How Steph and Jordan Had 55% Revenue Growth While Doubling Their Gym Size

[00:00:00] Hello, my friend on today’s podcast, I have two incredible Unicorn Society members. It’s Steph and Jordan, who are the co owners of ROI strength, personal training in Virginia, and they’ve been absolutely crushing it lately. They had about 55 percent year over year revenue growth while doubling the size of their gym and hiring four new staff all in one year.

So they’ve been really crushing it and building systems in their business and growing things very quickly. And I have them break down all the things they’ve been doing that have been making Difference in helping them scale and grow their gym so quickly. And we’re going to share all that with you today.

So if you’re in, uh, in the mood for some hot tips on how to grow and scale your gym with a lot of success, get your pen and paper ready. Cause we’re going to dive in. Let’s do it. Hello, fitness, business nerds. What’s up. Welcome to another episode of the business podcast. Before we jump into today’s episode, You know, the studio owners create a business and a life they love and it’s down below your host Michael Keeler.

It’s called join me and the business [00:01:00] team each week. And as always, you just don’t wear one hat and the inside scoop really takes and because of that, it’s often hard to unlock your potential and become a real uniform report card we’ve made for you. You can do an under 10 minutes and it helps you assess what areas of the business you’re feeling really great in and what areas of the business you’re not.

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And it’s free. So get it right now, which brings me to today’s episode by two guests today know very well about juggling multiple priorities in their gyms. We’re going to talk about that today. So welcome to the podcast for the very first time, Stephanie and Jordan, who are the co owners of ROI strength, personal training in Virginia, unicorn society members, extraordinary.

Welcome to the podcast. Thanks. Thanks for [00:02:00] having us. Thank you. What a treat. It’s so rare that I have two people at the same time. So I feel like this is like a party on the podcast today. Definitely. And Steph or Jordan, one of you, do you want to take a moment to say what is ROI, who you serve, how you serve them, and we’re going to get into some of the amazing success you’ve had recently.

So Steph, why don’t you kick us off? Sure. Yeah. ROI is mostly a personal training studio. So we do one on one and two on one training sessions. We have a team of about to be. 6 of us. There’s six employees, one independent contractor, and we serve mostly the older adult population. Really, you’re a busy professional that’s trying to get in their workouts within their day, still juggling all of life, up to even the retired individuals who are really trying to take care of themselves as they get into kind of the fun part of their stage of life where they get to enjoy some things.

I love that. Yeah. I love that. That’s fantastic. And your team has been growing lately, which we’ll talk more about in a few minutes, Jordan, what would you say helps [00:03:00] you stand out from the rest of the crowd in your market? What makes ROI a little different? Yeah. I think Steph and I come from a similar but different background.

I was an athletic trainer, she’s a doctor of physical therapy, so we definitely have more of that. Medical rehab background and everything, but I sharpened my ax in the big box gym space for seven years. And Steph was in the sports performance space for half a decade. And we combined the two took the good, the bad and the ugly and made it for mid.

Good training, accessible for adults and kind of a comfortable environment. Yeah. That’s amazing. I was just saying, before we started this podcast, every time I hear about the two of you from our coaching team at business, Phoenix Koreans, they just talk about how much you all are crushing it and just really doing such a great job of building systems in your business, growing your team.

And so I wanted to have you on the podcast today, just as like, how are you doing it? What are, tell me about the wins you’ve been having. I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, you had a 55 percent revenue increase from 2023 to 2024, which is pretty huge. At the same time, you [00:04:00] also moved into a bigger space from, I think, 1500 square feet to 3300 square feet, which was amazing.

So that’s a lot to juggle. Congrats first for getting through all of that. Let’s just talk a little bit about that move. So Steph, how did you know when you’re in that 1500 square foot space, how did you know that it was. The time to move was approaching and maybe just maybe talk a little bit about how did you start to make that decision?

Yeah So I think you know, I mentioned before that we honestly got into this not really knowing what our vision would look like Yeah We thought it’d be jordan and I forever and then we naturally had some people who approached us who wanted to be a part of the team and we’re like Oh, this is what that could look like and honestly, it just grew very fast.

So we really outgrew that space Probably even with a year or more left on our lease. So even within that year, it took us actually a year to negotiate this spot that we’re now in. So we looked well ahead of time. We pursued all options. We discussed with a current landlord, buying a potential [00:05:00] building. We looked at different spaces all over.

So it was really a whirlwind, but ultimately we knew we wanted to stay in the same geographical location. And. So we really strayed, stayed true to being over here on the South side in Virginia. Uh, South side, best side is where it’s at. Uh, and yeah, that’s great. It was all a natural development really.

Yeah. It’s great that you all were able to grow so quickly and then had the forethought to start looking and planting those seeds early because like you said, it can take a year or more sometimes to do those negotiations and find a new place to, to move. So Jordan, once you all decided you were going to move.

What did you do to make that transition as seamless as possible for your staff and your clients? Yeah, I think we communicated. Steph is awesome at, from the communication side to both our members and our staff. So we sent out a poll beforehand of, Hey, would you all follow us? I know it’s a. A mile and a half down the road, which seemingly seems insurmountable for some, but we [00:06:00] communicated that we got really good feedback.

They were all super excited. We kept them informed throughout the way. And really we pride ourselves on being transparent as humanly possible. And we just continue that throughout the duration of the process and everybody. Everybody loved it and are super excited to be able to spread out a little bit.

Yeah, that’s amazing. I talk a lot about this podcast about how to manage change projects in our businesses. And one of the things that I’ve experienced and you just articulated here and the research shows really clearly is that the sooner you can involve people in a change initiative, the more likely they are to have buy in and for that initiative to be successful.

So the fact that you included your clients very early on, even like polling them and getting their thoughts and opinions. Is fantastic. Any other lessons learned from that period, Stephanie? Oh, man. At that time, we weren’t with BFU, but we did have an individual coach that was really helping us. And a lesson learned is that you can’t do it alone, really.

The nice part of our job is that We’re in the relationships job. And so having a support team throughout [00:07:00] all of that was a game changer. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s so hard when you’re so busy running the business every day to have a, to be able to have an extra eye and a hand outside of the business every day, to be working on what’s next and building the next thing, that’s a heart.

That’s a hard act to juggle. And so the fact that you’ve had some extra external support is fantastic. All right. Let’s talk about the, since you’ve been in this new space, you’ve really been growing your team a lot. And I know one of the systems you’ve been working on building and developing is your hiring system.

So I don’t know what whichever wants to go first, but walk me through. What have you done to build out a hiring system that works for you? Cause I think you hired four people in the last year. Is that right? Yes. Which for Jim’s most of our listeners, that’s a lot of people in one year. So walk me through, what is the hiring process look like that got you to this point?

The hiring process, I will say we learn and evolve a little bit as we go. Even this upcoming hiring onboarding process is a little different, but we’re very extensive. We’re selective on who reach out, reaches out or who we get through Indeed. We send them a Google [00:08:00] form that goes through eight or 10 questions to just get a kind of like.

And it’s an easy way for us to see without hopping on a phone call. And then from there we’ll do a phone screen. And then after a phone screen, we come in and have them observe the facility. Cause again, I think we are a little different and doing just one on one, two on one and working with the older population.

And then from there, if they fit the bill and they’re interested, we have them do a working interview where we send them. Some past programs from our clients and they have to create a program and then they come in and they coach the program. And then past that, even I did a secondary round of questioning this last round.

We do a reference check and then from there, onboarding is going to change, but we’re in the process of doing a massive onboarding curriculum to be very specific with the process we’re doing it. Yeah. That’s fantastic. I love that you went through all those steps, honestly, Steph, because too [00:09:00] often people’s interview processes, they came in, and I talked to them for 20 minutes, and then I put them on the floor, and I was like, wait, what?

Reverse. And I think that old adage, I think there’s some truth to, right? The higher slow and fire fast. I think sometimes we can’t, we don’t have the luxury of going slow, but when we can be picky, when we can take them through this very clear multi step process, I think it’s so valuable to picking the right people.

People, because as you said, we’re in the relationships business. So if you get the wrong vibe in the gym, it really ruins so much of what we work so hard to create. Yeah. Jordan, what have you found are some of the most important parts of the interview process for you? Yeah. I think it’s figuring out what’s important to us, I think.

And so just because someone looks good on paper, it doesn’t really mean it translates well to actually facilitating the sessions and being a part of it. being part of the group. So I think being very clear with our expectations and kind of things that we take for granted because we’ve put in so much time and experience and stuff that we just like, [00:10:00] Oh, of course they’re going to do that.

And then it’s unfair to them to not have those expectations laid out. And it’s, Frustrating to us to expect things without communicating that on the front end. Yeah, it’s one of those moments every manager and leader goes through is that heartbreak of realizing there’s no such thing as common sense Right.

It’s just like a heartbreaking to realize. Oh, no I do have to clarify every single thing that I want. I have to clarify what Being on time means what looking professional means. I have to clarify every single part of it because people are not mind readers. And so I think I’m so with you on that, Jordan, right now, you all go through that moment of realizing, Oh, this has to be painfully clear, right?

I have to be so sick of talking about it. That’s how clear it has to be. Hey there, business unicorns podcast listeners. I’m just making absolutely sure you have already gotten your free instantly downloadable copy of my new book, the little book of Jim marketing secrets. You can find a link to download it in the show notes, or you can [00:11:00] go to jimmarketingsecretsbook.

com. I worked super hard to make sure this is a less than a 30 minute read and as a comprehensive overview of all the things you need to do. To grow your gym, get more leads, more clients, and importantly, change more lives. Again, find the link in the show notes where you can download your free copy at gymmarkingsecretsbook.

com. And now back to the podcast. Let’s just go back to your hiring process for a second, Steph, because there’s a lot of parts in there I think people might have heard before, used to, but I think there’s some parts that people are maybe not as common, right? So doing a screen up front of a bunch of questions, like through a Google form, I think is fantastic, even before your phone screen.

Can you just say a little bit, what are a few questions you like to ask in those, in that form? Yeah, some are like motivational interviewing and behavioral interviewing questions, but honestly, some of them are. How much experience do you have with just one on one and how confident are you in the personal side of personal training and just communication?

Some of it is logistics. What do you want your schedule to look like? Because we don’t [00:12:00] tell somebody be here from eight to five, but we say, Hey, work 30 hours on the floor or whatever it may be. And then we asked what was. One of your biggest successes in life. Tell us why, what you did and why. We can also, we also jump into kind of who are some of the resources that you go to when you want to learn information, which is huge.

I look at that question a lot. Posting teen nation and bodybuilding. com, which is not a bad thing, but so yeah, there’s some helps understand like where’s the information coming from? How has our worldview forms? What are the things that really influenced their way of thinking about fitness? Tells you a lot.

Yeah. So it’s pretty, it has a couple of questions from a couple of different areas we feel are important to get a bigger picture of the individual. Yeah, that’s amazing. All right. So you’ve already learned so much in the last year or so from moving into a new space, hiring lots of people, creating this amazing hiring system, which is still, I’m sure work in progress, but you’ve also built a lot of other systems.

When I asked you before this call, what are some of the systems that mattered [00:13:00] most? The first thing out of your mouth was you all getting clear about your roles and responsibilities as owners. Like having that really be systemized and clear about this is my dance space. This is your dance space. This is the dance space we share, right?

It’s a thing that all partnerships need to get good at. So you both just walk me through, what did you do to get more clear about your roles and responsibilities as co owners? Yeah, I think we started with a good old fashioned Rocky chart and just so we innately knew what we were both good at. And so I love spreadsheets and starting with a blank page and kind of creating from there.

And Steph is amazing with kind of the communication and organization and everything like that. So it naturally led us to certain roles. And then it’s a matter of. And I think where we’re at now is how do we communicate what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it. And so the benefit is we’re married, so we spend a lot of time together, but it’s amazing how little time you [00:14:00] actually have to talk about stuff that matters.

And also kind of like tune out and just recover. Yeah, it doesn’t happen by accident. We’re so on, and research shows this, right? We’re on autopilot a lot of our day, trying to take as many shortcuts as possible to maintain our energy and our sanity. And so if we could stay on the autopilot, we’re going to stay having the same conversations we’ve always had, right?

But really crafting out time in your day to make sure you’re Planning to take time to talk about what are you working on? Here’s what I’m working on. What do you need help with? Here’s what I need help with. What do I need? What do I want to be kept in the loop about? What do I not want to be kept in the loop about all of those kinds of decisions don’t happen by accident.

Yeah. What would you add to that stuff? What else, what other parts of the process really found? Did you find valuable? No, I would echo kind of everything that he said. I think the biggest lesson for me maybe was I found out that. Um, maybe some of the things we both enjoy doing doesn’t necessarily mean those are the things we should be doing.

Um, [00:15:00] uh, so Give me an example on that one. Well, more recently, um, I, I love kind of the social media and marketing side of things. Um, I’m a person that can go out and compare to the two of us, maybe talk to anybody about our business. But when it comes to developing content and developing social media, I’m a perfectionist.

And so I can get lost for hours in one post or one idea where Jordan is more of a, I got 30 minutes and it’s gonna be 99 percent good and that’s good enough. And so he’s taken on more of that this quarter and it’s definitely more efficient and still going pretty well for us. Yeah, that’s amazing. In fact, you can be just really honest with each other and have that conversation is fantastic and that’s what makes good partnerships is the results will be better because of your combined strengths, right?

And until you until and some of the times leveraging that means someone’s got to let go. And that’s one of the hardest things you do in relationships, right? Is say, [00:16:00] okay, I believe this, but like, let’s let it be yours. And that’s tough. That’s tough, but good for you. I love so much about what you all shared, one, that you started to write it down and actually get organized about roles and responsibilities.

You talked about not just what each of you is going to do, but how are you going to keep each other in the loop about. What you’re going to do, right? And that’s the place where a lot of partnerships get hairy, is that you both have clear lanes to run in, but the other person wants to be looped in, or the other person wants approval, or the other person wants their opinion to be heard on some topics.

And the more you can get clear about all that in advance, the less likely you are to have Toes being stepped on and hurt feelings, it’s going to happen, right? But it’s less likely when you get organized like that. So that’s fantastic. So for anyone out there who’s listening, what advice do you all have for business partnerships out there, married or otherwise, if they’re going to, if they want to start getting more clear about their roles and responsibilities, where do they start?

I think it has to start with identifying who’s in what seat. Especially early on. It’s like you’re doing everything [00:17:00] together or on your own. And so if you identify someone as responsible, like you have to let them go on with it and everything provide feedback. Don’t take the feedback personally. Like it’s not a, it’s not applied on you.

It’s just ways to make it better and everything like that. And so clearly identifying who’s it’s going to be. And then being human and just like having a conversation being like, yeah, I think the most important part of that I think we identified is setting aside time for those conversations, right?

Because one thing to say, Oh, yeah, we both agree. We’ll do that. We’ll give each other feedback. But then like, when? How? And so having a dedicated meeting or set period of time where you do check in on each other’s work and each other’s project projects is really critical. Yeah, so that’s good. Anything you would add to that stuff?

No, I think still like the comment I had last time of just like maybe taking a little bit more of an internal look on Okay, like what do you enjoy versus what are you good at? And where’s your time best spent and Delegating or passing something off is [00:18:00] probably almost always a better call for some of those so Totally.

Yeah. I think there was a, there was one of our coaches on the business unicorns team. I actually forget who in this moment, sorry, if you’re listening, I forget who just told me this, but they walked through an exercise with one of our fellow unicorn sighting members about the same topic. And they basically created a matrix for them of tasks that I like.

Tasks I don’t like. Tasks that give me energy. Tasks that take my energy. Right? Tasks that make me money. Tasks that don’t make me money. Right? And then you create this kind of matrix for them to think through what’s the overlap there. And if you have a business partner, both of you could do that exercise.

Then look at the Venn diagram of how does that connect with one another. So I think thinking through that is important. It’s really important. Yeah. Thanks for that stuff. All right. Go ahead, please. The only thing I was going to say, and I think it was helpful at least from a personal level is we did do a Myers Briggs personality test when we first started.

So something, if you do have a business partner, I do think taking some type of kind of self assessment or personality [00:19:00] test to. If anything, maybe understand how you tick and understand how the other person ticks and just grow appreciation for where those strengths can really propel you guys forward. So yeah, 100%.

I think those kinds of self assessments are really great conversation starters. I think I’m going to both say yes. And I’m going to add onto your suggestion here, Steph. Yes. Go find one of those, like the Myers Briggs. There’s a disc, there’s a million of them and let them be a conversation starter. And don’t let them be a permanent label, because they’re just a preference, right?

What they’re doing is they’re asking you on paper to tell us about your preferences, and they’re labeling your preferences. But personality isn’t permanent, right? And so there’s a whole book called The Personality Isn’t Permanent. And so don’t let those be a crutch. Or a barrier for the only way you can be, but be a really great conversation starter for what do I like?

What are the ways I like to work with ways you like to work? Cause we want to be in our zones of genius. We want to be in the lanes that really excite us most. So I love that suggestion. Good for you. [00:20:00] Um, all right. One last topic. I think we had time for it, which is the other systems that you all have really been working on are creating SOPs and systems for your team.

Right. One of the things you all said to me is now your team’s growing. You have to get really clear on expectations. And there’s a million examples we go over this, but one of the ones that you started talking about, which I was really thought was compelling, was one of the systems that you helped work on for your team was basically onboarding clients, getting really clear about how to do a discovery call, how to onboard clients.

Can you just talk a little bit about how did you make that SOP for your team and roll it out to them? So I think that’s an area where a lot of our listeners really struggle, right? It’s like, how do I set expectations for how my. Trainers participate in kind of the sales and onboarding process of new clients.

So walk me through what you did. I took every thought in my brain and put it on a Google sheet and then work backwards from there. To be as simple as possible. And it’s pretty buttoned up every now and again. I’m like, Oh, that should go in there. And so there’s of [00:21:00] course, consistent edits, which get shot out in an email of, Hey, make sure you check out this.

additional tip or something like that. Our guide, our onboarding guide really came from legitimately what is every single task that we do from start to finish and within that they have additional SOPs for certain things like what do we want a discovery call to look like which is very detailed what information are we getting on the discovery call and how what How are we acting and what kind of energy are we bringing to that call?

Our assessment is very detailed. We do a little combination of a FMS and SFMA from an injury standpoint, and then go into more functional movements and things like that, because we work with a population that are going to have some of those things. And then that is a huge part, is getting the client to say yes, so of course that’s like half of our guide.

Um, but let’s not forget about the many small tasks that go, come after that [00:22:00] of following up with a text message the day after and following up to confirm appointments. Um, we don’t have a CRM right now, so everything is manual, which that will be a change here pretty soon. But. It really is about the personal side of it as well.

Audits are thrown within there of what is a personal training session audit look like. It’s very clear on expectations of how the session should go. There’s audits for making a program and a certain type of design that we want behind a program, at least with exercise selection. Um, I could keep going.

I’ll let Jordan cut in here too. No, that’s great. It’s a good example of what we mentioned earlier. If you want your Trainers to participate, or any employee to participate in this process. You’re going to teach them what the process is, right? And it might change and grow and evolve over time. As you mentioned, there’s edits and there’s going to be changes, but what exactly are the steps?

What are the tasks you’re responsible for? How do you do them? And then what is the process that we know you’re doing them? You mentioned audits, right? These are basically the way that we [00:23:00] check and make sure that people are following the guides and SOPs. Jordan, can you just talk a little bit about how you, how do you roll that stuff out?

So how, once you’re. Once, once you’ve done the brain dump and you have the document, how do you start to teach your team what that stuff is? Oh man. I like teaching the team kind of portion is I think going into it, knowing that it’s going to be an evolving process and you have everything laid out perfectly how your brain works and you’re like, Hey, this is so clear and you brought out, you show it overwhelm, you say it’s okay, we’re going to take it step by step.

And then you just, you just dive in and do it and then have foster a good enough relationship with your people that they can perceive the feedback that you’re giving and that it’s just to provide insight from our experiences and what we expect. And then allow their personality to shine through and you end up in a much better situation.

I love that you would, the way you described it like that, because I think the mistake people often make Jordan is [00:24:00] thinking that rolling out a series of SOPs or even a single SOP is a one time conversation. And it’s not right. That’s like thinking as a trainer, I’m going to, I’m gonna explain this exercise to my client once and never again, that’s just not how we learn.

We often learn through repetition, especially when things are complicated and have multiple steps to the idea that your curriculum is going to make sense to them on day one, and they’re going to get it. It’s just a myth. Very rarely will that happen. You have some fast learners who will get some things faster than others, but most of the time it’s going to be, Oh, this isn’t a format that made sense to us, but doesn’t make sense to them or that their learning style doesn’t really jive with the way we first taught it.

We have to teach it in maybe a different way. We’ve got to audit them and give them feedback for weeks, maybe months, maybe forever to make sure they can continue to do this thing. And that’s what. management looks like. That’s what small business ownership looks like. Are you going to add something, Steph?

No, no, I was just agreeing with everything you were saying. I saw some aggressive agreement. Yeah. I will say the audits have been huge for us. That is what I was laughing at was, [00:25:00] you know, For our team to give us feedback. I think they’re still learning like we want that. We want to make it easy for you.

And like Jordan said, just because it makes sense in my brain doesn’t mean it makes sense in yours. Um, so for whatever reason, audits have been very helpful because it’s straightforward. And then we can go from there. Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I want to be thoughtful of y’all’s time because you’ve been so generous to come on and this podcast and share your wins and share your experiences.

Let’s wrap things up, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just do a quick review of all the topics we’ve covered for all of you listening, which is, we talked about some great tips for if you’re moving space, how to get in front of that and, and make that transition as smooth as possible. Talk about your hiring process, all the go back and re listen to that part.

Steph outlined all the steps they take. Make sure they’re making a great hire. We talked about building systems. The two places we dove in were systems for how to get clear on your roles or responsibilities as a partnership, which is every evolving process, but so critical to being effective as a team of two, and then we [00:26:00] also talked about building SOPs and processes for your team to set clear expectations for what their jobs are and how they can succeed every day.

And so we covered a lot on this podcast because y’all are doing a lot. You’ll have been so busy building systems in this business and every time you do it, it’s really just an investment in your future. Thank you for coming on to share. I really appreciate it. And dear listeners, if you found this valuable, let us know, leave us a review.

And if you want that ultimate Jim on a report card that I mentioned, it’s free. It’s down in the show notes and it’s on our website. Thank you again, Steph. Thank you again, Jordan. Hope to have you back again someday to talk about your next successes, but thanks for a great conversation. Yeah, thank you.