of 2025, right? And you told me in our pre-interview this is gonna be this is gonna be great for our listeners to hear. Then took a school, he bought a school that had 20 students, and within about a year's time, he took that school from a from 20 students to 150. So can you enlighten us on your secrets, your wisdom?

SPEAKER_02 30:28

All right, so there's no easy button. I wish there was. I would sell it day after day. It's really for me, it's the you've gotta figure out, like, okay, what am I trying to do? How do I systematize and make sure that I'm building a repeatable process and a repeatable experience for all the people that are coming in? You've got to make sure you've got systems. So, as an example, when I when we bought the school, no billing, no member management system in place. It was, hey, bring in cash when you're ready, you know, and it was really hard for our uh former owner to manage that. He was at a point where he was spending, you know, a thousand plus dollars a month of his own money to keep the school open because he loves it so much. And I was like, I totally respect that and I believe in this because of where we're located. If the school were to close and I love training, I would have to drive 35 miles to the next school to train. And there's no way my wife would ever sign off on me being gone for two and a half, three hours a day just to go do jujitsu. So I was like, hey, I have an experience. I owned a large uh CrossFit/slash weightlifting facility in San Diego for a long time that was really successful. I have a lot of experience in this space. Why don't you sell me the gym? You can stay on as our head instructor, and I will manage and run the business. And he was like, okay, cool. Basic stuff, new website. We wanted to make sure that we were easy to find. So we had a decent website put up. We had good calls to action on our website. When somebody filled out the form on the website that said, learn more, free trial, whatever, as soon as they hit submit, they got a text message from me that just said, Hey, Jason, it's Ben from Athens Jiu-Jitsu. I saw you were interested in learning more about our program. What can I help you with? Right. Now, that was an automated text message we had set up through, you know, Wattify. And they would respond, and then I just go right into having those conversations. The other thing I tell people all the time is, you gotta pick up your phone. I wish I had a nickel for how many times I have traveled to an area, filled out a lead form, and called, trying to find a school that I can come drop into. And I will be, I will reach out on a Sunday or a Saturday. Hey, I'm gonna be in town on Monday. I'd love to come check out your 5 a.m. class or your noon class or whatever. And I would be back home on Thursday and I'll get an email back. Hey, love to talk to you. What day do you want to come in? I'm like, man, I was in town and you already lost me. I tell a lot of school owners and gym owners, listen, I'm my name's Sally. I've got two kids I want to get into jujitsu. And I get on the internet or I open my phone and I look up jujitsu. I go to the first one. It's got some good reviews. I click on it. I'm either gonna call them or I'm gonna go to their website and fill out a form. If I don't hear from you, I don't just wait. I have a need. I want to take my kids to jujitsu. I want to try this out. I just go to the next school and I just keep going down the line. If my toilet black backs up, I don't call a plumber, leave a voicemail, and hope they get back to me soon. I call the next plumber. So you've got to be, when it comes to getting new students in, you've got to be super fast on your responses. You've got to be very authentic. You've got to be open to sharing. They don't know what's going on. You've got to really talk about who you are as a culture, as a facility. If you're a competitive facility, maybe you're a, you know, five-time IBJ JF world champion and all that. If that's your stick, then you've got to like, cool, hey, talk to that. We're a competitive gym. This is what we do. We make champions and all that. Where I live, my goal, like, hey, man, I my goal is to have as many people train jujitsu and learn jujitsu as possible. If you never want to do a competition, we get that. If you want to do a competition, hey, we're supportive and we want to help you do that. You talk to that, you figure out who you are, your identity as a school, and you talk and relate to people from that identity. You do those basics and you make sure that you can communicate to your students. There's a lot of other things that you can do when it gets into retention. I actually just gave a talk. I was two weeks ago. I was at the, I was at Kovar's professional martial arts conference in Sacramento, and I did a talk on retention. And there's a lot of little things you can do. Like we have, we have our never lose a bluebelt again. When somebody gets to Bluebelt, we have an entire sequence that runs for the next 18 months that basically every two to three weeks, you're going to get an email, a text message, an in-app message, or a phone call from me or one of our instructors that's just like, hey man, just beckon in. How's it going? Some of the emails will be like, hey, I saw that you were doing this. Here's a really cool, I want you to try and add this to your game. And we just want to keep those blue belts involved. If I can get a blue belt to three stripes, they're going to be with me till black belt for the most part, unless they move away or something like that. But once they get to blue belt, they've got this idea. They're like, well, I've I've conquered something. I've I've been promoted. I'm not a white belt anymore. And I have to figure out how do I keep them engaged? How do I keep them coming back? How do I keep them wanting to be here and pushing their limits to learn more and more and more? So we have to be very curated about how we're connecting with and reaching out to and staying on top of those people. I think there's, if I had to throw one other thing out there, where uh we've been doing a lot of like data analysis on this, and it's interesting. A lot of jujitsu schools, we see about 70% of the jujitsu schools out there, they just like, hey, come on in, no big deal. Some of the kids have their attendance cards, and when they come in, they sign their card and all that. That's great. We are a big fan of uh digital sign-in. So when you walk into our school, you scan a QR code or you're, you know, you can sign into class, but we track attendance that way. For our white belts and kids, we do do some attendance-based promotions. Hey, if you've been here and the instructors are good, we think you're progressing and we're gonna promote you, awesome. If you're showing up but you're not progressing, we'll have conversations with you. So it's not an automatic, but we want to track that. The reason why attendance tracking is so important, especially as your school is growing, if you've got 50 members and you don't see Billy for a week, you recognize I didn't see Billy because of Dunbar's number, right? The idea that you can only manage 150 meaningful relationships, it's called Dunbar's number. With 50 members, you can have that connection with all those people. When your school grows beyond that, it's really hard to catch those things. So by requiring our students to check in, I get a daily report of here who hasn't been, here are the students that haven't been here in seven plus days. When you hit seven days and you know, check-in, I just send you a quick text message. Hey, Jyson, it's Ben. Just want to check in, haven't seen you this week. Just want to see, make sure everything's okay. Most of my members respond, hey, work's been crazy. I'll be there on Monday morning. Awesome. At two weeks, hey, you get another email from me, and then some more tasks to follow up and check in. Those systems allow me to stay in contact and keep an eye on where my members are at. Are they showing up? Because if you let a student go two, three, four weeks, now there's been this whole month, they're paying a membership. Maybe they're like, you know what? Maybe I just got busy and I'm just gonna cancel my membership and I'll get back in there later. My goal is always to, hey, am I gonna see you on Monday? I ask all my kids. We teach kids classes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesday class wraps up right before we bow out. I look at everybody, who's gonna be here on Thursday? Everybody raises their hands. Awesome, I'll see you guys on Thursday. I'm getting the kids to commit, the parents hate it, but I'm getting the kids to commit to being there on Thursday and they're excited and they look at mom and dad. They're like, Mom, are we going to jujitsu today? So trying to encourage that attendance.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

That's awesome. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the like what Wattify has for a software? Um, like, yeah, I think you you mentioned about the blue belt thing because that interested me a lot. You mentioned about how you send a message out to blue belts after you haven't seen them for like three weeks or whatever it was, right? What do you have a separate group on Watafi that is like it groups by belt, uh belt ranks of students that you have? Yes, and then you can send that group a message.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Yeah, so it's we've got a lot of different things. I I don't want to like just get into this whole like why WhattiFi is awesome. I obviously love it. I work there. I mean, I intentionally like was wanted to go work there and was very fortunate that they were like, hey, we've got a great opportunity to have you come in and help us run our sales and customer experience teams and all that, and get to bring my experience as a gym and school owner to the company so that we can better support school and gym owners. But within the system, it does your basic membership payment processing class, it does belt tracking, it does certificates. One of my favorite things, we actually just released this. We just had a guy got his purple belt. And as soon as I was like, hey, in the system, I clicked, hey, we're gonna promote him to purple belt. It generated the certificate. I printed it out, had our instructor sign it. We had it ready for him. He was in class, we promoted him to purple belt, and we gave him a certificate right there. It was one of the coolest things we've done. We do everything from uh belt tracking, and tracking, attendance tracking, automated email, text message, in-app chats, anything that you could think of to run a martial arts business, we have put in place in a single platform to make it more efficient for you. Even the small stuff, we were just talking about like how we pay our coaches and stuff, premium payroll. We we have that uh that feature coming to all of our schools here very soon. I get the benefit to beta test all this stuff because I work there. So I get to like, hey, I get to give my feedback. Hey, this is what this is working well, let's change this. But the small things that we do with like the communication and stuff like that, those are all the little things when you think about your school. Your school is a school, but it's also a business. And if you can't keep enough members to make sure that you're paying your bills, your rent, keeping the lights on, and if it's your only thing, putting food on the table for your family, then it's not going to survive. And if it doesn't survive, then we can't teach anybody jujitsu at scale. So we put all these little things in place to help all these business owners and school owners so that they can lead better lives and have better schools. And, you know, it's I get super excited about this stuff because it's like, all right, like you could be the best jujitsu instructor in the world, but if you can't keep students in your door, you're probably you're really not having this big impact over time. But if you're a phenomenal instructor and a great business owner, then you can bring these systems in that help you run your business, and then you can just focus on being on the mat because you've set all this stuff up to run in the background.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Yeah, that's awesome. Frank, I'm sorry, I don't want to hog this up. This will be my last question.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

No, this is this is I mean, this is Jason, this is right up your alley. So I know.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

I'm sorry, I just have so many questions for them. Yeah, yeah. So I I just like I how you said that you're away from your school a lot, right? So, you know, you're so being away from your school a lot, you have to make sure that your operations are are going well, right? And your staff has to be trained well. Your staff has to know what your expectations are too, right? So, can you talk to our listeners, give some insight a little bit about how you manage staff and how you make sure the staff is on the same page and understanding your systems and processes? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

The the first thing, and I think what is the the foundation of anything like this with a staff and a group of people that you are trusting to help you with this is communication. You have to be in constant communication of what's going on. If I'm if I'm in Dallas next next week, I'm going to Chicago. I'm going uh up to Chicago for a couple days. If I am on an airplane and somebody feels out a free trial form, cool. I see, hey, they're coming in on Friday night for our fundamentals ghee class. I communicate right then to my coaches that are going to be in that program and my front desk staff. Hey, we got a free trial coming in. This is their name. They should be in at this time. I talk to them a little bit. They've never trained in anything. They're going to be there about 10 minutes early. Their waiver's already signed. You know, let me know if you need have any questions about that. And they just like, hey, awesome. Thanks so much. They now know that somebody's coming in. So I've communicated it to them. And we have worked a lot on that. What is that first day experience like? We want to give them a quick tour. We explain to them why we do certain things. Hey, it's silly to tie the belt. You're it's going to take you a couple of times trying tying it so you can figure that out. That's okay. Let me help you. We show them, hey, this is what we wear and how we do things. Hey, you'll see these things that we do and what we don't do. Part of that goes back into that communication system where when somebody signs up for a free trial, they get an email that explains the rules of our school. Hey, you don't wear uh, you have to have shoes on when you go to the bathroom. You don't wear shoes on the mat, right? Basic stuff like that. My staff then look at that and they say, cool, we know what the expectations are because we've communicated about these things and they go forward with that. It's not foolproof because no one's ever going to be as good at some of these things as you are or as passionate about it as they are. But because we focus on our culture as a school and our instructor base, we I I mean, I'm fairly I'm 100% confident that when I'm not at the school, that our instructors are doing right by our students, are doing right by the school because that's the culture that we've kind of created. It's not about how awesome one individual is or anything like that. It's about like, hey, we want. More people on the match training with us.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Yeah, that's awesome. Frank, what do you think? You'd be uh you'd be a happy member at at Ben's gym? Um, I don't know if I want to roll with him, but really easy roll.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

I don't know why people say that stuff. Well, actually, I could roll with him because he doesn't know my superpower. What's your superpower? I don't know if you can if you can read my name, the clock burner. Oh, that's I because I'm you know I'm 58 years old, my gas tank is not very big. I'm not a big person either. So I just learned like when Jason hits the go button, hey, how you know how you feeling? Any injuries I need to worry about? I start talking a little bit and I tuck in Mike E. I have like 17 different strategies to burn clock. So, Ben, by the time we actually started grappling, I'd have 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

That's a really good spell. I'm gonna I'm gonna remember that. That's gonna be a good spell. I'm gonna try that.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

You know, I all of our all of our guests when my when my video comes out, we're gonna do a session on clock burning. Get a free copy of my strategies.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

There you go. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Yeah, it's fine. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. Jason, we have a lot of oh my gosh. We're gonna have we you're definitely gonna have to come back on this because I have so many more questions. I just so many things about your your I want to talk about sales, I want to talk about failures and sales, successes, but we do have to summarize. It's actually, you know what time it is, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

I don't, Frank. What time is it?

SPEAKER_01 45:27

It's top out time, your favorite part of the program where we wrap up some of the golden nuggets of the wisdom of our guests, and we have a lot of stuff to talk about that what Ben has shared with us. So I'm gonna pick out Ben some of the things that really stuck with me uh for our listeners to take home and to think about. So, starting all the way from the beginning, I wanted to just let my listeners know that you did a podcast called Brave Men Dare. And they can look that up. We'll leave a link, and you're just fun to talk to. You got a lot of personality. I cannot wait to listen to that. And I want our listeners to take a look at it. Brave Men Bra Brave Men Dare, it was a podcast that he's done for a while, so check it out. Uh, one of the things I want to mention and bring up again for people who have children, if you get your children into jujitsu, number one, it's gonna make them more confident. Number two, they're not gonna get bullied. Number three, they're not gonna use it on anybody because they're gonna learn discipline unless they need to. And number four, if you do it, join with them and roll with them. Doesn't matter if you're fifty years old. You ca I started at fifty. I'm fine, I love it. You don't everybody's gonna be nice to you, nobody's gonna crush you. Everything's it's gonna be great. Do it with your kid and you have another bond, and that bond is gonna help you when that kid grows up and he's a teenager and you say, Please be home by 10 30. They're gonna respect you because you're gonna have that extra bond. So I love that you're doing that with your children. And I'm sure they're gonna be absolute beasts. Um other things that you talked about. You talked about you and Jason talked about balance. I'm a teacher and I 100% agree with your philosophy. Um you need to meet the student where they're at. And this doesn't only go for jujitsu, but jujitsu is just such a physical representation of that. Like if you have that 240-pound muscle man with the veins popping out of his neck and his biceps and he comes in, he's not a bad guy. He just wants to be like, Let's go. I'm here to roll. And you're gonna give him an experience of that's good that you're here to roll, but you're gonna learn that you can't flail your elbows. You're not this is not a balls to the wall wrestling match. This is a technical sport, and you're gonna learn that quickly. But for the kid who comes in and doesn't even feel good about himself, you're gonna let that kid work. You're gonna give him some moments of, yeah, I got past his leg. I actually did that. And he's gonna come back. Meeting the the student where they're at is vital in anything you do. Whether you're teaching somebody about finance, Spanish, or rolling, great philosophy. Next, you said, and I'm gonna quote you directly, to get good at it, you have to keep practicing. And we hear this from everybody who's successful in everything. It's really about consistency, it's not about muscle mass, it's not about brain power. All those things help you in everything, but the consistent person wins. The consistent person always wins in business, in love, and in rolling and in literature. It's just a great philosophy. You gave us a great business blueprint, and I don't know if I told you this, but I teach business at high school. And one of my one of my courses is entrepreneurship done in my own business, so I I can really appreciate some of the things that that you talked about. I'm gonna give you a mini MBA in in I think I have six or seven steps that you gave to us. So Ben talked about a repeatable process, a system. And what a system lets you do is it lets you get economies of scale. So you took a school which could have been managed organically, you know, bring in the cash when you could bring in the cash, and you just said we're gonna systematize everything. So everybody has a consistent clean experience. And when you have a consistent, clean experience, it doesn't rely on your mouth moving every time. And the system works for you, but you can scale, and that is one of your secrets. 20 students to 150 students is exponential growth in a short amount of time. So kudos to you on that and your repeatable process. You talked about the the importance of having a website and a call to action. Your website is your first encounter, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. So you put time and effort into your website, and then it had a call to action, which people think you can't just have a good-looking website. You have to have a call to action, which you do, and then leading into the next. So important. I love that you said this. Immediate response. I used to do trade show consulting. And the thing you said, I knew you were talking I knew you knew what you were talking about when you said. You call somebody, you give them the lead sheet, and they take a week to get back to you. It's over. It's over. It's the first thing I taught people on trade shows. You meet somebody, shake their hand, that night they're getting an email, and in a day, they're getting a handwritten thank you note, and then you're gonna call them, which leads to the next thing that you said, and you really laid these out nicely. Pick up the phone. People don't want to pick up the phone. Texts are great, emails are great, do them, but pick up the phone, let them hear your voice, let them know it's a person, and you are gonna beat the competition all the time. And I don't mean to digress, but there's an electrician that I know in my network who is super successful because he calls himself Mr. Responsive. And when you call him, he calls you back. And when you have, and he charges more than everybody else, but he should because he shows up when he said he was gonna show up. Amazing. Everybody needs to hear this. Plumbers, electrician, eight back, HVAC people, roofers. Go up when you say you're gonna show up. And and when you can't, call the person immediately. I'm gonna be a half hour late. I want to let you know that. This is gold. Everybody should learn this. Absolute gold. Next, you said something unique, and I don't really hear this or read this in a lot of business literature, and I like it. Understand and know your identity. We don't want everybody. We know who we are. If we're a competitive gym and we're building monsters, then that's who we are. If we're a gym that we want to be open where we have a competitive a little bit of competitive people, we've got some middle people, and we've got some people that are just trying to get a good sweat on. Know who you are. And then when you talk to your customer, let them know that you know who you are. And if it's not a fit, the best thing you can do is refer them. Refer them. Then you said, and I love this. I have a good quote for you that you're gonna like. I teach in marketing, my marketing class. The least expensive customer to acquire is the one you already have. Hallelujah. I love that. Yes. I knew you would like that. I knew it because your philosophy is emanating that with your never lose your bluebell again program. What is so true? That is like, that is dead on because when you the blue belt blues are so are so real, it's such a real thing. I love that you have like a system to reach out and say, Hey, we haven't seen you in a week. When are you when you, you know, what's going on? You good? Everything good? That is so important. It's because so many people quit at Blue Belt for a lot of reasons, which we won't get into right now. I also wanted to say that, damn. Is that me? Can you guys hear me?

SPEAKER_02 52:52

It was me. It was me.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Okay. No, because mine kicks me off. If I don't shut it, it actually knocks me off this program. All right. So I want to uh I want to say how important if I don't own a gym, and Jason does, if I owned a gym, absolutely call people who or or text them, just checking in. Because what they do, think about this. What they're gonna do is they're gonna say, yeah, and they're gonna tell you what's almost always true. It's not you. I uh I have an engagement party to go to, I have a baby shower to go to, where we're closing our records and accounting, and then they say, Oh, good, just glad you're good. And then they always say, But I'll see you Wednesday, and now bang, they said it, so they gotta do it. And one thing I want to add, one thing I want to add, and this I don't know how you could systemize this, but this is just food for thought for both of you. When I started in jujitsu, I absolutely sucked. And Jason's probably thinking, Well, you're not much better now. When I was like, Yeah, I had a hard time, a very hard time. And I had a friend, Mike Nichols, who every time I was like, at the end, we talk about, I freaking, I can't believe this new white belt came in and just mauled me. He's like, Well, Frank, look how big he is, Frank. But that friendship, we were accountable and we'd always say, You're gonna come Monday, you're gonna, and we'd text. If you can somehow systemize a buddy system, that if you can get that into a software or into some kind of mechanic, there is nothing like saying to your buddy, I'll be there Monday, because you have to go. And that's the only reason I stuck because of Mike Nichols in the beginning. And I think if everybody has an accountability buddy, if you can do that, that is great. And the last thing you said, so step number seven in your in your hierarchy of how to get stuff done, the digital sign-in. I noticed I s I trained in Madrid when I was there and they made you sign in. And I said, Why am I like, why do I have to do this? And they said, We like to know when you come and if you have if you have like something going on in your life, we can reach out and help you. And I was like, Holy crap, man, that was good. I was only there for like two weeks because I was traveling, but I was like, damn, the digital sign-in is a very cool thing to do. So I wanna just say you really nutshelled your system that any gym can can follow. And I do if anybody does own a gym, any kind of gym, it doesn't have to be jujitsu, you should check out. We're gonna have his link, Wattify, in our description. Check it out because you can go through all of his learning curve, which is fine, or you can just tap into his learning curve, plug and play. And so anybody who owns a gym or something similar to a gym, a CrossFit gym, a jujitsu gym, a powerlifting gym is gonna be able to benefit, I'm sure, from what you do. So please check that out. You've heard him speak articulately and intelligently about his system. You s you've seen his results. So, I mean, he's helped us out, help him out by at least checking out his website. That would be great.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Jason, did I forget anything? I don't think so, Frank. This is our call to, like you said, the call to action is check in with Wattify. We're gonna leave the uh the link. Ben will give us the link and we'll leave it in the description. So if anybody wants to check out Watify and ask any Ben any questions, um, that would be great. He's always helpful. When I first met Ben in our first call, he was this is gonna, I'm gonna tell you that he was in a doctor's office. I can't, I you know, I don't want to, I'm not gonna like say anything about Ben's medical conditions or anything. I don't give that away fractions. But my point, my point though, in saying this is that this showed his level of commitment because his first call with me, he did not like say, Oh, I can't, I can't take the call. He I I called him and I mean I gave him the link and we connected, and he was in the doctor's office sick, and he's still having the conversation with me. So that shows his level of commitment. So if you want somebody who is a committed guy to your success, Ben's the guy.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

100%. And just um a quick thank you for serving in the military. Those are our biggest. I appreciate that. Thank you for your support. Of course, of course. And so I hope you get a chance to come up from down, up, over, from Tennessee and up, up and to the east to tent to uh Massachusetts. It would be great to meet you in person at some point. And uh we're gonna we're gonna battle your powerlifting superpower with my clock burning, and we'll get an audience and see who wins.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

There you go. I'm down. It's just me sitting there for four minutes. Come on, man. Basically, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, wait a minute. Let me get my belt tied.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Yeah, I got way more.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

That's just the basics. You have no idea. And then the then I'm gonna videotape it and we're gonna see Ben chasing Frank all around the wonder jump's been jumping over everybody like I have been known to run.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

It's a form of self-defense, right? It is, yeah, one of the best. Yeah. So I really do hope we get to meet you face to face at some time. Yeah, absolutely. You were great. Thank you for your time. We appreciate you. We're just gonna ask you to keep your keep your computer running a little. You can shut the camera if you want, because it takes a little while. You know, Riverside takes a little while to come up, right? Yep. All right, thank you so much. We appreciate you guys.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate great conversation. I I really appreciate you guys so much. And I I mean, honestly, like there's so many great things about what you guys are doing and just about how jujitsu can help everybody and all the different things, and how just dealing with the struggle of the mat can make you stronger for your life. And I'm just really appreciate you guys so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Love right back, love right back. All right, guys. Thanks, thanks. Have a great week.