Introducing Our Newest Course: OPEN STRONG!

[00:00:00] There are a number of very important decisions that if you get them wrong in the beginning, become very hard to unwind, right? If you don’t have the right space, if you don’t have the right pricing [00:00:10] model, if, if you’re not paying your staff the right amount, when that happens, if you haven’t gotten very clear on who it is you’re serving and making sure everything is built out, that, so then the marketing doesn’t work.[00:00:20]

If you don’t have a good presale and get like a sum butts in the door, so you’re not trying to run. From a complete standing star in a place that feels like a creepy, empty restaurant, and again, I’m not [00:00:30] trying to scare you. 1, 2, 3, 4. Welcome to the Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help [00:00:40] 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 [00:00:50] 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.[00:01:00]

Yeah. Hello my [00:01:10] friends. On today’s episode. I’m here with Mr. Mark Fisher, and we’re talking about three courses we now have newly available for you to take on our website. [00:01:20] One course is called Time Ninja, which is basically time management for gym owners. We’ve offered this one before, but it’s our best, most popular course.

It’s been around for a long time. You all love it, so we keep [00:01:30] offering it. If you haven’t done that one yet, go grab that one. We have a new one called. Jim Growth Blastoff we just made last year, which is all about marketing and sales, getting more leads, and then a [00:01:40] brand new course that I just made in the last few months called Open Strong, which is all about how to open your first or second location.

It’s a complete roadmap from [00:01:50] defining your brand and your client avatar to finding the right space and securing funding. It’s everything you need to open a gym with less stress. And if you’re [00:02:00] ready to crush your fall and jump right in. If you act now before, before Monday, September 8th, you will get some preferred pricing for all of those courses.

You can buy one [00:02:10] for a couple hundred bucks off, or you can buy all three for an even better discount. So go ahead and go click the link down below in the show notes. Go to business unicorns.com/courses. [00:02:20] You’ll see if. Full description of all three courses, you can get one or you can get all three. And so in today’s episode, we’re gonna unpack some of the lessons from these courses, some things you can learn from these three courses.

[00:02:30] And I’m excited to dive in because I’m so glad these courses are now available to all of you on our website. So let’s get into today’s episode. Hello, fitness business nerds. [00:02:40] What’s up? Welcome to another episode of the Business v Unicorns podcast. I’m back with Mr. Mark Fisher today. How are you, sir? I am doing great.

Really full week here. Very full week is a full [00:02:50] week, and I think this is a week before you go to Burning net. Isn’t that right? That’s right. I go to Burning Man next week, and then last week, although it feels like a million years ago now, I was like just five days ago I was performed [00:03:00] better in Rhode Island, which was amazing.

Yeah. But a crazy week because of the week before I was out, and then next week I’m out. But uh, yeah, excited about Burning Man and perform better, which is so great. Got to see so many of our. Super [00:03:10] killers out there. A lot of wonderful clients. Was lovely to see and hang out with and yeah, it was a good time.

Yeah, a lot of people want to message me and talk to me in coaching calls this past week about how much they love seeing the business unicorns team there, [00:03:20] how it was actually a good one. So they, over a thousand people I think at this performed better this time. Yeah, huge event. So great crowd, and I know we’re talking about them all the time on this podcast, but yeah, we really do.

Our team really does go, A lot of our members [00:03:30] go and we’d recommend it for all of you, so go check it out. Yes, perform bad. Yeah, perform better. So today we wanna talk a little bit about a cool opportunity that we have coming up for all of our listeners, [00:03:40] which is we’re launching some courses and we really haven’t spent a ton of time in the last few years putting out like really accessible course content for people.

But we’re focused [00:03:50] on that a little bit more now and I’m really stoked for it. I think it means a lot of people listening to this podcast who’ve been longtime listeners who are maybe not the right fit for something like Unicorn Society can work with us [00:04:00] in a more accessible way. And I dunno, you wanna tell folks what we’re doing?

Yeah. First I will clarify, and I think we should confess, man, we’ve had the courses for time. We’ve had for a couple of years. We just, yeah, we’ve been doing [00:04:10] courses, but they been focused on our members and we haven’t, we haven’t, yeah, been a big deal as like we’re now, yeah, there’s maybe someone named Mark Fisher on the team who arguably could have done a better job of getting the word out about this thing, as in, you could [00:04:20] even find on the websites.

Anyway, see, we’re too, if we just had someone on the team who cared about marketing, only had somebody that. That had that job and were responsible for it. So anyway, yeah. All that to say it is true. So listen, for a long [00:04:30] time we have had this time Ninja course, which we’ve sold like once or twice per year.

And it’s one of our most popular things and I think it’s super valuable. People really like it. It’s, I know it’s like mass. It’s something like a lot of our members have [00:04:40] their whole team. Do I always make anybody I hire, literally anybody hire, I may go through the course. I think it’s super awesome. And it wasn’t even available on the website just because of your point Ke I think of, you know, the, my [00:04:50] understanding is the guy who’s in charge of marketing would say that you gotta be careful ’cause you only have so much bandwidth.

Yeah. If that’s not the best thing for people, not that it’s not amazing, but for the most part, if you can afford and do the unicorn side it like [00:05:00] that’s the way we could be most helpful. Yes. But. To your point, Keer. For some people like that’s maybe not the right fit, sometimes they’re not a place financially for it in some situations.

Maybe they have another solution that they [00:05:10] really love, but would be interested in another way of learning from us. Another step we took forward was last year a lot of, I did several rounds, of course, focus on just getting more leads and more clients [00:05:20] and called it gym growth blast off and it was super fun.

I did a few rounds live ’cause I really wanted to tighten up the content. Then after I’d done a few rounds with people to see where I was like making things [00:05:30] confusing or had too much in, as always happens when you make these courses. Then went back into the laboratory of the help of Ben and Mike Baras and then we made that into a course which we launched.

It [00:05:40] was awesome. And then again, same thing. We talked about it for five days. A bunch of people bought it. They had a great time. It’s great. That’s cool. And now excitingly, we’ll talk a little bit about this new [00:05:50] course, which Keeler took the lead on Open Strong, which is focused on how you open up. Your first or your next location, profit from day one [00:06:00] without burning out.

And completely losing your mind. And that last part is implicit. That’s not on the landing page, but that is a thing that can happen. So now that we have three courses, it’s exciting because we’re launching Open, [00:06:10] strong, and finally being an adult business person, we are, it’s even gonna be available on the website by the time you go the podcast.

Wow. There will be a courses button where you can find them on the website. So if a stranger wants to buy [00:06:20] them, you don’t need to be like a. Think they talked about this in emails, but I don’t see it. And maybe more exciting and we’ll jump a little bit more into specifically what’s in Open Strong, because this is something that is super [00:06:30] important.

There’s, I know there’s a lot of people that follow us that haven’t to open up their gym yet, or maybe just opened. Yeah. And also more and more, a lot of people that, particularly people like we’re working with. Opening up many locations. Multiple. [00:06:40] Multiple. That’s multiples been one of the, yeah, it’s one of the most exciting things we’re seeing both in the leadership society, even in the unicorn society at large.

People are like swinging. People are really, really going for it and we [00:06:50] have learned a lot of things about this and certainly it’s a lot of my focus these days on even how I’m spending my time built this a part of the franchise. It’s who I’m spending time with too. Continue my own [00:07:00] education. So we’re launching this course and the cool thing is if you sign up by Monday, September 8th, you will get $200 off [00:07:10] either of these courses.

And if you wanna buy all three. You’ll get 50% off the full price, which is several hundred dollars, even more than that. So anyway, that’s, you go, go to business [00:07:20] unicorns.com/courses and you’ll be able to find all of those individual buttons. And I’m sure there’ll be a link here in the show notes. Yeah, I’ll pull up there for anything else you wanna add here?

I’ll just say this, that I think there’s a reason why we’re starting with these three [00:07:30] courses. ’cause in, in many ways we think these are three real true bottlenecks for many of you out there. Yes. Listening. Yes. Yes. That we talk all the time about the fact that often you, as the owner or the [00:07:40] founder are the model X to your business’s growth because your time and attention and energy is not going to the most important things.

And so how you spend your time, energy, and attention is [00:07:50] just like one of the most critical. Uh, elements of your success. So taking a course like Time Ninja and getting better at managing your to-do list, managing your calendar, it’s something we actually do when we [00:08:00] onboard every new Unicorn Society member.

We do exercises from the Time Ninja course. We don’t make them do the whole course, though I certainly recommend it. And so I just say that that’s one of the first courses we’re launching and [00:08:10] making have made public because it really is important for you to be really crystal clear about how you spend your time.

And Mark and I have been using and improving all the methods in that. Course for literally [00:08:20] years. And so I’m a big, I’m a big fan of that one. I think people probably, most people should start there and share it with their teams. Jim Gr Blastoff has been huge. We’ve gotten such great feedback from it because the [00:08:30] other big challenge everyone has when they’re running a gym is they just need more leads and all too often their marketing plan is a little bit just like them chasing their tail.

Mm-hmm. Trying to figure out what’s [00:08:40] next when the reality is, this course teaches them to put in systems that make it easy. Because you’re repeating the same thing systems over and over again. You’re building a real machine [00:08:50] that does your marketing for you. And I think that’s what everyone wants and no one knows how to get, and that course does that beautifully.

And then lastly, I’ll just say this, that I’m just really proud of the Open Strong course. I spent a whole [00:09:00] quarter working on it. It includes everything we’ve known and learned from ourselves, from all the clients we’ve worked with who’ve opened one or multiple gyms. It also includes knowledge from other.

Other outside experts [00:09:10] that we’ve worked with, like Stu Brower at the Jim Real Estate Company, some information that he’s, he shared with us. Who else is in there? Corley, Corey Sterling from Conscious Counsel, a lawyer that we’ve worked with before. So there’s [00:09:20] information in the course about legal considerations, but I wanted to do this because I wanted to create the playbook or the handbook that I wish we had.

In 2011, yes. When we were [00:09:30] opening Mark Fisher Fitness. Yes. The playbook that so many of our fellow unicorn signing members in our community, we all wish we had, but no one had a playbook. Yeah. And so we was like, let’s make one. [00:09:40] And the thing that I, the feedback I’ve gotten so far about people who’ve gone through it that they really like, and I think all of you listening would like as well, is that it does take an approach to building a [00:09:50] business that’s about how do you best serve the people in the world for whom you wanna make an impact.

I know that many of you have listened to this podcast for a long time. ’cause you like that Mark and I [00:10:00] are focused on delivering the best possible services Yes. To make the most meaningful impact we can in this world. And this course is teaching you how to approach business from [00:10:10] that perspective. Yes. We talk about balance sheets and profit and loss statements and budgets.

Yes. We talk about legal considerations and price per square foot when you’re looking for a space [00:10:20] and uh, and looking at your competitive landscape in different markets that you might. Move into, we’d look at all that stuff, right? But we also do it from a lens of, okay, who is your core [00:10:30] avatar? Yes. Who do you wanna serve and how do you make all those decisions with them in mind?

So you really can work with the people that you’re most stoked to work with in this world? And the feedback I’ve gotten [00:10:40] from the course so far is that’s really clear. That’s something that people won’t find I think in any other workbook or course like this when it comes to building a gym, is they might tell you the [00:10:50] mechanics, but they don’t tell you how to build a business that has heart, that has real personality, that is representation of you and that really serves the people you wanna serve.

And I’m proud of that [00:11:00] aspect. Yeah, I think it’s, it’s something that. To your point, like this wasn’t available that long ago. I think it’s only like collectively to, by my estimation, the past few years that you’re [00:11:10] seeing. Mm-hmm. More commonly people are opening up second locations that are going, okay. Yep.

So particularly in the independent gym owner space, and I would, I think it’s important to note this is different than the boutique space. You [00:11:20] had some examples of some corporate boutique fitness brands getting some scale, certainly SoulCycle, solid core. Those obviously famously. We’re we’re sold in part and partial and for big [00:11:30] exits, but in the independent training gym owner space, the world that a lot of you listening come from, you just didn’t see a lot of that.

And part of the issue that everybody had collectively was, since none of [00:11:40] us had really done it, nobody really knew what to talk about. And more and more, it’s been interesting ’cause I more and more it’s maybe should have been, obviously the whole time it wasn’t, oh, there’s the operations [00:11:50] world, but there’s also like the opening up.

World. It’s like you have your operational expense mm-hmm. And your capital expense world. Right? It’s like, uh, yeah. There’s the money. You need to open up the thing and what that process looks [00:12:00] like. And that is a very different set, frankly, of skills and processes and systems. Yeah. Than the skills and processes of running, the things running successfully.

[00:12:10] And. It’s hard because nobody with a few, except there, there are a few exceptions actually, some friends of mine, but for the most part, people aren’t getting tons of reps doing this. Like you’re not getting lots of swings. Not only [00:12:20] that, but the other thing that is like ugly and true and doesn’t ever wanna be friends to say is there’s gonna be some luck involved, right?

If you choose this, of course, the wrong location and or if you don’t hire the right staff, particularly if it’s [00:12:30] a second location, it’s a little bit different if you or our. You are the brand and you’re just opening up your own spot, starting small. I think that makes it a little bit easier in some ways though, certainly you have a lot more work to do in that [00:12:40] situation, but the op upside is like this, like similar to the world of franchising, I think conventional wisdom.

Which I think is largely true is if you get five locations, you’re gonna get lucky in one and think you’re a genius. [00:12:50] One is gonna go bad, and you’ll feel badly by yourself. Three will be fine, and your skills still matter, right? Mm-hmm. Because your skills, if everything is even just 10 to [00:13:00] 20% better, because you have the kind of information in a course like this, you’re just protecting yourself, right?

Because even if things go bad and you get. Bad rolls of the dice, you can still pull out of a tailspin. [00:13:10] You’ll start with more members from the get go. You can avoid some of the common mistakes that we see in leases, right? One, which one? Which boy? We made. It’s fine. It’s funny, this is a [00:13:20] sore spot. ’cause we actually, and again this is on me, made a mistake recently in the lease that I have for my gym in New Jersey.

That costs me some money on Monday. So that’s fine. But I know better now. But yeah, we [00:13:30] have all of those, we have a lot of don’ts in this course as well. A lot of things that come from real pain and heartache and it’s gonna, it’s, I put in there almost more so for the opening than for the running. Yeah.

Because [00:13:40] when you’re, when the plane is in the air, I don’t know if this is exactly true, right? I might say that when the plane is in the air, things are maybe a little bit more. Giving to navigate, there’s a little momentum, right? Yeah. Once you have some revenue that’s paying the bills [00:13:50] and you can cover the basics.

Yes. Then there’s a little bit of momentum behind you. But yeah, getting the wheel turning at first Yes. Is yes. There’s so many, every choice to turn how much [00:14:00] momentum it’s on the wheel. Yes. And I think that’s what this course is trying to you do is have approach each choice methodically. One at a time.

Yep. Uh, and like, listen, can you open a gym without a course [00:14:10] like this? Probably can you get, we did workout results, right? Can you get workout results by going to a gym and just like working out, moving your body more than just doing your best than you did before? Sure. Yeah. It would be better if you had a [00:14:20] program that was designed your, for your goals and preferences in the gym.

Better probably. So this is a roadmap, right? This is a program for someone to follow that says, okay, start here, then here. Yes. And then maybe be a little going back and [00:14:30] forth, right? A few back steps is normal. Yep. And we talk about that in the course. Yep. It’s better to have roadmap from people who’ve been there and done it than to not, yeah.

Yeah. And I maybe say like a [00:14:40] final thing here because go buy the courses or go buy it. Yeah. But you should buy them. The final thing I wanna say is I really, I just want you to consider this because I really think if you don’t get some of this information [00:14:50] first. You are taking massive risk and things like might worst case scenario go really bad and in a best case scenario just cause untold amount of grief and [00:15:00] financial hardship for you and your family.

And I know that’s hard, but the reality is interesting ’cause a lot of what I do now, I do a lot of like deep dives on various people’s like gyms. And it’s [00:15:10] interesting too because obviously you know, I’d probably surprise no and if I’m doing it with someone in our leadership society. It’s fun and challenging a different way.

’cause often it’s like, this is like looking pretty near. You’re doing pretty good. Average revenue looks good and their [00:15:20] margins are nice and the right amount of square footage. There are a number of very important decisions. That if you get them wrong in the beginning, become very hard to [00:15:30] unwind, right? If you don’t have the right space, if you don’t have the right pricing model, if, if you’re not paying your staff the right amount, when that happens, if you haven’t gotten very clear on who it is you’re serving and [00:15:40] making sure everything is built out, that, so then the marketing doesn’t work.

If you don’t have a good pre-sale and get like a sum butts in the door, so you’re not trying to run. From a complete standing [00:15:50] start in a place that feels like a creepy, empty restaurant. And again, I’m, I’m not trying to scare you into this, but I’m trying to be real with you. That’s real. If you’re considering, yeah.

If you’re considering opening up a gym. And here’s my other [00:16:00] pitch, the last pitch, and I’ll stop. Shut up, mark. Stop selling me. The last pitch is, it’s even more important if you’re doing your second location. Sure. ’cause you no doubt have learned some good things [00:16:10] from your first one. But you may or may not be learning the right lessons.

Right? And there, if you fumbled into this, as Kira said, if you open up your first location as the person that just went to the gym and started [00:16:20] training and. Got real and just got jacked well in that, to make this metaphor stretch to the point of completely breaking. Great. You might have just had the kind of physique where, yeah, kind of anything you did.

There’s some people just like they [00:16:30] look at weights and they get jacked. That might have been the case with the first location, particularly because if you have a lot of main character energy, the force of your personal energy can drive a lot of [00:16:40] the results in one location. It’s not gonna happen in two, right?

Because by definitionally you are gonna take attention off the first location and then likely if you were very lucky on the first [00:16:50] location, which you can usually assume that to be the case. If things have gone very well and it’s been very profitable. I’m not saying you haven’t done a lot of things right?

You’ve also done things right. If it’s very successful. We were lucky, but also you [00:17:00] did a lot of things right? Be very proud of that. A lot of those skills will map, but with the second location, there is a world that your results are going to be impacted. [00:17:10] By the luck of the draw and definition of the first location, you got a little bit lucky.

You can assume there’s gonna be regression to mean that you might not be as lucky. That second location to say nothing of the fact that as [00:17:20] soon as you start to split yourself, it just becomes a very different game. It’s a very different game and in particular, yeah. The last, I’ll say, I think this starts to change to actually after several locations, I think there’s like an [00:17:30] awkward.

Sure. Middle of the road place that sometimes you wanna go through, but I’ll pull up. Theres, I won’t be Robin as many listeners. It’s, it’s a course and a podcast for another day. For real. But I think I’ll, I’ll end with [00:17:40] this final thought from me, which is just, we’ve been doing, I’ve been doing this podcast now for what, over 500 episodes and there hasn’t been that many opportunities over these [00:17:50] years for all of you who are not gym owners yet to work with us.

Yeah, true. There just hasn’t been that many. I can count ’em on my fingers and toes probably, and that’s, we own that. That’s on us. [00:18:00] But I think I’m really excited about the fact that many of you out there who are personal trainers or work for other people or just aspire to maybe open a gym one day or just like the industry and wanna learn more, [00:18:10] that there’s something here for you now, right?

That these courses are gonna be our way of getting a little closer, getting to know you, you getting a little more of our wisdom behind the scenes, and I’m excited for that. I’m excited, [00:18:20] especially because this podcast has been so my baby for so long, and I’m excited for more of you to take the next step and do something with us.

I think it’s gonna be the right price point and it’s all self-paced courses. You can do them as [00:18:30] slow or as fast as you want, and I’m stoked for that. So I hope you all will do it. Obviously. We’ll put all the information down below@specificunicorns.com slash courses. Buy one, buy them all, [00:18:40] and then once you do all that, once you open up your gym, join Unicorn Society.

Yeah, we’re here for you every step of the way. Yeah. Any part parting thoughts there, Fisher? [00:18:50] No, I just, I believe in you and I think if this, if you are planning another location or you’re listening, you don’t have one open yet. Yeah. I believe in you and this is doable. And more so than ever, the information is out [00:19:00] there.

And it would mean a lot if we have this opportunity to. To gain some of the information, get you there faster than we got there. Yeah, 100%. I, we wish we’re building these things ’cause we wish we had them. You have [00:19:10] them. So grab on and you can do this. Awesome. Thanks for a great cut chat as always. Fisher and dear listeners, I’ll see you on the next one.

Have Kickass [00:19:20] [00:19:30] Day.