12 Months of Lead Generation from Business Partnerships with Zach and Lianna

Speaker: [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3, 4. Welcome to the Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym and studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. Join me and the business for Unicorns team each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.

Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry.[00:00:30]

Yeah. Hello my friend. If you’re a gym owner listening to this podcast, there’s one thing I absolutely know to be true about you, which is you probably want more leads and more clients for your gym. I mean, what gym owner doesn’t. So if you want that, you’ll wanna get a free copy of our free book. It’s our little Book of Gym Marketing Secrets.

It’s honestly the book we all wish we had when we first [00:01:00] opened our gyms. It’s really a zero fluff guide you can read in less than 30 minutes. And it covers everything you know to grow and market your gym. To get instant access to your free copy, click the link below in the show notes and download it right now.

You’ll be glad you did. Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? Welcome to another episode of the Business Unicorns podcast. Today, I’m so excited to have two people on the podcast. We rarely have a threesome on this podcast, but today we are. I’m here with Zach and [00:01:30] Liana, who own Razzy Fitness in Roslindale, Massachusetts.

They’ve been in Unicorn society for a while now, maybe. Two years, year and some change. We’ll talk about that in a second, and I’m such a big fan of these two. I think you will be too after today’s episode. They actually recently won the Sales Superstars Award and our unicorn awards at our recent retreat because they’ve been really getting out of their own com, their comfort zone to learn how to sell and generate leads in new and effective ways.

In fact, we’ll talk about some of those ways today, and so I’m so excited for you all to learn from them. Welcome to the [00:02:00] podcast, Zach and Leanna. Welcome.

Speaker 2: Thank you

Speaker: y’all. Let’s get started by just telling everyone a little bit about your story, a little bit about what is Rozi Fitness, where is it, who do you serve?

And so gimme like the, your two minute elevator pitch for what Rozi Fitness is.

Speaker 3: So we are personal training gym in Lyndale, which is a neighborhood of Boston, technically in Boston, but it feels a little bit more residential.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker 3: We’ve been in business for about three and a half years. [00:02:30] I was a personal trainer at a big box gym before that.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 3: And we serve the people. We always say, if you hated gym class in high school, you’ll probably like our gym.

Speaker: Great.

Speaker 3: We serve people who have either never worked out before or are trying to get back into fitness after 20 years away. General population, like thirties to fifties.

Speaker: I love that. Yeah. Anything you would add, Zach?

Speaker 2: I joined the personal training studio after [00:03:00] a career as a lawyer, so this is a second career for me.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: and I really love it.

Speaker: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I can’t believe y’all have been what, almost you said over three years now. That’s incredible. And I think you joined us in January of 2025, is that right?

So we’re about a year and a half in

Speaker 3: that.

Speaker: Sounds right. To be in unicorn society. Yeah. That’s amazing. I feel like I’ve just, I’ve watched you all really push yourself and challenge yourselves and grow yourselves and your business so much during that time and I’m glad we finally have you on the podcast to talk about it.

Let’s start with something I know that [00:03:30] you are really proud of that just happened recently and I think a lot of our listeners will resonate with this is, which is you may. Your first full-time hire of an employee and you had tried a few part-time folks in the past, you had a few missteps there. So maybe let’s just tell that story.

So let’s go back to the first few times you tried hiring and just walk me through what worked and didn’t work in those experiences.

Speaker 2: I think what, what the first, when we first started hiring, we didn’t [00:04:00] really have any sort of. Process really. I mean, we had questions and that was about it.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 2: And so we just hired the first person.

I think we put a job posting on, oh no, it was someone I met. It was someone I just met out in the world who said they were interested in being a personal trainer and. I was so excited at the idea of someone helping us that I was like, come and apply. And so she applied [00:04:30] and we, we hired them and that it was very part-time, which I think we subsequently learned wasn’t a great idea to begin with because it’s hard for them to be invested when they’re that part-time.

And we also didn’t really. Know what we were doing as managers. Yeah. And then we did develop a, a little bit of a system where we would have people do like tasks during the interview as well. [00:05:00] And so that was better. But then we ended up hiring a member that the personalities didn’t really mesh as an employer employee relationship, and.

It’s made us feel like maybe we shouldn’t hire members, even though everyone, you should hire members because they’re bought in. This was a situation where. We really regretted that. So

Speaker 3: just hire in general. We started being like, I don’t know, should it just be the two of us [00:05:30] forever?

Speaker: Yeah, I remember, I think we even had that conversation on a call.

You were like, maybe we’re just meant to be the two of us. Maybe you building a team is not in the cards. Lemme just say this to the two of you. I think I might have said this to you at the time, but you’re not alone. These are very common early hiring challenges and, and frankly mistakes. These are very common mistakes.

Hiring someone who’s just like. Convenient. Just the first person who shows up or responds to your ad even just, I like them, let’s go for it. It, it seems so right in the moment. ’cause it feels like, oh, this was easy. But [00:06:00] no, hiring in some ways should feel a little hard. It should be slow. You should need a lot of people.

It should take time. And so yeah, that one’s a classic one. I’ve made the mistake, I’m sure multiple times myself, even though I should have known better. And then obviously hiring clients. And you’re right, that can go both ways. I’ve seen it and had the experience where hiring a member was like the best possible thing.

And I’ve also realized, oh, once you work with someone, the dynamic’s completely different. And sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, is that it brings out different [00:06:30] versions of some of people and you’re saying, oh, the delightful client you were is not, does not make you a delightful employee.

And And they might feel the same about you. Exactly. Yeah. And so I’ve seen the head nodding for those who are not watching Fist podcast, I’m seen them both nod their heads, which means that’s exactly what happened here. Yeah. Anything else you would add to that, that early hiring story?

Speaker 3: Only that for both of those first two hires, there was for both of them, there was like a gut feeling or a red flag in the interview that we overlooked.

Speaker: Yeah. [00:07:00]

Speaker 3: And with our current employee who has worked out really well, the interview was like, oh. A hundred percent. Like we’re all in. We want this kid.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Maybe start there, Leona, maybe you can take this one, which is, walk me through what you learned from those, and then recently you applied that to a new process to hire this new full-time person who’s really going well.

So what did you do in this hiring process that kind of fills in the gaps from their previous mistakes?

Speaker 3: Yeah, so we learned, I think the biggest thing we learned was. No red [00:07:30] flags. Like the second you start to get a bad gut feeling like it, the person’s out. That was a really big one. And this hire was slightly different because he started as an intern for us.

Mm. So it felt like much lower stakes, like

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 3: We had a three month period where he could try us out. We could try him out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: If it didn’t work, like great. We go our separate ways. And if it did work, he was a graduating senior, so we, he’d be looking for a job and it [00:08:00] worked out. Luckily it worked out amazingly.

Speaker: Yeah. That’s amazing. I think that’s so great for the anyone listening who can do even what I refer to as a casual internship, even if it’s not for school credit, it’s not very formal, even if it’s casual. Just come do a few shifts here and there. Come to our team meetings. You can take that time to get to know people.

You’re obviously going to be making a better choice, right? You’re gonna know the person for weeks or months, and that’s so much better. You also mentioned that, that this was the first [00:08:30] time really hiring someone full-time. Did that make a difference in your process at all?

Speaker 2: It started off as a part-time job.

So at first he was only working, I think less than 20 hours, and then we ramped it up.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker 2: So I’m not, I think it, when we first decided to hire him, it wasn’t really that much of a consideration because

Speaker: Sure. We

Speaker 2: just. We’re hiring part-time.

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and in some cases the stars can align and they are fine with part-time for [00:09:00] now, and then maybe full-time later when that can happen.

That also just gives you more time to connect and all that. But I love the first thing you said, Leanna. Just going back to reiterate, which is if there are any red flags, it’s just like a no. We wouldn’t go, I’ll say ideally, none of us would go on multiple like dates, like romantic dates with a person, see tons of red flags and keep dating them.

So why would we do that in hiring? Some of us do, right? Some of us are masochists, but, but why would we do that in hiring if we see these red flags? Yeah. Like I always say all the time, if I’m hiring a person, [00:09:30] it’s, if it’s not a fuck, yeah, it’s a no.

If

Speaker: it’s not like a, hell yeah, it’s a no because I don’t want someone who I feel halfway with, and if there’s any questions I have, if there are any red or yellow flags, I’ll extend the interview process to learn more.

If I’m concerned about their level of commit, I’ll go check more references. I’ll ask them more questions. I’ll have them come in and do some more stress tests or things that I know you all did. And maybe just tell me a few more things about what did your hiring process look like? What were like the steps in the process [00:10:00] that really worked for you?

Speaker 2: So we had the, for a current employee, we had him come in for. About five. Well,

Speaker 3: first we did a phone interview.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Great. Yeah. Great. So phone interview to start and then what?

Speaker 2: And then we had a five or six hour day sort of day long interview where we paid them

Speaker: great

Speaker 2: for the interview. And then, uh, we had them shadow.

A couple of sessions, [00:10:30] one of our semi-private small group personal training sessions and one of our group class sessions.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker 2: So we can make sure that they knew what they were getting into, see if they liked it, and also got a sense of whether they interacted with members at all.

Speaker: Love that.

Speaker 2: Then we had them do some admin tasks that we.

Would probably ask them to do as a trainer to see if they, we weren’t really, we didn’t care if they did it [00:11:00] perfectly, but just to get a sense if

Speaker: they could. Yeah, of course. Just get some sense of how well they focus, how well they learn, how coachable they are.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: That makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And then we did like a more formal interview where we asked the questions.

Speaker: Yeah. I love the idea of a paid longer day. I think that’s really smart. I think a lot of bigger companies do a similar thing where they, that often don’t pay you, but they’ll ask you to come in for a whole series of interviews and tests and things. And it really does take a whole day. And I know small businesses sometimes we are hesitant to wanna [00:11:30] alike.

Ask that much of candidates, but these are really people we work so closely with, so to make sure we really wanna work with them, I think it’s so worth the investment. If you can get a candidate who gives you a full day of their time, they’re serious. Right. So think it also serves as a way to make sure that you’re vetting people so good for you.

That’s great. Anything else you would add to that, Leanna?

Speaker 3: Just that we throw in a couple of like. Minor stress tests during that day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we’ll not give them all the information they would [00:12:00] need to complete a task to see like how do they problem solve and do they, do they problem solve or do they just immediately go, I don’t know what to do.

Speaker: Yeah, they just give up. Yeah, that’s great. It’s really testing for can they ask for help? Are they resourceful? Are they, how do they problem solve? What’s like their emotional state when they get frustrated? You get to see so much by that kind of stress test. Good for you. That’s huge. And you also mentioned before we started recording that not only did you think you hired this person well, but you all think that you’ve grown as managers [00:12:30] and leaders in which is also helping this.

This full-time hire workout. Can you say a little bit more about what you’ve had to become as like managers and leaders to like make this work? What are you doing that is working?

Speaker 3: So business for Unicorns has been super helpful in this one.

Speaker: Good.

Speaker 3: I am the type of person that I don’t require a lot of positive feedback.

Mm-hmm. And that’s why I tend to not give a lot of positive feedback.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And I also tend to be like. I told you how to do this, like why [00:13:00] can’t you do the thing I told you how to do the thing? Why can’t you do the thing? Yep. And between the workshops I’ve gone to on business unicorns, honestly listening to the podcast, I’ve come to understand that just because you tell someone something once and they don’t do it, doesn’t mean that like.

Yeah, it’s a problem with their intelligence level. Sometimes you have to tell people things multiple times and that’s okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And other people need positive feedback. So like I’ve been working really hard to go out of my way to give positive [00:13:30] feedback, to not get frustrated with myself or with an employee if I have to tell something multiple times.

And I think working on that, not only has it made me a better manager, but it has also translated to me being a better communicator with that.

Speaker: Wow, good for you that that’s huge, Liana. The fact that you’re able to look at yourself and say, Hey, maybe I am, I need to change my approach here. Like maybe people need to hear things multiple times.

One time, maybe not enough. Maybe I need to give, even though I don’t need praise, maybe other people do I need to give it more. [00:14:00] And that’s like a classic like entrepreneurial challenge, right? Yeah. And it’s people who are self-motivated to start their own business and do things on their own and take on, frankly, like the selfless job of leadership often, right?

We’re often people who don’t need. That positive feedback, we’re self-motivated, but that doesn’t mean we work with people who are like us. And so yeah, it shows such like an emotional maturity to recognize that just ’cause I don’t need doesn’t mean other people don’t. So I think that’s huge and the fact that it’s spilled over to your partnership I think is also fantastic.

Yeah. Good for you. [00:14:30] Good for you. Let me switch gears ’cause a few other things I wanna cover and I wanna make sure we have enough time. The second thing I wanted to cover is I know you all have been developing all kinds of new ways to generate leads and one of the ways I know you’ve. Doubled down on is like local business partnerships, like getting active in your community with other local businesses and even local events.

I know you went to one this past weekend, so maybe just walk through. How did you come to this idea of working more with local partnerships and then what’s your approach been so far?

Speaker 3: So I’ve [00:15:00] always seen the value in local partnerships. I. I like Patron, a lot of other small, local businesses. Mm-hmm. I know a lot of the owners, but I either wasn’t really sure how to go about it or I was thinking like very basic, you get a discount off my service, I get a discount off your service.

Mm-hmm. I wasn’t thinking outside the box at all. Yep. So this has been something we’ve been working. Our accountability coach is Mike Bani. Great, great. And we’ve been working with him a lot on this and he’s [00:15:30] gotten us thinking outside the box for more creative ideas. So one thing he suggested was he has a local coffee shop where he puts his.

On the coffee cup sleeves,

Speaker: love it.

Speaker 3: And gives that out to people. And I was like, I never would’ve thought of that. So my, it’s a good one. Project has been setting up these partnerships. So I’ve been setting up meetings with local business owners and in that meeting we collaborate on like basically there’s three tiers of the partnership.

[00:16:00] So it’s just like sharing signage and social media posts is like very baseline. We can do that without really any commitment. Then there’s, do we wanna plan some sort of joint event together? And then do we wanna have some sort of like formal, ongoing partnership?

Speaker: Great.

Speaker 3: So we have a couple of those that are in the works.

Speaker: Love it. I love that. And I love the fact that you’re coming with an approach with these tiers because I think the biggest mistake I see people make when it comes to business partnerships is approaching every partnership like it’s [00:16:30] Groundhogs Day. Every partnership starts with a what do you want? What do you want, what could we do?

It starts with a brainstorm and that’s. That takes time. It’s exhausting. And the other business owner may not be at the place where they have the time and energy to give this so much thoughts when you can come with, we do three things. We like to start with this one ready to go, ready to share information, ready to do an event.

I think that’s fantastic. ’cause I think you probably get farther faster that way. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, that you’re coming with a plan. You also have been doing some more local events. You just wanna talk through some [00:17:00] examples from recently.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so we, every summer we do farmer’s market workouts, so that’s a, like regular thing for us.

Love it. Uh, and it’s a local farmer’s market and like the Roslindale Square area, and we do a workout every, at least one a month and. That generates, it doesn’t usually generate direct leads, but sometimes it does. Like non-members will come to the workouts, but at least people see us.

Speaker: Yeah. [00:17:30] That visibility like is a thing that creates this local reputation and when people are talking about you, when you’re, when you’re not around, that’s important and powerful in small towns like, like ours.

Yeah. Sorry, keep going. You were gonna say more? Oh

Speaker 2: yeah, of course. And we also do other local, random, local events. Anna’s really involved with. The local Main Streets organization, Rosendale Village, main Streets, and they just hosted a, a wellness fair for a bunch of wellness. Businesses in. Mm-hmm. [00:18:00] Dale.

Great. And so this weekend we had a table set up and there was a fair crowd. Nice and a fair amount of people came by. And some people, we usually have a raffle at one of those. Great. So people like fill out a slip with their info to enter a raffle for

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Two weeks of. Discounted training.

Speaker: That’s fantastic.

Good for you. And I think you had said, Lana, you had something like over a dozen people. Yeah, opt, opt in. So to get 10, 15, 20 leads from a single day is [00:18:30] fantastic because those are local people who you’ve met first lived nearby, you’ve met face to face. They’re there because they’re interested in health.

They’re there because they wanna support other small local businesses. That’s such like a warm lead. It’s almost like a super hot lead, right? It’s almost someone who’s like. Fully in your, in the four walls of your gym, and so I love that you can go and then use those as your hot lead sources. What do you offer someone like that who meets you at a festival?

What’s the kind of offer you’re making to those folks?

Speaker 2: It’s usually a raffle for two weeks [00:19:00] of training for, I think we’re doing $99 now, and everyone who enters. Wins the raffle.

Speaker: Great.

Speaker 2: And yeah, some people pick a, some people take a south on and some people don’t. But

Speaker: I love that. But either way, you have their name, phone number, email, so you can continue to follow up and just add them to your email list and your ongoing marketing efforts.

That’s huge. Yeah. And I love the way that, I love that idea that, hey, it’s a raffle, but really you’ve rigged. Its everyone wins. That’s great. And even if you don’t, I mean, we used to go to those [00:19:30] events with a big wheel, so it’s all kinds of things they could win. Everyone was a winner. Yes, there was. And there was, I think at one point we, we jokingly had one where it was like, do three pushups and then spin again.

So you had to, you still got to spin again and win. That’s so fun. Good for you. And so what’s next for business partnerships? What do you envision the next three to six months looks like for how you’re gonna invest in business partnerships?

Speaker 3: So we have several in the work. Mm-hmm. My, our goal is to have a [00:20:00] year’s worth of lead generation by partnering with different businesses at different times.

Speaker: Great.

Speaker 3: So we’re doing, we have one where we’re gonna be doing like a launch event in May, and then it’s gonna be a, it’s gonna start as a summer promotional partnership, but we both are like, if it’s successful, it might. Just then go on forever. But we’re gonna start it as like a summer thing. And then we have another one that we’re launching in the fall, and that one is gonna be a six week [00:20:30] series with a mental health provider.

So it’ll be, you get some, and this one we’re still flushing out, but it’ll be, you get some. Services with her, some services with us for six weeks.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker 3: And then, and that’s me in the fall. And so we’re just trying to like strategically time them so that they’re all launching at different times. Great. And then if it’s like successful and we like it, we can just do the same thing next year.

And now we have 12 months of. Constantly lead generation.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: But not always tapping the same community.

Speaker: Yeah. Good for you. I think that’s so smart. And I also just love [00:21:00] so much that we preach this all the time in unicorn society, so I can see that you got the message, which is business partnerships are active, right?

They are. They require like a two-way. Continuous communication. The other way I see people do partnerships wrong is they think partnerships are just these passive referral partnerships where you’re gonna meet a chiropractor, then suddenly that chiropractor and their whole team is gonna send you people all the time with you doing nothing.

And that’s just. Not, I don’t see that ever working.

Speaker 3: It’s definitely what we did in the past or like what we

Speaker: the past.

Speaker 3: [00:21:30] And it did, definitely did

Speaker: not. No, you’re not alone. That’s what everyone does. They go find a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a massage therapist, and they like, they go say hi and they like have coffee once and they think that their whole team is gonna be like just sending them people.

And once in a while you’ll get someone who like really loves what you do at the gym and your physical therapist will you tell everyone about you. But that’s still not the. Consistent flow that people think it is. Yeah. And so I love that you’re being really engaging with these partnerships and that you’re spreading them out over the year to say, okay, we want leads from partnerships throughout the whole year.

Yeah. So let’s [00:22:00] strategically line them all up. I just think that’s so smart. I just think that’s so smart. I hope our listeners are taking notes ’cause there’s a lot of good tips in there.

Speaker 3: And the other thing I forgot to mention, please, because I go to all these businesses all the time, like it’s cafes, it’s a yarn store.

Yes. It’s easy to create it like. Spend 20 bucks at them. Yes. It’s harder for them to come to our business ’cause it’s a $250 every other week. Yeah. And it’s a ment.

Speaker: Yeah. But the

Speaker 3: other thing I’m doing is I’m offering all the business owners and like strongly encouraging them to take [00:22:30] me up on this offer.

Yeah. Week free trial. Love it. So that they best case, they can actually more authentically talk about us. Or, sorry, worst case, they can more authentically talk about us to their clients. Best case, they’re like, this is awesome. Maybe I wanna join

Speaker: you. Yeah, I think that’s so great. That’s so smart. You’re right.

’cause it’s very easy to walk in and grab a cup of coffee from the cafe. They can’t us walk in and most of our places and do experience our services. So encouraging those partners to actually come in [00:23:00] and know what they’re talking about. Yeah. In some cases we did the same thing where we would invite. And all their employees for a special workout or, and it was just a great way to get them to actually have a firsthand experience.

Yeah. Working with us. Is that always necessary? No, but it’s so nice when you can do it. It just lets them get to know you and your operation so much better. Good for you. Alright, I know we’re at the end of our time, so I wanna just stop here and say. Thank you y’all. Thanks for sharing so much of your successes and wins.

I think this is, this episode I think is gonna be so great for our listeners [00:23:30] because there’s really lots of tactical things you’re doing so well. From hiring to communication, to management, to business partnerships. I think you, we really covered a lot of ground. Maybe to wrap things up, if people wanna learn more about y’all or follow you online or check out Razzi Fitness, where do they find you?

Speaker 3: Is it

Speaker 2: the website is rozi fitness.com, R-O-Z-Z-I-E Fitness, and we’re at Rozi Fitness on Instagram.

Speaker: I love that awesome one. And

Speaker 3: if anyone wants to email us to [00:24:00] chat more, we’re info@rozifitness.com and. We’re happy to do that as well.

Speaker: Perfect. Yeah, we’ll put that stuff down in the show notes below. So if anyone wants to reach out to Zach and Liana, ask them more questions, go stop by for a tour, check ’em out.

I encourage you to do that if you’re in the Boston area. Thank you for this. Thanks for being on the podcast. I’m sure you’ll have you, I’ll have you all back again at some point to talk about your next series of wins, but we’ve loved having you in Unicorn society and it’s just such a great, it’s our front row seat to all of your successes.

So thanks for doing this, y’all, and dear listeners, I’ll see you next [00:24:30] week. Have a good one.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 3: Thank you.