How This Ex-NFL Player Built a $50M Fitness Company (Feat. John Madsen)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I got a cut from the NFL at 27 years old. I have $300,000 and in 16 months that might be. 300k to a million was messaging. Yeah. And then from a million to two was I'm like an anti-marketer marketer. So if someone's spending $2,000 on tequila, why wouldn't they spend $10,000 on fitness?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

You guys are doing $4 million a month. How did you get there? What were what were some of the biggest mistakes? Yeah, it was brutal, man, man. One of the biggest things I wanted to ask you is you're you guys are doing four million a month, right? Or playing in that world. So I have had over the years tons, like dozens and dozens of clients in the fitness space doing similar stuff as what you're doing, and they get stuck generally around like three to six hundred. So I'm curious for you, what do you feel like you guys do so much better that's allowed you to break through to, you know, almost like, you know, five times that compared to a lot of those guys who are getting stuck at that level?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Uh a couple things. You know, one, our product is really good, you know, and not saying that other people's aren't, but we spend a lot of time on the product. Um also we have both female and male. Most fitness clients, most fitness companies specialize and niche down into one area, which we did at the start. It was all male for years and years and years. And then 2025, we went to the female market because I we have the formula and the female market popped off too. So then we had two, two direct fishing lines in the marketplace. Right now, I think people get stuck because it's really hard. Leads are expensive, qualified leads are expensive. It's expensive to get somebody to show up. And so I think a lot of businesses, if they don't have a lot of cash in the bank, if they're gonna advertise like we do, it's uh it's a scary thing. You can blow through hundreds of thousands of dollars if if you're not dialed in on qualified people who are gonna show up to that consultation. We also, our price point allows us to probably spend more to acquire the customer than most businesses. Our base product is 10 grand. We have a product for 40 grand. Right. And so, you know, if it costs us $6,000 to acquire a customer, like we can still do that because there's ascension and all the other stuff where the normal fitness business, I think, gets stuck because they can't spend $6,000 to acquire a customer. Yeah. Right. I I I uh I was one of the first people in gym launch way back in the day when Hormosy started that. And the one thing that I've always remembered from him way back is the person who can spend the most to acquire a customer is gonna win. And it's stuck with me. And so, you know, I think a lot of people they don't they don't have the leeway that we do. And they get into the market and Facebook ads just crush them and they get right back out and then they just stay where they're comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah. So I'm hearing two things. Number one, it's the price point aspect of it, which I want to circle back later because I think that's I think that's probably one of the biggest things for you guys. The other thing is because you have the two different kinds of businesses within the business, yeah, those each have their own variable costs, but you're actually spreading your fixed between both revenue streams. Right. So that helps you in both ways get more economies of scale, better LTB to CAC.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Right, right. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah. So just to have some context, because I want to I want to circle back for a second, then I want to talk about the price points, some stuff you guys do with messaging, but kind of walk me through like the evolutions. So zero to a hundred K kind of how did you get, or yeah, zero to a hundred grand a month. How did you get there? What worked? And then also like what were some of the biggest mistakes? And then after that, we'll go 100K to a million a month, a million a month to where you're at now, and kind of like any plateaus and the mistakes you made and kind of how you broke through. But let's start with like zero to a hundred K a month selling fitness coaching. What did that look like? And what was like the breakthrough moment and where were a bunch of the big mistakes?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, it was brutal, man. Like I got cut from the NFL at 27 years old, one-way ticket back to Salt Lake City, and I opened up a physical gym. So I was a sports performance gym. 2010 I opened up, and until 2018, it was me training a lot of athletes and kind of dabbling into general pop when Hormosy came in and did the gym launch thing. And so that was like my first understanding that you could get a client that wasn't a referral and not word of mouth. It was like throw an ad up and have people walk into your uh building and close them on a package. It was like foreign to me. So when that started happening, I was like, oh my God, you know, and um at the same time, 2018, me and my wife had our first child, and I was I was the gym guy that was training people at 5 a.m. and training, you know, getting home at 9 p.m. I'm like, this is not the life. The gym always did around 200 to 300 grand, and I probably spent 190. So a lot of times I thought back and was like, I could have made more money working at McDonald's. 2019 happened and I started dabbling online. And so I hired another guy, Tanner Chittister, and he was like the first guy that I saw, made a million dollars coaching people in online fitness. I'm like, I've always invested, you know, even when I didn't have the money. I'm like, if that guy can do it, I just want to know how. Here's 12 grand or 16 grand or whatever it was. And uh he kind of showed me how he started his business, and so I started, you know, going down that road. And 2009, 2020 was the first, it was July of 2020. It was the first time I made 100 grand in a month. And so I opened my gym July of 2010. So I'm a very slow learner, very super slow. Took 10 years to make that first 100K month. And so for the backtracking about 12 months, the the gym was doing about 20K, the online thing was doing about 20K, and I was I was kind of chasing two rabbits. And I had dinner with Hormozy one time, and he said, You you gotta choose A or B, right? And do whichever one you want to do, but you're never gonna get there doing both. And so I didn't listen to him. COVID happened, Salt Lake City shut down all the gyms, and I made a video to all my members, and I said, I don't know how long this thing's gonna last. I don't care. This gym's never opening back up. If you want to transfer into the online version of what we do, you can do so. If not, I'll rip up your contracts. And 98% of people ripped up their contracts, and I started fresh online. But with that singular focus, it took about 60 days and we hit that 100k month. Nice. And so that was very basic Facebook ads. You know, I was running all my own stuff. I knew enough to be a little bit dangerous with it. And uh, you know, we we probably ran 20K of traffic and uh brought in 100k of sales. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

So that's zero, that's zero to a hundred grand a month. Now, during that phase, is that when you figured out the right messaging to get these higher net worth guys? Or was that later on? That was later on. Later on. So move on to like, okay, going from 100k a month to maybe whatever kind of like, I know for me there was like certain like you you do jumps. Yeah, yeah. You know, so what was the next jump and what happened?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So we went from 100k to month to 300 pretty rapidly, a couple months. It was just like that was the more of what was more of the same. Yep. And uh we got stuck around, so we went, we did a million dollars and then three million and then like 3.5 million, and I made less money at 3.5 than the year before because it got expensive. Right. And um we ri that was a really dangerous place for us because we were making money, but then the expenses of business caught up, and we were caught up probably where a lot of fitness people get caught up. And the messaging was was just not bringing in the quality. And so just out of super frustration, I did something super counterintuitive to what most people would even consider. Because what I see in the marketplace is people are always talking about like, are you a high performer or this is for CEOs and executives? And I was doing all that stuff trying to get the people that had enough money that could pay the bill, plain and simple. And I thought to myself, I'm like, what's the what's an amount of money that someone would have to make that would make it possible for them to consider this so that I'm not getting people on the sales call. And at the end of the day, they're like, this sounds great, but I have no money. And I realized this because I had about three sales guys at the time. And I'm like, I'm gonna get back on the phones because I got to see who we're talking to. And after a week, I'm like, oh shit. Like, I don't even want to sell this person because it's gonna take food off his table. That's not, this is not the the pool of people we need to be swimming in. And so I thought to myself, I'm like, if someone makes 150 grand, it's likely that they could have they could possibly have a better chance of affording it, whether they do or not, is is another story. And so I would just made an ad. I'm like, look, if you make at least 150 grand, I'll get you ripped or you don't pay. And that was the end of the ad. And overnight, bam, it blew up because it was super controversial. And I never even meant it to be. I would just, I was like, gonna be super direct. And instead of like being like, oh, I'm sorry, like I didn't mean it like that, I just doubled down, triple down, quadrupled down. And the more people that came at me, the more I kind of threw it in their face. And like you look at any of my ads today, it's hundreds of like just people hate me on the internet. But our lead flow is so good. Yeah. You know, our lead flow, and if I could do it another way and be more likable, I'd probably choose that path. But it's like it's just not the game. It's what works. And it's like now I'm kind of known as this guy who, you know, did this thing. And obviously a lot of things had to go on in the background of scale and you know, making the product better and all that stuff. But that was the breakthrough from about 300K to over a million dollars a month. Right. That one marketing message got us swimming into the and it wasn't just calling out dudes with 150k.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

You were doing it in a way that was like emotionally punching them in the gut. Yeah. Which I think that is really what you do unique. Because when you were saying that, I was like, yeah, when you say all high performers, I mean, some lady who's like a, you know, secretary for somebody, I'm a high performer, right? Like anybody could identify everybody wants to identify as the high performer. Yeah. But I think it's also like you didn't just think of, okay, here's the demographics of who I want to go after. You thought of the psychographics and you like punched them in the gut.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And it obviously worked really well.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I feel like for me, I'm like an anti-marketer marketer. It's like I want to be so direct at shocking. Yeah. And I'm just going to say exactly what I mean. And it, and it's, and it's weird because most people want to dance around all this stuff. And I'll just say in as direct as I possibly can to be Facebook compliant, exactly what I want to say to these people. Right. And uh, you know, it and it works, you know, and I I get a lot of my content from my everyday life. I live in a country club up here that is, you know, it's 750 grand to join, and there's a six-year waiting list. And so my friend circle is all the guys I'm talking to because I hear how they talk. I see them wearing the $100,000 uh watches. I see them drinking on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and talk about fitness. And so I'm like, there's so much people who have so much money. And I think that was another part. I used to live in Salt Lake City. I moved to Scottsdale. And if you've been around North Scottsdale for any amount of time, it's like it drips money, bro. It's Beverly Hills in the desert. It drips money. That's what I call it. Yeah. Like my my our my office is, you know, in North Scottsdale, and it's like all day there's Ferrari and Lamborghini driving by. I walked out of the country club the other day, and there was seven Uruses. My buddy had this um like gray color that I've never seen before, but he walks out and there's another gray color that I've never seen before. And the only difference was the brake pads, and he tries to get in the wrong car. And he's like, oh shit, this isn't this isn't my car. But I'm like, bro, there's seven Uruses. So my point is like the high there's so much abundance, yeah, that in my mind I'm like, everybody has money. And I think a lot of people, if you live in like North Dakota or somewhere, it's like you're like, who would pay $10,000 for a fitness program? Like for men, they want to pay, like they take pride in being top shelf shoppers, right? They don't go to the liquor store and buy bottom shelf tequila. They want to show you how expensive their their you know $2,000 bottle of tequila is. So if someone's spending $2,000 on tequila, why wouldn't they spend $10,000 on fitness? And I think a lot of people are in their head about price.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what's crazy is out of the two people I know who are doing best in the fitness industry, there's you, there's one other person I ended up doing over $100 million. Both price points are $10K or above. Yeah. Right. And so I think nailing it makes sense that nailing that is why you've been able to be so much more successful than everybody else. And then you have like a 40K option too. What is that?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

That includes all the medical. So concierge, I think like Equinox has their $40,000 longevity. Ours would eat that, and you don't need to live near an Equinox. Right. And all the blood markers, concierge medical team, all the protocols completely personalized. So that that's you know the top tier package. And that also includes um, you know, some live events that we do as well. So the network is is made up of, you know, it's a 40 grand for fitness. You got a pretty good network of people that want to be around each other.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, and you bring these guys together too, because obviously all these guys are high net worth guys.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

So because of that, it kind of is like it's nice to facilitate a community, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, yeah. Even for me personally, you know, there's guys in there that do nine figures and not internet businesses, like people doing all kinds of stuff. And it's like, I want to be around people like that. So it helps me, you know, and it and it helps them too, because you know, in your ordinary life, you're even if you're at that level, you're still not always surrounded by people all like on a mission to to grow. And so facilitating that for these guys and having fun doing it. We do we do fun shit too. So taking private jets to the Raiders games and do really cool stuff. So kind of curate that experience for for guys who can afford it and want to be around other guys who can afford it.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, I think I think it makes sense. And it's a good lesson for any business. I mean, obviously, the reason you have so much more scale is you're selling probably three times the amount of the price point on the front end of your competitors. Yeah, and then most of them, like their back end's like 500 bucks a month. Yeah, yeah. And yours is 40k.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So your LTV to CAC is so insane, which allows you to have so much more scale.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

So that's what helped you get to a million, a million a month. We'll talk about the next level from there. But on that, so you had like probably a from 300k to a million a month, I'm sure once you figured out that price, yeah, it was like insane.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

300K to a million was messaging. Yeah. And then from a million to two was pricing because we were still, we were still charging about 5K. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. And so then I saw CAC rise like all businesses do. Yes. And I'm like, this we're just way too cheap. And so we changed pricing and that popped us from a million to two million.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

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SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, I mean, we would have never got there without Nineveh, who's who's my wife, she's a CEO, but one of the smartest business men or women that I've had a chance to communicate with. The reason we were able to do what we did was the back end and the fulfillment never fell apart. And we had some key players there. My chief of uh product, he's hired and trained and you know, has a roster of almost 70 full-time world-class coaches. Like he was the person for that role and he built it. And then on the back end, you know, with all the systems and you know, servicing uh any business is difficult. Servicing fitness clients that are cold traffic, that come in, that pay premium, like every single thing has to be dialed in, or they're like, I want a refund, right? And so Nineveh is so good, she thinks like an engineer of every step of the client journey to make a seamless, like a very seamless um experience for the for the client. I'm more marketing and sales, and I'm just like, shut the f you know, it's like you paid, you're gonna get fit. Like, what else do you want from me? Right, right. So, like without her, like stuff would have broken into a thousand pieces. And I think that the the fulfillment mind, the oper, you know, I don't want to call her an operator because she is also a visionary, but um just the ability to fulfill and scale is something that I think a lot of a lot of business owners don't have. That's not my true right, that's not my true gift. Yeah, you know, I'm a psychological marketer, I make it rain, I'm involved in the sales, I love the product because I was a fitness guy since 2010. But all the other stuff, man, like we would have, we would have just crumbled.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

I'm very much the same way, you know. I'm able to like ramp up demand like crazy. And I was really lucky during that phase to have partners that could, I called it like organizing the chaos. Yeah. I could create the chaos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but you have to have somebody, yeah. You have to have somebody to like process it and like organize it so things actually run smoothly. And when you have that in your business and you can actually focus on where your zone of genius actually is, it's way more fun. Yes. Like, I don't know if you felt the same way, but I felt like for me, things got way more fun once I got kind of to and past 400 to 500 grand a month.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Because I got out of having to do like a little bit of everything. Yeah. And I was like, okay, now I can just focus on the things I need to focus on.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, you start hiring people, you know, yeah, smart people, people that can, you know, be have the autonomy and build stuff. So you're right. Like until you have, until you have that cash flow, you're always the smartest person in the organization and you got to touch everything. So 100% agree. Like when you're free to do what you're great at and other people are in their right spots, business does get a lot more fun.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

So so pricing was a million to two million a month. Uh that was probably the main shift from there. Is there any, before we go beyond that, is there any, if you think two million a month and even before that, is there anything you wish you you know now that you wish you would have known back then and it would have saved you a ton of pain and a ton of mistakes?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I I think that the big like the biggest thing was the mental hurdles over pricing and what people were willing to pay. Like for me, that was that was the thing, right? Like understanding that the world is a very big place and there's so many people out there that can afford this price point, and you don't need everybody, that that was huge. Because before that, it's like the the price is your crutch because CAC is gonna go up. It's competitive, it's not it's not Facebook in 2017 anymore when leads are dirt cheap. Like I wish I could go back. If I could do anything, I'd go back to when stuff was cheap and I'd spend so much money and just acquire as many customers as well at the price at the right price at the right price because now it's super it's it's it's difficult, right? There's there's weeks where you know, for us to get a book call it's 600, 700 bucks. Like that's just to get someone on the books because we're hard filtering for the right client. I could open it up, but it's like every time we open it up, even though the booked calls are cheaper, the cost per life show is more expensive. So it's like there's a we we found our we we found the right balance. And I think that that hurts a lot of other fitness companies. It's like they just can't pay that.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yeah, I totally agree. So then two million to where you're at now per month, what what do you have to implement? What were the big things? What were the big shifts?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

So at that point, the the fulfillment, the systems, the product was was fairly dialed in. Right. We had our we had our ascension, and there's a cap we we found that there was a cap on I'm the face of the of the male fitness. Right. And so every time we go to spend over 30 grand a day, it's like there's just no juice left. It's like I wish we could keep scaling it and just dumping people in, but we found like 25k is kind of our sweet spot. 30k, there's just so much creative that's needed now that I personally I don't like to make it. And you know, I have other stuff to do in running the company. It's like I'm not just Just a content creator. So 25K a day for us is kind of like maxed out. So I'm like, how do we, how would we double, how would we double revenue if I had to solve this problem? We'd go to the female market. Right. And we do the exact same thing we did on the men. It's already built, it's already there. All we have to do is is plug and play. And so we did that. It took a little bit of time, probably 90 days, for us to figure it out. Like females are a little bit of a different animal getting them to show up and and stuff. But the the metrics on the marketing side were 50% cheaper. 50% cheaper. Now, females for us, they don't show up at the rate that men do, and they don't close at the rate the men do. And we're still hard filtering, you know, career-driven female bus female business owners that make over the messaging's still key. Still key. And um and we and we essentially doubled within we went from two million to four million in probably four to five months after implementation. Because it was already built. At that point, it was just marketing, and you know, head of sales was you know, hiring sales reps like crazy, yeah, and getting them trained up, you know. So the demand, the demand solved it for us. Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah, that reminds me. I mean, when I because my big huge grow spurt from 500 grand a month to 2.5, well, it was really in one year, I went from 150 grand a month, then a year later, 2.5. Oh, wow. So it was like insane. But that was mainly because I got my B2B to 500 grand a month. Then I just had like part of my B2B product was a sales training product. So I took it out and sold it to consumers. And then those both scaled at once at the same time. And so by the end of that year, not even by the end of that year, it was like by November of 2021, it was 2.5 million a month between both. Wow. Which was just like an insane growth spurt. That's crazy. So, and then when you launched that, did you notice too, just because you had a new revenue stream, did you have a big profit bump? Because again, like your fixed was split between both.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah, yeah. We, I mean, we had to hire, we had to hire a ton of coaches. And but you know, we wouldn't hire coaches if there wasn't clients coming in. So to your point, like the fixed expenses were were pretty stagnant at that point. So yeah, when we ripped it, there was months where we were doing over 1.5 net. Nice. And it was like, that's when cash really started to stack for me for the for the first time. It's like cash was stacking, you know, even at 2 million, obviously, we're stacking and but it's like it's slow sometimes. Like I'm watching that bank account, I'm like, bro, like it takes a lot to like break free. Takes a freaking lot. And then it happens all at once, and then all at once, bam, it starts flying. And you know, we've we've not maintained that profitability because we've had to catch it's like for me and my experience, maybe, maybe yours too, when we explode that profit margin just is so good for a certain segment. And then infrastructure catches up. It does, it does, and then and then you wait for that next bump.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, but it's still the best way to do it because a lot of people, they I have calls with people all the time who they're like, yeah, my margins aren't good, but you know, we could like we have all this infrastructure to be able to scale. The way I've always done it is I scaled and then let the infrastructure catch up because a lot of times you don't even know what infrastructure, what leadership, what executives, what team, and what systems you actually need until you have the growth. Like you got to stress the systems to and even break them a little bit to know how to actually rebuild them.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Agree. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's how we did it too, which is like pop, capture it, and then break it down, fix it, and then wait for that next one.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah. So I I resonated with that too, because our B2B right now, we mainly work with like the info industry. And we're really trying the same as you is take the same product, but expand to what's the closest, most adjacent market. And part of that's going up market, but also part of that is going into software. Because really, like software as a service, we we help service businesses. Software as a service has the same marketing sales, all those mechanisms, and then even eventually expand that into home service. Because I think with AI and everything, that's one of the most defensible spaces. So you're still the face of the men's side of the brand, right? Yeah. Have you tried having somebody else in the ad?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

And I'm curious how that's worked. So that with the female side, we went to market, found a face, plugged it in, and I script the stuff, she rips it. Yeah, you know, the rest is history. And so I know that that model works. Yeah. For men, we've done it one time. There was a there was a guy that I was like, hey man, like I'll pay you X amount, let's uh rip some ads and see what happens. And the ads flew. The ads flew. The quality wasn't the same. And then he had another opportunity, so you know, we we shook hands and parted ways, but it has worked one other time. In my opinion, our next move is, you know, the different content creator ambassador model because different faces resonate with different people, and that's the best way that we can scale the amount of creative and also keep that cost low. And so we're right on the verge of breaking through that. Yeah. Because that's our next move.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

I was that's what I was gonna ask. Yeah. Because for RB to be, I've been really lucky to be able to, I still make some ads, but pretty much I don't have to make any ads. Yeah. And it's great. That's our next dude. Because then it's like it's not, it feels that's like the final step for me when I was like, this feels more like a business and not a personal brand. Yeah. You know, which actually gives it real enterprise value. Whether you want to sell it or not, you want a business where if you could, it's you know, if you have a business that's worth a lot to sell, it's also a nice business to own.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, 100%. And on the female side, like it's not my wife, she's CEO. Yeah. So you guys probably love that.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

You're like, Yeah, we built the systems and this thing is running.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah. And for me, like, I don't even like the camera. You know, that's what's interesting. So that's why my ads are just like super direct. It's like I don't do the theatrics, like, I'm not, I'm not about it. And so I have to like gear myself up to film. Like the scripting I like to do because that's psychology. But then, you know, you you got to have a different pattern interrupt. And so the filming process is like, where am I gonna film today? You know, you got to think of all these different ways to make the same sort of message hit a little bit different. And I'm like, that's just a it's an annoying part of my day. Like, if I could get take that out of what I have to do, I'm uh I'm 100% for it. I saw one of your posts resonated with me. It's like organic content is non-existent for me. Yeah, you said you didn't do organic for years. Years, yeah, and me too. Like I skipped that phase. Like I went, I went, I mastered paid out of laziness, yeah. To be like, I'm just gonna master the paid traffic because I don't want to have to post when I don't post. Still to this day, dude. Like I might post one time in 14 days, I might post seven. Like there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah, there's no, yeah, dude. Like it's a good thing. So are you gonna focus more on organic content or are you kind of like, we're just gonna keep relying on what we're doing? I mean, I know, I know we should, but again, it's like I dude, I just wanna I wanna print money. And if I could be off the internet, that would be great. Me and you are very similar.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, yeah. I also feel like I should, but you feel like you should because some of the biggest people in the space have huge personal brands. You know what's interesting though is when I look at my business, I was thinking about this yesterday. The number one constraint in my business isn't demand. Which is a good, that's a good constraint. Yeah, like in terms of lead flow, yeah, right? It's really just adding more people to fulfill on the demand. And then I'm starting to think, well, I'm spending all this time making content. Shouldn't I be focused on like the constraint of my business, which I don't think it's an either-or mentality. I think for me, it's like, okay, I'm not gonna stop making content, but I need to also realize I need to prioritize the real constraint as the CEO of my company over scripting a YouTube video. Yeah, you know, yeah, and the reason I like this though is that you know, I have a relationship with a ton of entrepreneurs. This is like no prep for me. Yeah, so it's just much easier to put out good content this way, opposed to like, like, dude, if I script out a YouTube video, man, that's like my week.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, it's tough. I know, bro. And and for me, like, I have zero desire to be famous. Right. So some people want fame and money, some people want money. But it's like for me, I don't have any poll to be famous. I just want to print and I want to, I want the lifestyle that I've you know had in my mind from the time I was a kid. Fame is not a part of that. And so for me, like, you know, the people who just love to be on camera, right? They could pull the camera out at the zoo or in the supermarket or you know, wherever and just be be on camera. I don't like I don't do that shit. I don't I don't even like it. And so it's really weird that I've had to be this face for yeah um you know five years, just as a means to an end. Like if this is what I have to do to make the business run, this is like the this is like the shit work that I gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, I'd always say like, dude, if we had to go knock some doors, I'd be knocking doors. Yeah, yeah, you know, whatever whatever it takes doesn't mean I'm gonna like it. Yeah, right? It's just the means. Yeah. Have you considered, cause it's like tougher to do, I feel like in the business space. Um certainly it's possible. I know the hormoses are trying to do it, but in the fitness space, you probably have a ton of coaches who like maybe 5% of them would be good at content. Have you considered maybe creating a system where like you have like a network of those people and like you can build their organic brands to sell your product? Like a like an ambassador model, or more like that, but like maybe maybe some of your internal people who want more opportunity, you could they could have their own like YouTube channels or Instagrams or whatever, and then have like a profit of what they bring in or something. So it's more of like a like you think about Dave Ramsey, like it's been Dave Ramsey for a long time, but now he has other characters, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

You know, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Like all of our coaches, if they if like they all have their own funnel link. Right. And so if someone pops through, if they are content creator types, um, they get we'll give them 1500 bucks as a bonus, you know, and all of our coaches are full salary, best benefits, you know, it's we have applications a mile long from people in the fitness industry because think about how many personal trainers are working dog shit hours, they, you know, don't love where they live. It's like our salary plus benefits plus, you know, live wherever you want type of model is very attractive. What I found is the coaching, like our best coaches are not coaches that normally like the content. Right. They haven't ever figured it out. Well, that's probably why they're coaches, nothing. Because they want to focus on that. Yeah. And they want, they're the security-driven mind, right? It's like they want food on the table, they want their family to eat, they don't want to worry where the next client's coming from. They want to coach, and that's that's their job, and they take pride in it. The ones who are more, I would say, borderline entrepreneur-ish, they like the content, they like the camera. We usually don't want to hire coaching roles for them because they're eventually they're they have that itch, they're gonna go scratch it. Right. Right. But for that type, I'm looking for that type to be an ambassador for us to where um they can run some of the ad traffic and get paid a lot of money, and then also not have to fulfill because that type usually sucks at fulfillment. Yep. Right? They're more markety when someone comes in their pipeline, it's a disaster. So to your point, like that's what we're that's what we're working on now. I want, I want 12 ambassadors on the female side, 12 ambassadors on the male side, and we're running traffic at all their faces.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Right. So that's one of the things you're working on to get from to uh from 50 to 100.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Right. What are the other big things in terms of like the way you're kind of setting a hypothesis about growth? Like, what do you think at 100 million you need to look like? What needs to be accomplished to be able to get there, et cetera?

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, yeah. It it I mean, if I knew I'd probably be there. I say the same dude.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yeah, I answer the question the same way every single time.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah, I actually kind of hated when we asked that. The diversification of the faces and the ambassadors is gonna be a big mover. Yeah. In addition, we've invested about $2 million in our own software platform. So previous, you know, one of the one of the biggest you know, training apps would be like trainerize. You can white label it. Most people don't know the difference, and it does its job as a training app. But after coaching 10,000 people, we know some of the stuff that they uh that they really want. And so we're we've dumped a lot of money into this platform that's gonna launch this year. And um, with AI and all the stuff that you can do, it's gonna make it's gonna make our coaching much more efficient so a coach can have more roster capacity than they currently do. And then obviously the the client is gonna experience a much better, much better tech experience. So that's another big move for us. And um on top of on top of that is really diving into the concierge medical type of stuff. People, you know, Woop's doing it. I all the all the big brands that I'm looking at, like Woop and Aura, and you know, they're they're not fitness coaching companies, but I I'm looking at superhuman as much bigger than just the fitness coaching as our front end. The medicals, that medical wellness um economy is just exploding. Yeah. And so we want to be very concierge, very boutique, much like Equinox. It's not a lot of people want to scale this way. I just don't know how to build business like that. I'm much more interested in the boutique, higher price point. Yes, we can do some quantity, but at the end of the day, we're not trying to build something that's $400 a month and have, you know, thousands and thousands of people on.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah. I I think that's a huge thing. And see, the cause the thing about the telemedicine space, because I I don't know if you know this, but at one point we had uh, it was a side business I was doing, but I had six clinics that was doing like three million a month and stem cell stuff. So I was I was kind of playing in that space for a little bit. The the big thing that people struggle with is the peptides, like anything that's bringing people into telemedicine type offers, it's all super low ticket. They don't liquidate anything on their ad spin. A lot of them CAC payback is like three, six months sometimes. And it's just everything is getting commoditized down.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

So you have a huge advantage because you're acquiring those people at a profit in a profitable business. And then those are also the type of people who want to pay 40, 40 grand or whatever. Like I pay 30 grand a year for my thing that's just it sounds very similar to what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. To where it's all the testing, it's like a concierge, you get your doctor, all of that stuff. So I think you have a huge advantage in terms of that front.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, yeah. And there's people that want, they want that kind of white glove service that's like, you know, it's they want to be taken care of in that capacity.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

And the bigger you build that, the more you'll be able to spend on the front and to acquire customers to fuel the entire thing, anyways. How else? So obviously that software component, you're using AI and within that. Uh, even if it's just like simple stuff, how else have you used AI within the business? Especially right now, I feel like the last six months, it's gotten really good with Clog Code, a lot of the agentic stuff. Like I'm playing around with it all the time. I'm curious if you've used it in any specific and good ways.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah. Um I know like from an operation standpoint, like that side uses a lot of different things that I'm not even aware of. You don't even know from a sales and marketing standpoint, which is where my my brain, it just like for me, what I hate is like when I see something that's blatantly written by AI as a writer, like I'm kind of a copywriter. That's my that's my thing, right? Yeah, and so a lot of people would just be like, oh, just write an ad that says blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you know, you know, in two seconds, right? Right. So I'll use AI, obviously, to help me formulate the idea and make it complete. And I'll go back and forth though, like line by line. I'm like line by every single line, every single word is scrutinized if I'm gonna make a script to to run as traffic. And so that helps though, ideate different hooks and be like, you know, give me 25 different hooks that say almost this thing, like that, just that right there is like so much different than having to come up with every single thing in your mind. So we do that, and then obviously, like um, you know, different text sequences, AI, trying to get people to schedule that, you know, may have filled out an application that didn't book, dialing in the messaging for that and not having it go haywire and say, you know, you gotta rein it in sometimes, right? It's like um, so we we do a lot of that, but there's a lot of room for us to even get better.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Yeah, it's tough because the it's funny if you get on like X or Twitter or whatever. The most of the people who are just like super advanced with AI, they have a lot of time and they're not making any money. Yeah, right. Whereas you have people like us where we actually have like more of a use case of implementation, but we don't have the time.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

So like this weekend, even I'm like, there's a couple of things I need to build, just like a AI sales call review thing that can like basically, because there's so many calls, your managers can't review them all. It can grade the calls based on looking at my best calls. And even with Kimmy K25, it can analyze my best calls and their calls, and even like show like it can analyze the video and the tonality of the video, and even like body language. So it can say, like, hey, here's like the main things Cole does well. How does that compare to when rep ABC takes the call? And then it can flag it that hey, this is a three out of five instead of a 3.5 or higher. This is a good one for manager review. So there's certain things like that, but I agree. Copywriting rise, I think it's good for research. For create we have some AI creatives, completely AI, that are like outperforming some of our normal stuff, which like, you know, I'm sure you resonate with this. Anytime I don't have to make creative, yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Um, sales ops, like sales automations, lead nurture, admin, but I think the biggest use case for us is just being able to get more out of our fulfillment and operations and finance teams and our recruiting team to where they can do more and we don't have to hire as many people. Cause I would rather allow you know our account managers to take on more clients and then they can make more money opposed to having to hire more account managers. Yeah. Or our finance team to be able to get more stuff done, and then I can raise their rage at uh wait raise their wages opposed to hiring more finance teams. Same thing with ops, et cetera. So I think the more it can kind of get imbued in the company that way. I agree 100%.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

It's like every role like has a use case for it that is not gonna steal their jobs if they're great at utilizing the capabilities because someone's got it, someone's still gotta run it and manage it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

At least in the medium term. And I think for employees too, if you are somebody who really can embrace AI and the right agentic models and like have agents that you can bring with you into work, your productivity's higher, which means your wages are gonna be higher. So I think that's a really good thing for people to embrace. Um, in terms of show up rates, lead nurture, just a tactical question. Is there any big key things you guys do, you know, between booking and them showing up that you found really worked? No. Like outside of the no, no, no. That's a great answer, you know? Yeah, there's no magic. You know, and probably outside of the messaging with getting like richer people who know that's the hard part from the males to the females.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Like the messaging on the male side is so like it just slaps these guys, right? And so they're more likely to show up. They just have been more likely to show up. Um one of the things that I have noticed though is you know how you just search something and then like the AI at the top of Google search will come up with, you know, whatever. So if someone was to Google superhuman cost, about a year ago, like nothing really would come up unless you went to the depths of like Reddit or something, right? Not that we're trying to hide it, it's just like without context, you know, you want people to to make the decision when they have all the information. But there was a couple articles that came out where or podcasts like this where I say the pricing and and now AI has like if you Google how much a superhuman cost, it's like they have programs for 10 grand up to $40,000. Right. And so we've noticed a a decline in show rate on the female side more than the male side when p I and I feel like people are searching that and it's just right in their face and then they cancel or they don't show up. Right. Right. So I think that the the the price being out there on the mails don't hurt them as much. It's like they kind of get that through the messaging and they've seen my face at this point. You know, I think a lot of them have seen my face surveying customers, you know, they're like, I've seen it for six months and I just decided to click it, right? So they've already made up their mind when they fill out that application that they're gonna sign that they're gonna show up. Right. Females, it's hurt us a little bit, so I still need help on that, actually. So any tips? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Well, I'd have to look at what you're doing, but it's it is tough. Um, I mean, we do a lot of the app grading with AI, and then based on so this is kind of like the TLDR is every single point in your application, and when I say every single point, I mean even what their email handle is, you can analyze and then figure out the show rate and even the close rate and the revenue per uh data point of apps that have that data point. So what I mean is even if like we've noticed that. Company emails have exponentially higher close rate, show rate, everything than Gmails. And even like Yahoo, for some reason, beat Gmail. Right. So we factor that in with like, okay, what's their occupation? Well, obviously we work with business owners. So what's their business? What's their uh business revenue? Uh, all sorts of different stuff, right? You can even pull their credit and the liquidity and factor that into it as well. So if you aggregate all that data, you can basically like our software AI essentially determines if we should double book, single book, or move this person to a setter to triage before calendar. And that can optimize it really well. I think the number one thing though is the higher revenue people or the more money people make, the more likely they'll show up because probably they just are the type of people who show up to appointments. But also they're just more likely to use Google Calendar. Like if you think about it, like, you know, a mom who's kind of like sees your ad, she's maybe stay at hub, she's flowing around or whatever. She's not like really using Google Calendar.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

So I think that's another big thing that helps is just going after more career-oriented people.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

But um, yeah, I can tell you about, you know, sales kick, that's what we use to help with that. I'm curious, have you ever considered, because a lot of fitness companies, like the other one that I know who is really big, they have like a low-ticket front end. Have you guys ever considered that? Because it's kind of interesting with your model, it almost sort of I think feel like it conflicts with your brand a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah, it does, yeah, dude. And I've thought about this too. And I don't know if you're thinking about the same company I am, but um I've thought about it a lot because I I I know it works for them. And same, same as what you just brought up for me, I'm like, it take it feels like it takes away the premiumness of what we do. Right. But um also we have to create it. And so if we were to do something with our tech coming out, I would I would do something low ticket to get them into our platform because that experience is gonna be great. And then we'll go after them after. But um I don't want to come up with like a PDF workout. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Like I I haven't I haven't thought about what I would offer even for a it's tough because how do you really call out and gut punch wealthy guys and then offer them something that's 27 bucks? Yeah, it kind of doesn't make sense, yeah. You know, um, don't you have so your sales guys aren't they full cycle? They do the setting and the closing themselves, isn't that how it works?

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah, I mean, we do we've tried setting multiple times and uh very, very low um success rate there. And so our closers are closers, and then when they're free, they'll try to set the people who um filled out an application and didn't book or canceled or whatnot. Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

And so they're but they still get in they they still get direct bookings. Yes, they're just doing extra settings. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do you think the settings not work? I feel like I know the answer, but I want I want to hear and then I'll give you a lot.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

I actually have no idea. We've tried, we've tried probably setting is not so. When I set this company up myself, I was like, I wanted to save myself the most amount of time. That's why the marketing filter was so heavy because I'm like, look, if someone's gonna book on my calendar, I'm not gonna book my whole day out and have people not show up.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

So I taught my sales process to my first sales rep, who then taught the process to all the other reps. So setting was never, never something that I even understood how to do. So we've probably hired four or five different people that come in, it's like, oh, if you get this setting team going, it's gonna print cash. Yeah. And it just never has. And I don't know the, I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Well, well, but your when your closer's set, they do it successfully. Some sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Here's one thing that happened for me is I just I just realize this over time. And I mean, I teach this stuff, and so I feel like I should have realized it way sooner. But when we hear the word setter, we tend to think of like five, six grand a month employee, like pretty like not as highly skilled. And okay, they're gonna go out and set. We don't really want to pay them a lot of money. It's gonna be a lot of commission. It's like we want just like free money. So what I did is I raised the average earnings of my setter team from like five to six grand to 10 grand. And then I basically only marketed the closers. And then I was like, hey, if you want to be a closer, you got to set for six months. So these guys were already experienced at closing. And for them, 10 grand a month is like doable if they know they're gonna have a track to move upwards. And so when we did that, we overhauled like 80% of our setter team and replaced it with like extremely high, more high quality people. And dude, we got so many more appointments. It reduced my ad spin by 200 grand. Really? So I spent 20 grand in extra labor cost to save 200. And our sets show up for us at 80, 90%, and they close on average, let's call it 10% to 20% higher relatively than our ads calls. But I think the key is with most people is they just don't hire good enough setters.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

That's such a good point. Yeah, it's just they don't like I had like that flip the frame just right there. You gotta think about think of setters as just low, you know, some 21 year old.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

If they get called by somebody who's like, they suck, yeah, right, they're gonna be like, all right, no, this company that that's their first impression of your company. So like click. Yeah, right. But I guarantee if you or your sales manager called somebody, they'd set and they'd probably close. Yeah, right. And that's just because it's you guys and you're so much better.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

So if you can get a closer level talent to where if if like a rich guy's like, dang, like that ad was pretty cool, like they seem really serious. And then I got this call, and this guy was sharp. Yeah, right. I guarantee those will set, show up, and close at higher rates. It's just the setters aren't probably good enough.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, yeah. And me too, like I don't answer my phone for anybody unless my wife calls. Yeah, me well, it's on silent. It's like I will not answer my phone for anybody. Yeah, even friends, it's like just text me, bro.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

And so, like in my head, I'm like, who's answering their phones? But our guys, our target demo is like 40 to 60. And when my dad comes over, he has his phone ringer on at all through the night. Like that generation is used to answering the phone. They still do text, but in my in my mind, I'm like, dude, nobody even answers their damn phone anymore. Yeah. Because I don't.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

You know what broke that frame for me is I have a friend who um he's very involved, he very high net worth, helps with policy in the Trump administration and everything. And he was complaining to me about getting a bunch of outbound calls from this company. I was like, dude, why don't you just like put your phone on like silent and ignore? And he's like, Well, dude, like I get calls from like senators and I get calls from like people in the administration from unknown numbers all the time that I like I have to take these calls. Yeah. So some like some people, like if you're a real estate developer or you're a bank, like sometimes like you gotta answer the phone because it could be unknown numbers that could be big money.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

And so I think that could be a little frame breaker for you there.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

And people have told me that, but I think that's why I've I've always been like, settings, not my not my game. I don't know how to do it. And so we gotta figure that out. But I love your point and don't think of it as a just a low-end, you know, receptionist type of role. Like get someone sharp, and that's gonna pay them well.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

There's been so many times, like even with our recruiting department, we need to up-level our level of sales recruiting. And we like this was early on in the business, and we tried like this system and that system and redoing this system, and like it was all just like systems and management, systems and management, which is obviously good. You need it. And then one time I was like, you know what, maybe we just like raise the pay by 20%.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

And so we raised the pay by 20%, all the problems went away.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

So good.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

That's like and then and then the thing is, is we actually ended up spending equal in labor costs because the the productivity was higher with the better people, they could handle more capacity. So we were to like cut 10 to 15% of that roster, and then boom, like we're at the same level with better results.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

I can't tell you how many times I've just fixed it by paying people more. So good. Because you got to think like, if somebody's making five grand a month, if you raise the pay to $7,500, what that's like a 35% bump in pay. So like for us, it's like we don't think $20, $2,500 a month is that much. But for them, that gets you in a if like you're putting out ads on LinkedIn or whatever, that gets you an entirely different trough of like, it's like ads. Yeah. It's like, you know, if you say you're you when you changed your messaging, you notice like you got a different trough of traffic. Like you hit this different pocket. The same thing happens with recruiting with pay, yeah, which makes sense. So true. You know, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, for us, 60 to 70 percent of the people who fill out an application book, so that's still 30 to 40 percent of people who were spending the money to get them, and they're good applications that just kind of go there to to die. Maybe they hit an email and get back in, or you know, we have AI that goes after them via text, right? But you have a killer setter in there that just cloak setting people all day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

That's a and I think that I think there's opportunity. There might be some people because you qualify so hard that kind of go through the process, then they're just they're mentally out. Yeah. But you know, maybe you don't hire, you don't need 30 setters, but one or two I'm sure, I'm sure some would help. Yeah. Uh so obviously you were in the NFL uh and I was watching a podcast of years earlier, and you mentioned it's a really cutthroat business. Yeah. And so I'm curious a couple of things. Like, number one, is there anything you kind of learned from being in the NFL and that experience that's helped you in business? Then the second part of the question is is there anything you observed like in hindsight, especially about like how that business is done that you think is either interesting or that you took with you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 53:42

I I think for me, in general, like sports teach such good life lessons. Like that's even why I want my daughter to to do certain things, whether you play flag football or basketball, but just go and playing at that level, right? Playing playing through division one and then for the Raiders for three years, it's like you gotta fight you gotta fight for your position and playing time every single day. Like none of it is given. The coach at the end of the day has a lot on the line to win games. And so if he can't trust you to go out there and do your job, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get the playing time. And so just dealing with that sort of pressure for that many years, uh, you know, five years in college and another three professionally, it's like eight years of immense amount of pressure to perform. I just think that that's what I carry into business. It's like if I don't give up my all and perform and hit the, you know, hit the results that are required of me, like someone else is gonna come and grab it. And so I just have this competitive spirit from from sports. And I think that what I love about business is it's my it's how I compete now. Yeah, like I can go compete and pickleball, and I don't really give a shit if you know my neighbor I I like to win, but it's like that doesn't do it for me. Business is a way for me to compete in in something that keeps me going. So I love to play the game. I love playing the game. Yep. And I think that that's you know, that's why I'm doing what we're doing now is like I just like to compete. I like to, I like to be in an arena where failure is possible. Right. And be completely willing to fail where most people aren't, and that's the only reason why you can win.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Yeah, you know, I wrestled for over 10 years in high school. I played football too, but I think if I wouldn't have wrestled, I wouldn't have had any success later on. Because I don't know if you are like were friends with wrestlers or you were like in the know of, but man, it's the most brutal sport and it's just you. Yeah. And it's like the lights are off in the gym, it's you against some other sweaty dude with BO. Yeah. And it's like it's all on you, man, with a ton of. I mean, and especially if you're a high school kid, it's you know, is it winning or losing, is it that big of a deal? Like, no, and you know, 10 years down the line, like I don't remember the people I lost to. And actually, I do remember everybody I lost to, but um, it's not bothering me still to this day. But you know, you think it's like life or death because it's your repute, it's like you're kind of like putting your reputation on the line. And I think that helped me so much. And then similar to what you said as well, I I actually liked football more, but you know, you could see I'm like five, eight and a half. So I and I was 40 pounds heavier, so I was an O lineman. Okay. So I went to a D3 school. I got to D3, I was like, what am I doing, man? Like this makes no sense. So I quit and then I transferred to play rugby somewhere else. But then once my rugby days were over, I was like, dude, I gotta have something like because that was my personal development feedback loop. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Where you're you're working on your body, you're working on plays, you're working on technique, and then you're applying that. And then when I didn't have that anymore, I had to find something else. Yeah, you know, and like similar to you, like that's what business was for me is I was like, well, I can do this forever. Yeah, you know, and it's all about up here, it's not necessarily about how tall I am or how fast I am or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

You know, yeah, I was just thinking about that too, because I'm gonna turn 43. Um, and I'm like, I'm so happy I got cut at 27 because it forced me to to I I had $300,000 in my bank account, which to me, growing up where I grew up, was like a lot of money. Yeah, I still thought I was a millionaire, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:30

And frankly, back then, that is like a million bucks today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Close. Yeah. And so I opened a gym, cost me about a hundred grand. I bought a house, 100 grand down, then I had a hundred grand to figure it out. And in 16 months, that went to zero. And uh having to figure it out though, then is such a benefit to me now because, like you just said, business is something I could do until I'm 80, or there's no there's no time limit on it. Yeah. Whereas it being an athlete is especially in the pros, is like when I was in the locker room and there was a couple guys that were 30 years old, like that was ancient. Most guys are under 30. Every once in a while, you have a Tom Brady guy that's been there for two decades. But yeah, for the most part, 28, 29, 30, you're done. Yeah. You're done, man.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

How many guys that you hang out with in those days that since time has passed, you've seen them financially collapse? Most. Most. Yeah. And is that, and I was gonna ask you, is that like, do you think that affected you with we were talking before the podcast of like how conservative you are with investments and money and certain things like that?

SPEAKER_01 58:36

I think for me, the story about me losing everything that I had, like I'm not, I don't, I'm, I'm not afraid of that now. I'm more conservative now just because our business is on this growth spurt and we're still like I'm still heavily investing into it. So for me, you know, even if it's a hire, I'm like, I need to hire someone great for 400 grand. I'll put that 400 grand in the business because it's gonna return, you know, two million bucks. Right. Like I have that formula down. Whereas as far as investing the money that has accumulated, it's like that's a different skill set, and I haven't had the time to actually put my focus and understanding into it. So I'm just like, look, just don't, just don't mess it up, you know. Yeah, like if it's making four percent in a money market and you know, my whole lifestyle is is taken care of from that, a lot of people be like, that's so stupid. You know, you could be making 10% or 20%. I'm like, I get it, and I will. Yeah, I get it. But for now, like we're just not we're just not digging a hole. Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

So well, the brain that helps you become, I mean, I know this is like you've heard this a million times, but I had to go through it to understand it. The brain that helps you with entrepreneurship hurts you with investing. You have to like completely inverse the two. Yeah, you know, there's similarities, but um, anything that's high dopamine, it's great for entrepreneurship, very difficult for investing. Investing's like heavy discipline, long game, staying with something for the long game and just being simple and not being fancy. Yeah. It's gotten me so many times. If you're looking for a mastermind to take your business to 10 million a year plus, then you want to check out our eight-figure border mastermind. So after doing 100 million in total cash collected for my own companies, I've created a mastermind where I really pull back the curtain and show you exactly how I've done it. So I not only share with you what's working for us across marketing, sales, fulfillment, operations, finance for all of our different companies, at the same time, you can network with some of the top people in the industry and also listen to world-class speakers like Patrick But David, Dean Grassiosi, Neil Patel, and Tom Bailou, and many, many others. So if you're interested, check out the link in the description and get more info. Um, you mentioned that there was a when you first got started, like a mindset or NLP coach that you worked with. Yeah, tell that story and like what exactly did that person do to shift things for you to help you explode where you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Yeah, man. So two things. Um I told you about starting the gym in 2010. And 2018, like we were still, you know, like I said, the gym might do 300 grand, but I would spend, you know, it would cost 250 grand. So I was on the outside, and I always had money to kind of live, you know, in a in a way where there was food on the table. But it was always like, hey, you know, can you deposit some money so that we can pay the mortgage type of thing when I got married? And so for for a while, people were like, it's all mindset, you know, it's all mindset. And I'm like, bro, like I never played high school football and I played in the National Football League. Like, I don't have a mindset. I believe that I can do it. Right. So I would just be like, it's not mindset. And I got to this point where I'm like, maybe it is mindset. I did the Tony Robbins walk on fire, did business mastery, did went read every Bob Proctor book, watched The Secret, tried to manifest my way to Million Dollar Life. And I got interested in NLP because I realized that that was Tony Robbins, you know, foundation. Yeah. And so I'm like, I want to get coached in this. Like, I want to understand, I want to understand the mind a little bit more. And so there was a guy in Salt Lake City that I was referred to that a couple of my, you know, some some friends posted on Facebook the seminar that they went to. And so I reached out, I was like, what is this about? And they're like, you got to talk to this guy. So I I got a hold of this guy. We went to dinner, and just in one conversation, I felt like I'm like, this is the guy that can help me break through. And at the end, he's like, we have a $7,500, you know, course or $25,000 for one-on-one coaching. But me and my wife was there. Right. And I'm like, at that time, I had paid for hormose, I had paid for four different coaches, putting it on credit cards. We had we had 50 grand in a rainy day fund that I'm like, if I take it, my wife's gonna slice me. Right? There's no more, no more investing until I figure this shit out. And so after that conversation, lucky she was there, we get in the car and she's like, What are you gonna do? And I'm like, you know, maybe just like the $7,500 um course. She's like, no, if you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it. And um, I want to do it too. So he gave us a deal, $20,000 and $20,000 for one-on-one coaching for both of us. And the next day he came to the house, we had $50,000 in the in the rainy day fund, and I wrote him a $40,000 check, which put us back to 10. And I was like, this has to work. Yeah, there's no, there's no choice now, you know. And so I was very open and willing to do whatever, you know, whatever, whatever he was gonna teach me. Like, I was very open at that point to just being like, just help me. And there was two really weird, weird uh techniques that he did beyond just these two techniques. There was a lot of other stuff that went through breakthrough-wise. But one was called um timeline therapy. And I'm not big on therapy, and this is like not talk therapy at all, but timeline therapy is essentially going into your subconscious and removing the negative emotions, guilt, shame, fear, um and a couple other ones. And I'm like, we're going through the exercise, and I'm like, I don't know if this is working because you're kind of in a hypnotic trance. You know, I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling, but I'm going through the exercise because I just paid 40 grand. And so we did that on one of the days. And afterwards, I felt this strange like, I feel like I feel more free. Right. Lighter. I feel lighter. And then there was another one, parts integration, where um you essentially put your two hands out in a palm and he goes through this thing. And as you're going through this thing, like your hands like a magnet kind of come together. And my wife's doing it on the couch. And I'm like, I'm gonna be the asshole. This like this is not like this, my hands are here, bro. Like they're not moving. And I was gonna, I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie and say my hands are moving if they don't. And so my wife gets here and she has tears, you know, kind of come down her face. I'm like, what the hell? Super weird. So I get in the hot seat and I go through this thing, and I'm like, damn, like I feel my hands like coming together and like integrating different parts of me that was disintegrated. Yeah. And we get here and I put them on my heart and I have tears stream down my face, and I'm just like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't understand what this was, you know? And immediately after, like I knew what to do, the the issue was I knew what to do. I knew what I needed to do. I would just not, I was not doing it. You know, it was like kind of the fitness person that's like, I know I shouldn't go in the pantry and not eat Oreos, but somehow you walk your way into the pant pantry and eat a bag of Oreos. For me, it's like put the camera down and speak to the camera and go to market in a way that nobody else has done. Because there was a part of me that was like really afraid of what like my peers would think or what other people would would. Say about it. And I got to this point right after I went through those exercises. And at the time, everybody was teaching me to run traffic to like a webinar, 45-minute webinar for help. Right. I'm like, my guys are busy, so I'm not gonna do that. So I put a camera just like this, and I didn't even have the VSL scripted. I didn't even know what a VSL was called. I'm just like, I'm gonna just speak to this camera for 10 minutes. And so I I went in on these guys who were rich and out of shape and said about 25 F bombs, and it was like, you know, it wasn't scripted, so it was just right to the camera, and I ran it on a little click funnels page. Yeah. And immediately I started getting people to apply, and I'm doing the sales call. There was no sales team. And I'm like, hey, you know, I just want to know, you know, what made you show up for this call? John, I watched your video, man, and it spoke right to my heart. And I heard that over and over and over again. And I started close, the price point back then was like four grand for 16 weeks. Um, and I just started stacking customers, stacking customers, and uh then I iterated off that via I later learned that that was like a video sales line. Yeah, I had no idea, bro. I just spoke to the camera. But my point is without that coaching of that NLP, I wouldn't have it wouldn't have clicked. It wouldn't have clicked, I wouldn't have done it. And then it's neural linguistic programming, so I'm very careful with words. And so going through that process too, like I hear a lot of people in in trying to reach an affluent market, but they're presupposing someone's broken. It's like, I'm gonna change your life. I'm gonna, you know, if you come into my program, it's like so they're attracting broken people, thinking they're attracting affluent people. So I learned linguistically how to use presupposition to assume somebody is very affluent, to then have the the message at a subconscious level not be not be like, you know, is he gonna change my life? No, I'm just gonna get you fit. You're fat and you're rich. Like that's it. You know, it's very, very congruent. And so that guy helped me a lot, man. Like really a lot of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

Yeah, that that's sick. And I love that type of work. The way I think about it, because I do a lot of the similar stuff, and then what it does is it kind of like opens your bandwidth, yeah, and you get way more clear.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

And so for me, you know, you would think at my level of success or the amount of net worth I have, liquid or whatever, that you know, I'd feel pretty financially secure. But because my dad lost his job in the 2008 recession because he was in construction, it's like I always have this I'm gonna be at zero. Yeah, I'm gonna lose everything, go to zero. And then that influences your decision making in certain ways, like in the bets you take and the assumptions you make. So doing that type of work's really helped me with that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

Yeah, and and it's funny too, because I used to think, you know what's weird? When I, after football, after I lost everything, I remember the day I had over a hundred grand in my in a liquid in a bank account. And I felt rich, bro. Like the craziest thing. Like I felt it took 10 years, but it's like having 100K in my uh old Wells Fargo account, looking at it was like I felt rich. And you know when I felt the brokest? When I had a million. Yeah. I don't know if that like it was so weird. It's like when I got to a million, I'm like, bro, like that's not very much money. Yeah. Like I feel super broke. And then for me, it's been chasing. It's like, well, how am I gonna feel at 10? Well, I I should feel safe. No, no, and so I don't, it's like a moving, it's like a moving goalpost. Well, we also have 125 employees, right? And it's like there's a lot of pressure in, you know, hey, like there's responsibility now. This isn't just about me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

Yeah, especially because depending on your margin too, if you have, even if you're making a lot of money, but you're doing a lot of revenue, if that goes down by 10%, it could wipe your margin.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

So you feel like you're on a rate uh a hair's edge. But that's I I was actually thinking about this the other day. And I think the thing that's challenging is the more money you have, there's also like a different triggering that happens that's like, what if I lose everything I've built? Like, what if this all goes to nothing? It's like a separate thing. Yeah. And so when you do have like a million or 10 million, et cetera, that weight of responsibility is another thing that you have to deal with mentally. Yeah. Which has been tough for me too. Yeah, yeah. Because you're constantly like, how do I manage this? How do I not lose it?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

What what happens if this happens? What happens if, you know, the markets go down? Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

Because even even with us, it's like, I feel like every level, like for us, it was it was like the 3 million, 3.5, 8 million, 26, 50. That was like, that was a track, right? And so 26 to 50 felt like a like a rocket ship. In actually eight to 26 to 50 was like a 24 months of like if there's seasons in life and business, it's like it was summer for 24 months. It was like Scottsdale. Yeah. There's no clouds, the sky is blue, and sun. After 50, there was a little turbulence. It's like getting to 100 all of a sudden felt like it felt hard again, like it was like it was uh, you know, like I hadn't felt in 24 months. Because it's like getting to that next level, it was like we we had to shake a lot of stuff up. And so um it I and it and again, it's been it's like being in the arena though, you know, it's like sometimes you win, sometimes you get punched in the face. Yeah. And I I think that losing it all and going back to zero is like a phantom fear because it's impossible for someone that's built what you've built to do that. And even if it did happen, the bounce back would be epic.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:42

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I always remind myself too, is a lot of times, even if something happened and everything collapsed, which is like realistically based on the data, is probably not gonna happen. I've been doing the same thing for like it's almost seven years now. Yeah, it's been going pretty well, it's still growing. Yeah, probably not gonna just collapse tomorrow. Yeah, but even if it did, I'd probably just insert myself into a different opportunity vehicle with my current skill sets and be fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

You know, I'm not gonna die. I talked to this 93-year-old one time that um there was this how long have you been in Scottsdale? Uh since 2020, so six years. Did you know that jet service that was called Set Jet? Yeah, yeah. I love that thing. That's what that got me. And it's gone. It's gone, bro. And it got me addicted to flying private, and now it's way expensive. Yeah, and that's why I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:25

That's why a million dollars feels like not a lot of money. Exactly. It's because you fly private and you're like, well, I can afford this, but it doesn't feel responsible. It doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Yeah. It feels so good though to just drive up and get in the plane. But, anyways, we were doing set chap uh years ago, and I was in San Diego ready to hop on this plane. And this lady comes in. She's like dressed up. You could tell she was old, but she was like walking, she's talking on a cell phone. And I'm like, who's this lady? She's like talking business, like you can hear her. And uh, very long story short, she gets off the phone, she's looking at her iPad, she can't get the sound to work. So she comes over to me and my buddy, who was the mindset coach, but that I was just talking about. She's like, Hey, uh, can you guys help me with this iPad? I can't get the sound to work. We're like, sure. So we do it for her and she starts talking to us. This lady's husband, who was past, was the guy who brought, like, they owned Bank of Arizona. They were the people who brought um the Phoenix Coyotes, bought that team back in the day and brought them over. The Arizona Cardinals, all the sports teams in Phoenix, billionaires, right? And uh and she was flying on the set jet thing because her kids sold their their big jet, and she was pissed about it. And so she's telling us a story, and then she's showing us pictures of her and Princess Diana, and so like, you know, very, very well-to-do woman. And she then starts telling us how at one point her husband, they they were in business together, and he they they lost everything. She's like, we couldn't afford the clothes that we were wearing. Wow, and we were going out there, and he was like 50 to 55 when this happened. Wow, so they built it and then at 50 lost everything. She had nothing, nothing. People like people had no idea, they were completely broke. And then he built it all in more in, you know, a couple of years. So I always think about that story too of for whatever reason, that woman telling that. And you hear that all the time. Yeah, you hear it all the time. You still don't want to lose everything. Yeah, you don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

It'd be nice not to lose everything. Yeah. If you're safe, I I think if you're safe with your investments too. A lot of people who have been through that store, and this is another thing that I was thinking about the other day that kind of traumatized me. My first sales job was selling realtors, and our target market was realtors that were 60 plus, who were bad with technology, and we'd helped them generate leads. And I had thousands of calls. Half of them was a sob story about being a multimillionaire and losing everything in 2008. And it just drip, I mean, just imagine that built into your brain every single day. And I and then that resonated with my story with like my dad, which we were fine. It's just that like when you're a kid and your dad like loses his job and it's like 2008, you're like, oh my gosh, are we gonna like die? Yeah, you know, like because you're just a little kid, you don't understand anything. We are fine. Yeah, but um, it's just interesting how that, you know, yeah, psychologically plays on you.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:13

Yep. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:14

I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Where can people find you, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

Uh, most active on social at um superhuman-john. So if you just search John Madsen, can uh can find me on social and then website superhuman.com is where all the fitness stuff lives. And uh yeah, man, I appreciate you having me though.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:33

Absolutely, man. Thanks for doing it. Yeah. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're also probably gonna like this podcast I also did recently that you can check out by clicking the screen right here.