How do you dominate your local market?
The key is focus: Don’t try to offer every service under the sun.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin is joined by Jack Wheeler of 360 Fitness in Red Deer and Sherwood Park, Canada. Jack’s flagship location does over 4,000 personal training sessions per month, and if you Google “personal training Red Deer,” his gym is the No. 1 result.
If you just search “gyms Red Deer,” he’s still on Page 1, but not quite at the top.
Jack owns the keyword “personal training” in his market because he dialed in and doubled down on his niche.
Listen to find exactly how he did that, and learn about great tactics for gaining traction in your community, such as good-will marketing and going where your target clients are.
Links
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
1:31 - What’s changed?
7:36 - Dominating the local market
19:12 - Differentiate from online competition
23:09 - Getting involved with the community
34:50 - How Jack does marketing
How do you dominate your local market?
The key is focus: Don’t try to offer every service under the sun.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin is joined by Jack Wheeler of 360 Fitness in Red Deer and Sherwood Park, Canada. Jack’s flagship location does over 4,000 personal training sessions per month, and if you Google “personal training Red Deer,” his gym is the No. 1 result.
If you just search “gyms Red Deer,” he’s still on Page 1, but not quite at the top.
Jack owns the keyword “personal training” in his market because he dialed in and doubled down on his niche.
Listen to find exactly how he did that, and learn about great tactics for gaining traction in your community, such as good-will marketing and going where your target clients are.
Links
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
1:31 - What’s changed?
7:36 - Dominating the local market
19:12 - Differentiate from online competition
23:09 - Getting involved with the community
34:50 - How Jack does marketing
Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of Two Brain Radio. I am John Franklin reporting in for Two Brain with my very special guest and very special friend all the way from the North Pole Jack Wheeler, <laugh> . How you doing, buddy? Good,
Speaker 2:Ms. Franklin , how are you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jack was just telling me that it is minus 22 where he lives. I, I, it's Red Deer Canada for all you Canadians. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> Familiar with that. Uh, we're, we're filming this during the polar vortex, right? <laugh> ?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah. We get , we get one a year. People
Speaker 1:Are just freezing to the ground. You're saying your food just freezes in your hand. You can't like Yeah .
Speaker 2:If it's outside, yeah. Even if you're driving and you have a water bottle in your hand and it'll freeze in your hand. But like I said, it warmed up 20 degrees today and it's minus 22 or something, so Wow . We're , we're out . Sounds awesome . Run of the thick. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be positive temperatures by the weekend, and that means sandals and t-shirts. Let's go tanning
Speaker 1:As , uh, as , uh, someone from Florida, this is your friendly reminder to brain that winter is optional <laugh>. So , uh, despite , uh, making poor choices when it comes to where to live , uh, Jack makes very smart choices when it comes to his fitness business. He's the owner of 360 Fitness. Uh, you do, you have two separate locations. One in Red Deer, one in Sherwood Park. We were talking before the show. It sounds like you're gonna be doing , uh, over 3 million in top line , which is insane. And , uh, you offer no group classes, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just , uh, semi-private or a small group personal training, and one-on-one is our, our bread and butter.
Speaker 1:And so how do you, how do you package and price your services? It's been a while . I , I , it's been about a year since I've talked with you, and so maybe you can gimme an update to see if anything's changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do our front-end offer. Everything drives towards a six week intro program, whether that's our six week challenge for folks under 50, or our fit over 56 week challenge for, for folks over 50. We just package 'em up a little bit different. Uh, and then for our six week challenge, they can either do a hybrid option, which is a combination of semi-private and one-on-one or strictly one-on-one. And then our Fier 50 is exclusively one-on-one person training. And then we do the trials over the, the six weeks we convert them into our full-time memberships. And again, it's hybrid or one-on-one. And we got , uh, three, six, and 12 month options. That's it. Super simple.
Speaker 1:And that's six weeker . What does that cost these days? Yeah,
Speaker 2:One-on-one, it's all 30 minute sessions for the, for the personal training and semi-private. So one-on-one is 700 and hybrid is 600. Okay.
Speaker 1:And hybrid is both one-on-one and small group, you said? Yeah ,
Speaker 2:You bet .
Speaker 1:Yep . All right . And and that's what, three sessions a week? Four sessions a
Speaker 2:Week? Yep . Three times a week. Yep . Same nutrition manual comes with their initial assessment, the six week nutrition manual , um, you know, cardio area access , uh, and, and the one-on-one person training in small group or the combination of,
Speaker 1:So the 30 minute sessions is , it's like you'll come in, people do like warm up on their own and the trainer's there for the meat and potatoes and they have their own cool down or do, do you still
Speaker 2:That ? Yeah, they do their own cool down . We have a full cardio area and kind of a , a warmup exclusive area for our clients to come in. Uh, we just got some rollers and treadmills and bikes and some ski ropes and some mats and foam rolling equipment, that kind of stuff. And the clients are expected to come in about 15, 20 minutes early for the warmup, you know, get changed, get warmed up, be ready to go, and then that when that clock hits, they're ready to go. It makes their sessions better, it cuts down on their budget. We can increase their frequency for it. And then it's better for the coaches as well. 'cause we can fit more bodies in.
Speaker 1:And how many sessions are you doing , uh, in Red Deer
Speaker 2:Over 4,000 a month?
Speaker 1:Jesus. Yeah ,
Speaker 2:I think it was 4,300 was their average.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah . And how many coaches does that require?
Speaker 2:Um, I think right now I think we're about 10 full-timers and about four or five part-timers. And then they're all about 80% capacity.
Speaker 1:And how do you do that? How do you feel like everyone's having trouble getting like two or three coaches that are solid? What do you, how, how are you gobbling up 15? Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah . Just doing the simple things. And it makes them stay a lot more, if they have a full schedule, you keep them busy, get rid of those idle hands, you know, pay them accordingly. You know, pay them, pay them fair, honest wage, make sure that they have a career ascension plan in front of them, and not just pay or trading time for money. We do a lot of entrepreneurial stuff , uh, where they can kind of, kind of not run their independent business out of our studio, but they can identify their skills and their talents and kind of what they're really good at. Pitch that to us. And they can kind of operate their own workshops and nutrition seminars and things like that so they can make some more money outside of the person training floor. Uh, and then we also have independent profit paths where they get compensated for showcasing clients, writing articles, doing before and after photos , um, gathering video testimonials. So things that we would pay for anyways, but it just takes off our , our ad budget and gives it right to them. So there's a whole bunch of different ways that they get compensated.
Speaker 1:So you have like this, this punch list of stuff you need to do, and then they can go in there and say, Hey, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do this .
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah. And it's not , um, not mandatory by any means. They don't have to ha hit certain metrics on it. That's why we call it the, the IPP, the independent one. And , um, they can do as little or as much as they want to. So it's great for slower months , uh, especially in December or if they're having a trip coming up, holidays, things like that. You know, we pay them above industry average. Uh, we have full benefits. We give 'em tons of flexibility. And then the fact that we're so full, they don't have to be split shifts, you know, they don't have to work every single weekend. You know, they're doing 30 to 35 hours of PT on a 40 hour shift, filling it with some other things. So that work-life balance is a heck of a lot better. And , uh, the burnout is, it's not like what it is on the industry average. So just treat them good, you know, and then they'll treat you good, and then making sure that their schedules are full. That's, that's everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And for you , uh, the big things like ads, right? That's how , that's your bread and butter for client acquisition. Yeah,
Speaker 2:That's, that's mainly it. And just kind of go back , um, when you were asking about appointments, that's 4,000 just at the one location. The other location is about 27, 2800. So we're doing, you know, 7,000 appointments a month
Speaker 1:Across the system. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Across two locations. Wow . And this , the talents are no bigger than a hundred thousand people. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, when I heard about Jack Wheeler's gym, the first thing I did was I got on a plane and went to see it myself, <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Because
Speaker 1:I didn't believe it. You had to
Speaker 2:Drive hours from the airport. <laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we, we landed on the North Pole, and then it was a seven hour drive, <laugh> , and we went to the local Boston Pizza, and I saw it . That's , man , I saw it. I worked out, I drank the smoothies with my own , uh, bare hands. And , um, yeah, it's crazy. It's a, it's a revolving door. It's a machine, a well-oiled machine, and that was five or six years ago. So I imagine you have it more dialed in now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1:Actually more that would've been eight years ago. Yeah . Wow. Yeah, it's probably eight or nine years ago. We
Speaker 2:Have <laugh> , like a lot of the same typical offers, right? We've just streamlined the process and just mastered it and mastered it and mastered it so we don't have to recreate everything every single year or, you know, put a flashy new spin on it. The only person that needs it new and fresh is usually you, right? Your customers don't , um, your staff don't , uh, you just need to dial in a couple things and just get better and better and better and better and better at them. And just avoid that shiny object syndrome. Just get rid of that and just focus on, on the basics, master the fundamentals,
Speaker 1:And we will talk about some of those. Um, you know, this, this episode, this week of content is all about dominating your local market and just being the go-to choice for , uh, your specific niche, the people that you are looking to serve there. And so , um, for you, you own like personal training in Red Deer. If anybody's tossing, if anybody's by their phone , uh, you do some Google searching, you trying to find the best personal trainer in Red Deer, there is no way you are not coming across Jack's stuff. So maybe you can run across, like, was that deliberate? Like, did you hone in on personal training versus like gym or group training or any of the other words you could have targeted? And then how'd you go about like , uh, dominating that word?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like for, for SEO, it's, you know, frequency and volume and , and perpetuity, right? So we've been in business for 15 years at the one location and nine for the other. So like, the fact that we have all that stuff compounding on our digital platforms helps. It's not like we're really fantastic at it or put a whole bunch of money behind it. We're just really diligent on doing it every single month, doing the basics. And then we've just been doing it for longer than anybody else. You know, gyms in our town come and go left, right, and center. And then the ones that kind of do stick around are, you know, big brands, big brands with lack of SEO, you know, big brands that really don't care a a lot about their, their internal markets and more about the, the bigger brands behind it. So for the SEO kind of side, we blog one or two times a month. We make sure that those guys are SEO optimized. Uh , and then we just have everything tying back , uh, in all of our social media platforms. It has, like, our Town and what we do and Link and bio it's town and what we do, a lot of it is just tied back , uh, back and forth, which is nice. You just do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Right.
Speaker 1:If you're listening , uh, uh, I have the, I Googled Red Deer personal training, and so you literally, Jack is number one in the snack pack. So he ranks first for Google My Business. Uh , it actually says on the Google listing, 10 plus years in business, then he ranks number one for Red Deer personal training, and then the next is Yelp, in which he's the number one listing on Yelp. And then there's a couple of his competitors. Then it's his Mind Body Link, <laugh> , then it's his Facebook page. Oh, good. That's all on page one of Google. Nice .
Speaker 2:You're coming .
Speaker 1:Don't think
Speaker 2:He would from Florida <laugh>. And we don't, we don't pay for , uh, Google, like SEO ads, you know, we have video views and things like that, but we don't do the, the PPC clicks or anything. Our other stuff is just more important. So
Speaker 1:If you're, and again, like, I don't think Jack could have four things on page one of Google, if he was doing New York City personal training. There is a bias because Red Deer is a small town, but it's not, like he said, it's not a 5,000 person town. Like they got , they have a Boston Pizza
Speaker 2:<laugh> . So , so that means it's on that . I , we have two Boston Pizzas. Okay. Two , we got two , two Boston Pizzas a post office. Like, we're growing like fast <laugh> .
Speaker 1:No, all , all jokes aside, you said it's a 50,000 people. Oh ,
Speaker 2:Red, yeah. Red's about a hundred thousand people in Shore Park. Our other location is , uh, kind of a big suburb spinoff of a greater metro area called Edmonton. So it's just on the outside.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we got one, two. Yeah. So, and then on the second page, he, he , his personal training sub page is the number one listing on the second page. So again, I don't know where you would rank if we did Jim Red Deer. I don't
Speaker 2:Know . It's find out .
Speaker 1:It probably won't be as good. So yeah, if , if you look at Jim, he's not in the snack pack and , uh, he's, he makes page one. So he's, there's two competitors, two Yelp listings, a third competitor, and then you, so you're doing, you're, you're still on page one for gym , but you could see, you know, it's really been honing in on that specific thing, which I would imagine personal training is a much more valuable keyword to own than , than gym . Right, right. Like you're here on Anytime Fitness is number one for, and and that's what like a $20 a month membership. Yeah,
Speaker 2:They're a huge, big brand. You know, they, they come and go all the time. But the best thing about it is like, you wanna be known before they go to their Google. Right? When they go to their Google, it should just be to compound what they already know about you and all the good information about you and your studio already . So they're gonna go there after their consumer aware about you and what problems that you solve , right? You're not gonna go there to do homework and find out Facebook reviews and Google reviews and stuff like that, but you don't want it to, to be the first thing that they've heard about your business. Right. It should be a kind of sprinkle in there and another sign of like, Hey, yes, we mean business. We've been here for a long time. We've been doing this longer and better than anybody else assist and buy . Right? It's a , it's a validation of, of their homework on you. So they already come to Google already knowing pretty much everything about us that they're gonna need. And it just goes to, to relate that it's , they're making a good decision.
Speaker 1:So I, I know there's other, you know, you talked about doing SE related blog posts, and that's kind of where everyone's head, like SEO's blog posts, which isn't necessarily true. Like there is , uh, a length of time you've been in business. But there's also , um, one of the things that I think you do well is , uh, you win a bunch of awards. Yeah . And, you know, as someone who's got a bunch of awards on their wall, like , uh, some of that's like pay to play , right? Like you , you have to put, you have to be on their map. So can you talk about like, some of the places that you look for kind of like best of awards or how you go about that process?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we try to go as local as possible, you know, for, you know, we've been named Top 100 by Erha so many times we've been named to , you know, provincial leaderboards and National Leaderboards and all that fun stuff. And more often than not, your clients don't care, right? They, they want to have it local and something that , that means something to them. So we go for, we nominate , uh, we get nominated more often than not, or nominate ourselves for the local newspaper awards or local consumer choice awards, things like that, where they can, they can vote on it. There are pay to plays on that , uh, but not, you can't buy it out, you know, you can advertise on those sites or inside the newspaper or anything else. But the other ones , um, the newspaper guys, you can't, which is nice. And for us, we win Best Gym and best person trainer at both gyms every year, like rinse and repeat. And we know that we have to have outside players of our gym nominating in voting for us. 'cause we don't have enough people, you know, we have 400 members at one gym and 300 at another where the Good Lifes down the street got 5,000, right? So we know that if we have a hundred percent buy-in from our staff and our clients, we still won't be on on the radar. We have to have a community involvement. People that haven't been our customers and may never be our customers, they're still voting for us as the best gym because we've been around and we're doing things outside of our four walls, and not just on SEO.
Speaker 1:And links matter too. Like you say, the Ursa stuff doesn't matter. But if Ursa is an old domain, the organization's been around for a while , and them linking to you and saying, you're the best gym , that's a strong signal to group . Yeah, yeah . The , the whatever, red Deer Gazelle or whatever paper, like Exactly. You know, if you're the best personal trainer in 20 15, 20 16, 20 17, 20 18, 20 19, 20 20 all the way through, like, and you have all those links, like that's all cataloged and that reflects very well, that sends a very strong signal. Like, this is the best personal trainer. Like Google doesn't know how you , you know, the , your reward thing and how you got people to 500 people to vote for you. Like all it knows is like this article that says Best Personal Trainer in Red Deer, it links to 360 personal training it has for the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. It really does. And then it all ties into our social media. They bring us back to the blogs, and it's just kind of a big spider web , uh, into it. Uh, and then for like our blogs and everything too, it's , um, even on like our pages, it's not like that cryptic SEO stuff in 2014 where it's just read your personal training, does read your personal training, not read your personal trainer, you know, that kind of thing. You know, we make it , uh, very good for the, for the customer. We talk about pain points, things like that, and then draw things back , uh, with different links or actually when it makes sense. So it's a readable article, readable blog, and it's, it's doing the SEO at the same time, but not just in a spreadsheet looking thing like a lot of our competitors do.
Speaker 1:How much are you , uh, putting out? Like how many blog posts are you, are you churning out these days? Like
Speaker 2:One or two a month at each location? That's it. That's
Speaker 1:It. Okay. So it's nothing crazy.
Speaker 2:No, nothing. Nothing at all.
Speaker 1:And are you on the AI train or are you just,
Speaker 2:We can for ideas and stuff like that, but we got so much content anyways. Like it's, you're talking about the same 10 things over and over and over for fitness businesses and, and that's great. You don't need to, we use AI to kind of help us out on, on editing things like that for good ideas. Organic is nice and the way to go.
Speaker 1:I just love putting writing in there and just be like, what can I do to make this better? Yeah , exactly .
Speaker 2:Exactly . Bunch
Speaker 1:Of ideas. And , and it just like, it gives you , uh, it , it's like a great partner. Like it's if you had somebody sitting next to you and was giving you some feedback, which is , which is , uh, nice. Um, but it's pretty obvious when people are using it to write their entire blog posts. And I think people don't like that. So we talked about the award piece. We talked about honing in on that one offer, you know, CrossFit , uh, a lot of CrossFit gyms will listen to this, you know. Do you think if you were, if you were starting a CrossFit gym today, would you, would you focus on personal training or would you focus on being the number one CrossFit gym? Is that, you know, like you kind of have to Yeah , you can't do both really.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Like, we're not the the best group fitness place. We don't have the best classes. We don't have the best setup for it, so we can't compete on that. If I was gonna be a CrossFit gym, I would be the best CrossFit out there. And then once I built up my market, and I'd internally advertise that one-on-one person training for that VIP experience. But if somebody's looking at CrossFit, they're, they're maybe not thinking that one-on-one person training is their their best bet, right? That's not the service that they're looking for yet. Once they know I can trust you a lot more, then I would advertise that one-on-one to the interior market. But if I'm opening up a CrossFit box, it's, that's it. That's your primary niche focus. You can't be everything to everybody all at once . 'cause that means you're nowhere fast.
Speaker 1:And that, and that's a perfect point. Like it's something we've had a lot of conversations about where, you know , just because you offer nutrition and personal training and you have ice baths in your gym, it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna rank first. Like that's, that's not gonna get you in the number one spot if you're in a very small town, maybe. But like, if you are a CrossFit gym that also offers personal training, you are gonna lose to a guy like Jack. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Who all is writing his headline, the name of his gym literally says personal training in it. Whereas if Jack tried to offer a CrossFit, like affiliated and tried to offer a CrossFit program, like he's just not gonna rank compared to , uh, I don't , I don't know . Does CrossFit, does Red Deer, is there a CrossFit Red Deer anymore? We got,
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got like five or six at any given time, you know, and four of them always come and go, you know, because they're trying to be everything to everybody. And, and they're not known for anything. They're not known for anything at all, you know, and the names just kind of go ,
Speaker 1:That's not to say like, if you do CrossFit in a 1 0 1 setting, you can be like CrossFit personal training, like, you know , exactly. Like that could potentially work. Yeah . You know, you either need a signal group, you either need a signal private training, you need a signal small group training, and, and not try and be everything they ever do .
Speaker 2:Yeah. And like, your customers, like, you got five seconds, you got five seconds. They're gonna search the simplest term, the thing that they know you for, or the thing that you tell them that I'm known for. They're gonna search that. They're gonna Google that, you know, they're gonna ask their friends about those key words , you know, and you have a , a couple seconds to catch 'em, you know? And if it's not your bread and butter, you don't need to compete with them on it. You know, just focus on your niche, dial that in, and then double down .
Speaker 1:And so we talked about good Life in any time as competitors, people who are ranking in that snack pack for Jim and Red Deer, you know, they're, they're deep pocketed individuals. They got good SEO strategies. What kind of stuff are you doing , uh, to differentiate yourself from some of the larger competitors online?
Speaker 2:Yeah. For like digital things, for sure. It's really comes down to like our social media. We're quite different. You know, it's not just a generic post after generic post after generic post, you know, with , with some stock image, you know , and I take a look at our competitors and it is, they're asking for a sale. Every post, every post, no matter what. It's buy now, buy now, buy now. So like the consumer's first impression of these box big box gyms with personal trainers or even the , the personal training studios that we compete for, all they've ever seen from that person is when they're asking for something. Right? And then most personal trainers, it's the really just advertising for their own before and after photos , or their own booty shots or anything else like that. And nothing to do with their clients. So online, through like digital and social media, we are complete opposite than our , our competitors on purpose by design. So we have everything based on like education and info infotainment marketing on our social media, you know, it's tips, tricks, you know, strategies help first kind of mentality on our social media. And we just highlight our clients like nobody else. You know, probably once to three times a day we're doing client shutouts and profiles and showing the person that we want inside of our gym, getting the results that the customer wants as well. You know, and just really doubling down on that one. And then even when it's just outside of the organic, you know, free social media stuff, even our advertising is the same. We take 25% of our ad budget and put that towards educational brand marketing, you know, where we're solving small things for, for free. Handing out eBooks and video series and video courses and things like that. And actually putting money behind it so the customers in our local area get stuff for free from us and see client success photo , uh, videos and photos. So when they actually do see an ad, they have that no , like, and trust factor multiplied by 10. You know, they, they have that goodwill marketing a heck of a lot more than just that person. That's just like, the only time you ever see them is when they're knocking at your door asking for a sale.
Speaker 1:And you mean like when you , when you're saying that 25% towards Goodwill stuff, that's like your recipe books Yeah , exactly. At home workouts, like , yeah , basically like, yep , you bet. Lead magnet type stuff that's meant to solve a high , like target higher funnel traffic. Right ?
Speaker 2:Totally. And, and even just like specialized videos, it's crazy what happens. Like if we put up a video for free, post it out there, meh . But if we have it as like a opt-in wall where it's like, Hey, you know what? You're gonna get this special video, you know, based on, you know, top five things you could do for fat loss or things you could do in the new year to accelerate your fitness results and things like that. A specialized video for you, opt in here, you know, send them to a landing page, grab that, and that's just a , a video plan on the landing page or the, the thank you page that goes through the roof as well. You know, so as soon as you kind of have some exclusivity to it and kind of like a , an increased perceived value buying it, it's good. And a lot of the things we do on our social media too, we just package up into an ebook, you know, sleep tips or nutrition tips or things like that. We just put it in another form in another media, you know, put an opt-in wall in front of it and , and go. Um, but a lot of the people on our list have been on our list for six to 18 months, and they consume anywhere between like five and 10 of our products before they become customers, you know? So it's just like that goodwill stuff starts stacking all the way through. You know, we, you compound that with our community involvements, and then when they are ready to buy in any capacity, we're already top of mind and have been for, you know, six months plus.
Speaker 1:And you, once they opt into any of this stuff, you pepper them with follow up , right? Yeah . Like you have a , you have a pretty robust nurture sequence built up .
Speaker 2:Yep . Yeah. For everything. So all of our stuff, it just filters into, you know, automations that are relative to that ebook or that free thing, free resource from there. And then once they're done, those automations, they funnel into a greater one kind of a drip campaign, you know, newsletters and emails,
Speaker 1:Like long-term nurture
Speaker 2:Sequence . Yeah, exactly. Where it's more generic, where it doesn't matter what avenue or funnel they came in, they get followed up on for sure.
Speaker 1:And , um, you're also doing stuff out offline in the community as well. Like, I know you have like these dinners and stuff like that, <laugh> , what are some of the Yeah, I dinner undersells it is like, you wear like a suit and stuff. Like what, what , what are these like events that , uh, you know, you gotta wear a tuxedo to go to and Yeah . Sell stuff for your gym? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah. We just , uh, we try to get involved in the community as much as we possibly can. So we do two huge events every single year. They're both fundraising. Uh, one is more client centric and one is trainer centric. But we have our client awards gala , uh, every spring where we invite all of our clients in some community partners. And we just have a huge celebration. And it's kind of a red Carpet Academy Awards gala, you know, everybody gets all dressed up and fancy. We have a beautiful dinner. We handle awards all night . We do special shoutouts and recognition. Uh, we have some partners speak and some motivational speakers and that kind of stuff. And it's just awesome. Everybody gets all dressed up, we get to celebrate their successes. They mingle, they find new support systems. Um, the high fives are just endless all night. And then the community is so much more than just to coach the clients . You know, the , the clients are there for each other. They're supporting each other at the next four workouts . They recognize that face from the event before. And then every fall we do Restrainer revenge, where this is our big, big fundraiser where clients can, you know, pay to beat the heck out of us for a week. You know, they can buy exercises and workouts and kind of get revenge on the coach. And that's where the coaches kind of put their bodies in the line and, and see you can raise the most money for, for local causes. Uh, and then we sprinkle it in with , uh, uh, community events every, every month. It doesn't have to be crazy, you know, whether it's buddy week or a barbecue, or you know, a hike or let's go do stair runs together, or we're gonna watch the flames and Oilers games, things like that. You know, it's just as much community involvement and , uh, just another support system for them rather than just, just their workouts.
Speaker 1:All right . So you literally , uh, it sounds like you , you're doing one like once a quarter based off all the things you just rattled , uh, you just rattle off to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We try to do like something every month, really. And we try to do a bigger one sure. Every quarter, but this month it's 360 Fitness bingo. Next month it's going to be , uh, buddy week , the month after that in March it's gonna be a community workout. You know, just simple little things like that. Um, just getting people to these events and getting them to these events early in their membership is key. Like ideally in the first six weeks is, is where we personally invite them to the next upcoming event, you know, and just let them know that it's exclusively for , for those guys come on in and get them immersed in that community as much and as fast as possible.
Speaker 1:And you start everybody off with that six week challenge. Right. So you have like a systemized approach to doing this, I'm assuming? Yep .
Speaker 2:Yep . Everybody filters in. It's , um, it's rolling starts. We don't do like a start on the 15th and 30th, you know, once they buy, they book in at their next initial assessment phase and then get rolling. And it's a way for us to be able to, to sell one-on-one person Jenny , and not have to clump it in starts. We probably onboard 30 to 56 weekers at each location every single month and then convert 30 to 50% of them. And it just kind of keeps us going on that way.
Speaker 1:And in terms of offline activity, are you doing any offline advertising?
Speaker 2:Uh , sometimes we have direct mail, but it's very, very specific. We know that our ad dollars can go farther and be tracked better online digital stuff. But for the, the offline marketing, a lot of that is goodwill marketing and community involvement. You know, just getting involved with some of the big fundraisers, finding out where your ideal target market clients are, and then supporting those causes that are near and dear to their hearts. You know, being at their black tie fundraisers, handing out , uh, selling auction items and raffle prizes at their high events . Finding out where they are in town. Whether it's, you know, if you're, you're going after hockey kids, then target the hockey parents, go to the arenas, that kind of stuff. You know, for us, our target market is 55-year-old women and men, you know, so we're targeting them in certain places, you know, we're not looking at the, the arcades, you know, we're not advertising there. So just finding out where that target market is and just really honing in . But we do a lot of, a lot of community involvement with giveaways , uh, selling auctions and raffle items to the higher end , you know, fundraisers in town and just could be being in the right, right rooms at the right time.
Speaker 1:We used to , uh, get hit up for things like that very frequently. And , um, we played around with a few different offers. We never had one that crushed. What did , what's your kind of go-to giveaway for sale auctions and , uh, charity things where they , where they ask you to participate and donate? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Like handing out like a gift certificate just meh . It really meh. So we have our own supplement line, which is great. So we bundle that together, you know, whether it's like gym bag and uh , vitamins and greens with uh , we call it a PT kickstart where it's an initial assessment and a couple free sessions. You know, so the total value is a couple hundred dollars, you know, people are voting or are not voting, but , uh, putting down 1, 2, 3, $400 worth on that. It's nice when you're gonna sell an auction, you gotta stand out and just another gift certificate or another gift card or a blank piece of paper with no established value, it's not gonna get you anywhere. So we just have this raffle thing that we put out. It's just tons of social proof, our address, exactly what we're all about, the product that goes with it. So they get something tangible in their hand to hold value. And then that PT kickstart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we would've, whenever we gave gift cards, we'd find that, like the person who bought it was already a member at our team . Yep . And then exactly . Just come reuse the gift card at half price. So over
Speaker 2:And over and over again,
Speaker 1:I had to get the giveaway . Yeah. Just literally shooting myself in the foot twice there. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So, so you do like a supplement bundle Yep . And an assessment. So you're not giving away like six weeks of training or
Speaker 2:Anything like that . No. And you don't need to, right. They're not looking for that. And a lot of times too, it's like that too , that's too much to chew on right off the bat. Right before they know, like, and trust us. So a lot of times this would be the first time they see us just having the, the product there with it , it holds space on the table too. It's very eye catching. It's different than anything else there. It's branded with our, our logo and everything too. So it kind of just increases that value and makes us look like heavy , heavier hitters than we are. And then just the extra couple sessions to go along with it easy. And if they're not sold in the first initial assessment, they're , you know,
Speaker 1:It's not gonna buy anyway. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Right. And free sucks. You know, it's like if, if they're are getting at low, low value on that, they're not gonna show up. So it's just chasing somebody for six weeks. So just give 'em the , the low barrier offer and you're good to go.
Speaker 1:Especially for like private or small group training. 'cause you know you're paying for those sessions. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Good long
Speaker 1:Group's . Slightly different monster, you know, 'cause a coach shows up whether there's 10 people or 11. You
Speaker 2:Bet. Yeah. Ours has a lot of fulfillment needs, so we can't be just handing that stuff out Willy-nilly. But more often than not, like we only give out those products to current members now, and then they go to their charities of choice or you know, they're on the board of directors or a shop caller or an event coordinator thing , things like that. Like, we get hit up, no joke every day, every day for at least one thing. And we only give it out to current members and ex members . You know, they're in the circles that we already want, you know, they usually have an affinity to make us look better, do better. They pump us up all the time, or, Hey, that's my gym, go check it out. Things like that. Like they're , they're somewhat on the payroll. It , it feels like, and it works a lot better. You
Speaker 1:Want an inside job, you want Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Exactly .
Speaker 1:Talking that silent, that supplement pack up
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Right. It it really, really is. I know it sounds corny, but Yeah, they're, they're pumping it more than we could ever. Right. Uh, and they're, they're with the people that we know can come to our gym, you know, they're the affluent markets. They're usually the same age and, and social circles and, and roles and responsibilities and jobs and things like that. So they're already there. So they took, took us in with them. We got through the doors.
Speaker 1:So you're saying you're only giving the auction items to people who are existing members? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or ex members . Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That , that sent my mind to referrals. I know you are the process king, so I know you have a , uh, referral process. So, so what are you doing to drum up community referrals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just do , uh, one direct referral to the six feet challenge. So it's a win-win for everybody. We have actually, I've got some here. We've got these little cards at the front just like this where it's like, Hey, you know what? Somebody really loves you. Your transformation awaits, you know, you got a good human , uh, with you. It says, Hey, this member is referring this person. And then they get $50 off for six week challenge, and then they get a $50 kickback too. So it's awesome. And then the members gonna choose whether they want to give that credit to the new member to sign up, give 'em an extra discount, or to put it on their account for a floating credits. It's real easy. Just funnel everybody towards that. And we just pump it at Buddy weeks. We have internal marketing and posters around the gym, on our Facebook page , um, inside of our nutrition manuals. Just very, very easy. We tell 'em how to make a referral, what to do, what's in it for them, and then what can they expect. Just
Speaker 1:Simplify what's a buddy week?
Speaker 2:A buddy week is just, they get to bring a friend to their one-on-one person training sessions. That's it. Yep . Very simple. They fill out a little form, you know, we pre-qualify them on the form. That's their waiver as well. Uh , and then the sales team looks over that, you know, while they're getting their butt kicked for their session . They kind of do a little follow up at the end, give us some feedback on the session. We ask 'em about their goals, you know, if they had fun here, by the way, you get this $50 off the six week membership, you know, let us know. But let's get you booked in right now. It's pretty, it's just simple. Like, it's nothing extraordinary. It's nothing groundbreaking. We just do the due due diligence and, and follow up like mad .
Speaker 1:And how, how frequent do you do that?
Speaker 2:Once a quarter, ideally for buddy week. It's gotta be special. And
Speaker 1:How many , uh, like how many members will take you up on that and actually bring somebody
Speaker 2:Probably about 50 to a hundred at each gym.
Speaker 1:So that's like a , you said you had around 300 at Sherwood
Speaker 2:And at one and 400 at the other. Yeah. Yeah . So a couple hundred members, 25
Speaker 1:To 30%.
Speaker 2:And like your main referers are , you know, 10% of your clients are gonna refer 90% of your new , new members. Right. So the people that are referring for us, you know, they're bringing in three or four members that week. It really is like they're, they're the big guns on that one. You know, they're bringing in a couple friends here and there every single quarter.
Speaker 1:And do you do anything special for those people? Like do you have like , uh, yeah .
Speaker 2:Ip ? Yeah, no , like systems or whatever else, but we pull reports every single month of, you know, who's spending the most, who's referring the most, who's buying the most product, things like that. And we just give 'em some free things or even shout outs or even this little tech saying, thank you. You know, our, our target market is different . You know, they're not looking for handouts. They're looking for status and recognition when it comes down to it. Uh, and just giving them the podium, you know, just giving 'em a pat on the back, calling 'em out publicly in front of their, their friends and thanking them, you know, in the semi-private or, or at the studio. Like that goes a long way for our members versus just like, here's a coupon that they don't care about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're paying five, $600 Exactly . For gym membership. I , I can't imagine No
Speaker 2:<laugh> no . That the
Speaker 1:$50 they're getting is really , uh, you know, moving the needle a lot.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So like for that personalization, just to kind of give you an example of it, you know, we used to do like automatic emails at birthdays and anniversaries and here's a hundred dollars off and here's 25 bucks off, and like digital coupons and stuff. Now, literally other or birthday workouts or their anniversary week, we have a custom shake for them, a handwritten card by all the clients, or all the staff members hand 'em that in front of their, their friends and their other, you know , co-work workout buddies. And that goes way farther. So like 10 bucks in a couple minutes versus hundreds of dollars just blast out in an email chain.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And uh, you mentioned for your referral cards that you advertise 'em in the gym. That's something that , um, I think you do better than most people, is you have, you market your existing products to your existing clientele in the gym, like everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah . They're your best customers.
Speaker 1:Can you talk a little bit about that? Like , uh, you know, I, people think like they're , they're probably imagining some like weird printed out clip art thing or some like, you know, dingy thing stapled to the wall. Like when I say Jack does , uh, like advertising, these are like, you know, he's got like steel frame , uh, steel frame pictures or , or , or hangers with like , uh, you know, nice professionally designed posters in them. And you , you're pushing your smoothie program. You're pushing referrals, you're pushing social proof. What are, what are the things are you pushing
Speaker 2:Mainly those guys, those posters? Yeah, like when we talk about our marketing, we go just as hard on internal marketing as we do external marketing. You know, whether that's pumping people for referral campaigns, prizes, surveys, product deals, supplement deals, that kind of stuff. You know, we do internal and external marketing every single month, you know, and , um, we find that it works best on that. Uh , and then for kind of the marketing around the gym, yeah, we have posters everywhere in the washrooms at the front desk, in the waiting areas, things like that by the treadmills everywhere. So they kind of know exactly what's going on, what the next events are, you know, what the deals are, what the shake of the week is, things like that. And then at the very, very front surrounded by social proof is our community board where it's like January, here's all the events, you know, here's invited, here's who's the host is, this is Where're meeting, this is the cost, February, March. They kind of see it that way. And we also do like for all new members and then conversions, you know, we give them samples , uh, for all of our supplements and products, we do free demo days. Like we're constantly just telling people about what we actually have. 'cause you'd be so surprised if like your full-time members that have been there for months, if not years, don't know everything that you sell. You know, they don't know what the greens tastes like, and they haven't had a shake yet in six months. And like, you'd be so surprised. You're always looking for that new customer where the best ones are already inside your gym. You , you just want to increase the average client expenditure rather than finding new customers every single day.
Speaker 1:And when I hear like an event every month, like, like being physically out in the community is hard, and then planning events and these galas and stuff, that's, that's also like very taxing and requires a ton of logistics. Uh, and you're multi-location. So I'm assuming you're not driving to Edmonton every month to go to every single event. Who's planning all who, who manages all this? Who's planning? What are the expectations? Especially with staff? I know a lot of people , uh, that's a gray area. How , how do you handle all that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like I , I'm more or less helping the decision making process, but our general managers and our leadership team at both studios, they, they're the bread and butter behind it. You know, they make it all happen. I just give them very clear instructions, give them a lot of autonomy inside of it, give them what success looks like. You know, some plans , uh, and just there for supports and they're the ones doing it. But you have to choose your busy. Like it's, you , you could be really, really busy helping your, your own internal clients with these events and stuff. Or every month having to sign up a hundred new members or chasing down 40 members every single month because they're not paying or abandoning your gym. Like, you're gonna be busy anyways. Right. But you just have to kind of choose your heart and choose where you want to put your reference into it. You know, every single time that we do these things, new members, it spikes, retention goes through the roof even more. You know, average client expenditure goes up, LTV goes up, like all these things. So rather than just like chasing new stuff or working on new marketing material or the new fancy thing, like, you're gonna gonna be busy. So you might as well just choose what you wanna be busy on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I'm looking here, you're, you must have good participation. You said you're, you're churning 4,000 sessions in Red Deer. Yep .
Speaker 2:And then just under 3000 in bigger
Speaker 1:Four across 400 member members. So, so the average member shows up 10 times a month. 10.5.
Speaker 2:Yep . Yep . 10.5.
Speaker 1:So yeah. That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's something we track. That's a big KPI for us. We bonus it out for our coaches on that , uh, as well. 'cause we know like it doesn't matter how much they spend, it's how often they show up, right. Their , their engagements and then whether they're using their sessions. 'cause that leads to results, that leads to referrals, that leads to longer memberships. You know, it just keeps spinning.
Speaker 1:And do you offer unlimited, like do you have people coming six, seven times a week? No. Like, I'm pretty sure Max , the max I can go to your gyms week . Yeah. Four times
Speaker 2:A week. So
Speaker 1:Four .
Speaker 2:Yep . Yep . Four. That's it. And then like, the great thing about it is if , if they need extra, it's usually just can only do a little bit of cardio. You know, do a little bit of cardio
Speaker 1:Here . I just give 'em the space to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I don't , I don't think we talked about this in the beginning. How much, like how many square feet are your spaces? 'cause you know , people here in cardio area smoothies , uh, like they're probably thinking like a 30,000 square foot gym. No,
Speaker 2:No ,
Speaker 1:It really isn't that. No.
Speaker 2:Like we have 8,000 square feet in one gym and 6,500 in the other. And to be honest, you know, our 8,000 square feet gym is over three floors. We have staircases and lobbies and like, it's a ton of wasted space, but like wasted space, but non effective , non-revenue generating space for sure. Um, but we could definitely get away with five or 6,000 each location. Easy, easy. We have a lot of like, luxury space. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be really well laid out and , and optimized.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I've heard over and over is just the word simple, you know? And , and it seems like , uh, a lot of times we'll talk with gym owners, once they get like a modicum of success, they, they , they , they tend to go complicated. But when I talk to the, the grizzled vets, the, the 15 year, the 20 year open, like that , that , that word comes up over and over and over and over again. People hit you up all the time asking you for advice. If you are talking to a gym owner who, who's getting a little more successful, maybe wants to add another program or wants to maybe do a completely different offering, like how are you coaching those people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, usually they're looking for new for them, right? Not new for their, for their clients or their prospects. And I, they usually have a lot of runway left be before they should change the offer. You know, sometimes the offer just up sucks, you know, and it's, let's trash it and get rid of it. But more often than not, the offer is great. It's just not well executed, you know, or they're not per getting the value to the customer better. Really when it comes down to it, like, I don't care what you do, whether it's a 21 day, 28, day , six week , 12 week nine, it doesn't matter. You know, you package up a low barrier offer where you're solving a bunch of things for them. It makes it really simple for them to buy. They know exactly what's, what's included. You know, what the price is, what the investment is, what you expect from them, you know, what's going on afterwards. And then just hammer it down. And then making sure that they actually feel included wanted and are engaging during that process, rather than trying to sell as many as you can and then letting them through the door and hoping that they stay, you know, treating them like a full-time, VIP member on day one, whether it's a trial or not. Yeah. A lot of these guys that have a brand new program every month, like it's just, they're spinning their tires. They really are.
Speaker 1:Well , I , I was at a , I was at an event this week with , uh, a bunch of gym owners and I remember one of the conversations, like one of the guys was like, my gym hit 30,000, I think I've hit the ceiling. Like, it's time to open a new gym. <laugh>,
Speaker 2:No , you got so much more room.
Speaker 1:And so I'm like, no, it's time for you to double down and hit 60,000 in the gym.
Speaker 2:You have . Yeah . And then 90, yeah. Like you can always find more inside of your, your four walls. You know, we've, we've made those mistakes before where we thought like vigorous better and vigorous better, and like, oh, we're capped at four coaches and oh , we're capped at 40,000 months and things like that. And now we're doing, you know , 140 a month at one and 110, 120 at the other. And like, you always find new ways, you know, whether it's through new internal services, again, like our intro offers are the same, you know, we do specialty services and things like that. Or just making the members that you have there more valuable, sell them bigger memberships for longer term . That's way easier than having like a million different services.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I , I mean, I remember when , uh, we first met, I think you were charging like $250 for your six week challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah. Now it's 700. It
Speaker 1:Was like Yeah, exactly . So you tripled the price and Yeah . And put more people in it. And so ,
Speaker 2:And we have better close rates. Like it's
Speaker 1:Crazy and probably better results and
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Isn't that strange when people are invested, you know, mentally, emotionally, financially, everything, you know, and then it enables us to pay our coaches better, you know, have better equipment, better front desk staff, more of the amenities that are our members want. You know, we say that we're high value and we have to actually have high value, you know, we can't say we're the best. And then just like they open the doors and it's just a cardboard box. Yeah, yeah . It's not a car sale. Like, we have to make a sale every single time that they're there. You know, you're making the sale either on the membership or you're making a sale to tell them like, good job on buying this membership. Stay here.
Speaker 1:Right. And, and that's a , we could probably do a two hour podcast just on, on the, the ways of Jack Wheeler's sales. Um, but , um, I don't, I don't wanna put us too far down that hole now in terms of any other advice you would give to gym owners? You know, let's , uh, let's make it more specific. If , if you were speaking with , uh, Jack Wheeler 10 years ago, what advice would you give that man?
Speaker 2:Well, since we're on the top , we have like that local markets , I really would've doubled down on my competitive advantages. Your competitive advantage is that you are local, you are a face and you are in the community. So rather than trying to be just like a good life or be just like at any time , or be just like this huge CrossFit brand or Orange 30 Fitness or whatever else, I would just double down and be the exact opposite on purpose. Like when you have such a, a small little , uh, town or a small little local market, double down that you are local, that you are special, that you are involved, you know, that kind of thing. Rather than just trying to be like one of the other guys and race to the bottom, you know, and just keep dropping your prices and closing up gyms every five or six years. That's what I would just do a little bit different, just double down on your skills that you actually have and the , and the , the competitive advantages that you actually have rather than just trying to be another gym.
Speaker 1:Well, Mr. Wheeler, you always bring the heat. I always love it. Where do people go if they want a little more Jack Wheeler in their life? Yeah ,
Speaker 2:We're all over the socials as you know, just search us on, on Googles and stuff. But we have , um, our Instagram accounts and our Facebook is probably the , the best way to do it, but it's just 360 Fitness, red Deer, 360 Fitness , Shua Park , Shua Park, and we'll pop up there .
Speaker 1:We are. Or you can just Google personal training, red Deer and That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah . We'll be there
Speaker 1:Four . The 10 links. You're gonna find them , so . Exactly ,
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, this is awesome and people are gonna get a ton of value out of it , uh, as always. Thank you very much. You're
Speaker 2:Up , John . Talk to you soon .