One Decision That Added $36k to Their Annual Revenue with Steven and Bill from Tenacity Fitness

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Business of 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 of 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]

Hello, my friend. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard us talk about our friends over at Gym Member Machine before. They are really our go-to solution for paid advertising for all gym owners. In fact, most of our unicorn society members, if they use an agency to run their paid ads, they’re using Gym Member Machine.

And our friends over at GMM are doing something [00:01:00] kinda crazy, probably, and frankly, we’d advert- we advise them to not do this. But what they’re doing is offering 30 days of their services for free for specifically qualified gym owners. So what’s the catch, you might be asking? You’ve gotta have some sort of proof of concept.

So what they mean by that is you have to be a gym owner that’s already doing 10K per month in revenue, or maybe you have to have at least maybe 30 clients to prove that you have a real functioning gym with a real proof of concept, a service people want. And then when you work with them [00:01:30] free for 30 days, you’ll cover the ad spend.

They recommend testing about a budget of $15 to $30 per day, and you’ll cover the usage of any software that th- that they need to use, basically the phone system they use as their CRM. And s- and then all of their services to help you run paid ads for 30 days are totally free. All their strategy and thinking and the ads they know work for other gyms, they will use for you for 30 days.

So my recommendation here, my friend, is go a- go abuse this crazy offer. Go right now to [00:02:00] gymmembermachine.com, mention this podcast and claim the offer before, honestly, they come to their senses and take it down forever. So go do it now

Speaker 2: Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? Welcome to

Speaker: another episode of the Business Unicorns podcast.

I’m so excited ’cause today there’s three of us. I’m interviewing a dynamic duo, uh, that’s based over in Jersey, and I’m so excited to have you both on the podcast. It’s Steven Shaff and Bill Jack, and they’re from Tenacity Training in New Jersey. [00:02:30] Welcome, gentlemen.

Speaker 3: How we doing? Happy to be here.

Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having us.

Speaker: Oh, what a treat. I love having two people on the podcast ’cause it feels like a real party. It’s usually just me- Yeah … and one other person, but now it’s, it’s a real gang. Steven, maybe I’ll ask you to get the, get us rolling and just say a little bit about what is Tenacity Training, how’d y’all get started.

You’re both the co-owners of the business, and just tell me a little bit about Tenacity.

Speaker 3: Yeah. We, we’re a small group, one-on-one training facility with a little bit of an interesting spin, especially with a lot of the companies [00:03:00] and businesses that we kinda rub shoulders with, Business Unicorns. We’re also offer an open gym concept.

Mm-hmm. So we are in an 8,000 square foot warehouse. So the feel is definitely more of a boutique, giant garage gym studio feel. So a lot of people coming in and using the facility most of the time are using programs provided by their coach. Sure. And, but we do have that open gym concept as well, and we do have a decent membership base that, that utilizes that.

Speaker: Why not? [00:03:30] You got so much damn space. That’s, that’s huge. That’s so much space. Yeah. Bill, how’d you all get connected and get this place started?

Speaker 2: We actually met at a, at another gym. He was just wrapping up college and I wound up, uh, a couple of months in managing the place, and then he was a trainer there for a little while.

And I had seen a lot of things done very poorly in this industry, and this was kind of- Mm-hmm … our opportunity to do things the right way, and we hit it off and never looked back.

Speaker: Yeah. That’s exciting. I think it’s such a great origin story to say, “Hey, we’ve [00:04:00] both been doing this for a while. A lot of people are crap at it.

C- we could do better, right?” Yeah. It’s such an entrepreneurial mindset, right? To be like, “You know what? We could figure this out and do this better.” So good for you. It seems like it’s working. And so there’s a lot of things we could talk about ’cause I think y’all have been really crushing it lately and really working hard to make big swings and big improvements to the business.

But one of the things I know has been really huge since you joined Unicorn Society, was you’ve, you raised your rates for the first time in a while. And that was both challenging on the front end and has proven to be really rewarding. And I know a lot of our [00:04:30] listeners really struggle to raise their rates consistently.

They have a lot of fears and hesitations. So let’s just walk through what that process was like for you all, ’cause I know it resulted in huge financial gains just right off the bat. And so I’ll go back to you, Steve. Before you joined Unicorn Society, just tell me a little bit about what was your relationship with raising your rates.

Had you done it much? How’d you feel about the topic?

Speaker 3: We were, it honestly never really crossed our mind. Obviously over the course of period, we’d raise rates on new members incoming as far as like [00:05:00] how the climate changes and, uh, financially, environmentally. Um- So for sure, like the service dollar amount has gone up.

We never, ever thought about raising rates on current active clients.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 3: We always kind of went the route of we were worried about affecting our integrity, and we built our business on trust and community. When you kind of start that locked in, once you have your rate, that’s your rate forever. Mm-hmm.

And we rode that out for the better part of 13, almost 13 years.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 3: And so we never touched [00:05:30] current membership rates, uh, unless they were buying a training package or so. But as far as membership goes, we thought that was taboo.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Anything you wanna add to that, Bill?

Speaker 2: Yeah, it just was … It’s funny, a long time ago I talked to a member at my first gym job, and he said, “You know what?

Like, gyms have been 30 bucks since the ’70s. How does anybody make any money?” It never occurred to me to raise rates on current members.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And listen, and you have the same impulse we even did when we started Mark Fisher Fitness. We started Mark Fisher Fitness, we told all of our [00:06:00] founding members, “These will be your rates forever.”

And with all due respect to you and me, what a dumb frigging idea. Like, what a stupid way of thinking about business, right? Like, we- we know better now, right? But the idea that I can keep this price the same, like, no price is the same. You have to- in anything in our world. And so- Nothing works that

Speaker 2: way …

Speaker: no, it just doesn’t.

And, and so at least our experience was similar to yours in that over time we realized, oh, three, four years in, we had people still paying what they were paying three years ago. We were losing money [00:06:30] every time they walked in the door. Yeah. I remember we did the math once, and our earliest members, if they were doing small group personal training, I think we were basically paying them $17 every time they walked in the door.

Just something insane like that. Yes. And I don’t know if yours was that bad, but still, af- after that many years, I bet it was pretty close, ’cause we kept paying our trainers more and more, but not increasing rates on the original people. And I think a lot of people find themselves in that pickle. And so I’ll start with you on this one, Bill, which is, so when you all joined Unicorn Sighting, clearly that’s one of the first things we encourage people to, to look at is, like, [00:07:00] when was the last time you raised your rates?

What’s the process you went through that changed y’all’s mind?

Speaker 2: I think just the reassurance, like having that outside influence to say, “No, like, this is a good thing. It’s something that has to happen.” And especially after talking to so many people who also have done the same, like yourself, and have done the same thing and gone through it, and their reassuring stories about you’re not gonna suddenly lose 1,000 members.

You’re- Exactly … it’s going to be okay.

Speaker: Yeah, [00:07:30] exactly. Yeah, 100%. I can see it. And you know what? And- That’s a big part of Unicorn Sighting in general is people saying, “Oh yeah, we have the same problem. We have the same hesitation. We did it. Let me tell you what worked for us and what didn’t work for us.” And it just gives you- Right

that confidence, oh, lots of people dealt with this. We’re not alone, first of all, and like, you can get to the other side and survive. And that just gives you a little bit of a boost. You wanna a- add onto that, Steven?

Speaker 3: Yeah. It was c- One of the things that hit me was a conversation with you. We had a very in-depth conversation with you, and then Buranhas, our accountability [00:08:00] coach.

Yeah. I had a couple talks with him, and just laying out the numbers, like inflation could be 7% to 9% a year. Mm-hmm. So every year that increases, our expenses go up, leases change and such, and it’s like when you really think about it, you wanna make sure you build, keep the trust with your clientele and such.

But- And one of the podcasts you guys did all raising the rate was, but you gotta have a gym for them to come to and keep the trust, right? Right. There, and I, there’s a lot of different strategies that we implemented when we did this. I’m sure we’ll walk down that lane and go through, but that number hit me right [00:08:30] off the bat.

You’re basically behind the eight ball every year that goes on in business.

Speaker: Yeah. That’s exactly it, Steven. When you think about it like that, that every year I don’t raise my rates, but all of my expenses increase. I’m just agreeing to l- I’m just choosing to make less money as an owner every single year, right?

By default, I’m choosing I don’t have a choice. My landlord wants more money, my staff wants more money, my everything in our business costs more, but I’m not charging more, which means the margins just get slimmer and slimmer, and that impacts us [00:09:00] more than anyone else, and ultimately impacts the long-term viability of your business, right?

So everyone’s at risk if you can’t keep the lights on. And so I think it’s that kind of, uh, uh, that kind of confrontation with reality that sometimes kicks us in a different direction. I also just wanna speak very briefly to what you said about trust, right? ‘Cause I think it’s really, we start these businesses, we have deep relationships with our clients.

They’re with us often for years. Many of them we see more than they see members of their family every week, right? They’re in our faces a lot, right? [00:09:30] And we care about not disappointing them, not pissing them off, keeping them as long as possible. Um, and the idea that if we charge more, they’re gonna stop trusting us, I think is a very common one.

And as much as I understand that kind of on a personal level, when I think about how it applies to other businesses, my rates go up in my grocery store all the time. Milk, eggs, it’s all more expensive. I don’t not trust them. I just know things cost more, right? And so I think when we take ourselves out of that seat of [00:10:00] worrying about the relationships and think about, okay, how do they interact with every other business they go to in this world?

Oh, everything is getting more expensive. I’m the exception? I think that, for me, helped reframe why we started to, you know, increase our rates pretty assertively every single year was because everyone’s doing that. I was the one out, and no one distrusts those other businesses. And so you’re not alone is what I wanna say there.

Going back, let’s go back to you, Steven. Tell me a little bit about how did you decide when to do it, how much to increase? Let’s just walk me through some of those decisions.

Speaker 3: You had a really [00:10:30] good point that I liked was almost applying it, like, with the seasonal moods- Mm-hmm … for clients- Yep … which we loved.

And when we had this major discussion with you guys and we really started to implement the plan of this is we’re gonna do this for the first time in 12 or 13 years of business, we went with… It was in the fall when we had these discussions, and you suggested doing it in April. Springtime- Yeah … people are more likely to be a little happier.

They’re getting out of their houses, the sun’s out. Just more, just a happier kinda place in life, right? So- Yeah … for us, that really worked out. It [00:11:00] resonated ’cause we agreed, a- and that was part one. Part two was it gave us time to plan- Sure … and do it strategically because we did wanna do it strategically, and we did wanna Show, look at the additional value.

Not only do we feel like we bring a lot of value already, it’s the reason you guys have been with us for years and years, our clients. But we wanted to show some other systems and some other facets of the business that we’re implementing to increase the value, especially for one-on-one and the small group training.

So we started doing that with offering [00:11:30] seminars quarterly, so top people in the industry coming to do a seminar from our staff and us, and just showing we’re never stopping to improve. And if we did some of those things, I think it would lessen the blow to people seeing, “Okay, I’m not happy. They’ve never done this before, but it makes sense.

They’re putting their, they’re putting their dollars where their mouth is.”

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And so that was one of the big things we wanted to do was we wanted to show we are doing some other things. It’s not just, “Let me bump your rate up [00:12:00] and then we can keep it moving.”

Speaker: Good for you. Yeah, I like both of those decisions, right?

I think the reason we, I advocate often for spring is because too many people do it on January 1st, right after the holidays when everyone’s broke. Yes. And I think it just pisses people off, right? And so I’m already broke from the holidays, right? And so I just found that to not be useful. But y- give it a few months.

People got a few more dollars in their pocket, sun’s coming out, at least here in the Northeast, and people are a little more optimistic. And they’re also thinking a little more about their fitness and their bodies and being active ’cause they’re getting out [00:12:30] more. And so I think that makes a lot of sense.

Absolutely. And I think, and then the way you were strategic about it and s- and asking yourself, “What kind of value have we added? And is there any other kind of value we can add?” So it makes it really obvious that we’ve continued to invest in this business over the last 12 years. We didn’t rest on our laurels.

We keep making the staff better, the space better, your experience better. And I think that’s often, it’s part of the kind of general template we share with all of our Unicorn Society members about raising your rates is like shout from the rooftops all the ways you’ve invested this money Yes … into their experience, and [00:13:00] then they’re gonna be maybe a little less miffed about the rate going up.

No one loves it. No one loves to spend more, but they’re just not gonna be pissed. Yeah. What about you, Bill? W- what do you remember from that period where you’re deciding, “Okay, when are we gonna do it? How much are the rates gonna go up?” What was your thinking during that time?

Speaker 2: I think he hit the nail on the head.

I think giving ourselves the time to do it the right way- Mm-hmm … and show everyone that, you know, it, it’s not like the boys are suddenly coming to work every day in their Lambos. Like when, when we’re sending out- Yeah … we’re spending money on coaching for our coaches, [00:13:30] we’re spending money on the facility, we’re constantly upgrading, we add stuff every year.

We, we’ve always done it over and over again for 13 years. Yeah. So now that we’re really ramping up and doing it more often and more consistently, like it’s just, it had to go up.

Speaker: Yeah. That’s what it is. Yeah. Good for you. And I think that’s a great point, right? It’s not like this rate increase suddenly makes you all billionaires.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker: Right? It’s just no, that just gives us the cushion that we really should have had the whole time- … to make sure that we can save for a rainy day and emergencies, and pay our [00:14:00] staff better and better, and have a living wage ourselves as the owners, right? And so I think that’s an important message, and sometimes that gets lost.

Yeah. Back to you, Steven. How did you decide on the actual increase, right? ‘Cause you have some people who you probably didn’t, only needed to increase a little bit, some people who’ve haven’t had their rates increased in a decade. And so how did you decide the numbers here?

Speaker 3: Great question. Th- that one we battled for sure.

Yeah. In fact, we… Bill laughs because we had it all set on a number. Like, we’re ready to go. Mm-hmm. I, I’m [00:14:30] using, um, BFU’s raise your rate script. Yeah. I had this thing written out, and it was, like, a week before, I’m like, “Bill, it’s gotta go up more.” I’m looking at numbers, and Bill’s like, “Oh my God.” So no, he’s laughing ’cause I stress him out.

That’s what I usually do for all these- Yeah … 13 years. But I- when I was really working numbers, we have some things coming up. Um, we have a new lease that we have to sign, so rent is gonna go up significantly. Mm-hmm. So when I really did some financial forecasting, I, I thought, “You know what? This is the opportunity to take advantage and do it.”

Yeah. And again, [00:15:00] Mike Baranis gave us a lot of numbers that he’s done with his clientele. Yep. And so we got close to matching that. We e- we ended up doing a little bit over 7%- Mm-hmm … on everybody. We didn’t- Great … we didn’t k- curtail it to if you’re a one-on-one or not. We tried to keep it super even. We tried to keep it super fair.

Um, and so that was the final number that we ended up w- going with.

Speaker: Yeah. Good for you. Is it okay if I share the numbers of h- how that impacted you? I think it- Oh, for sure. Yeah. For sure. So I think what you told us is that added about $3,000 a month in monthly recurring revenue just from this increase.

Um,

Speaker 3: I would say a little bit [00:15:30] more than that. Probably-

Speaker: Okay … as

Speaker 3: we topped out around 3,500 a month.

Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Great. So, right. So a little bit, about 3,500, which I think you had said is something like, I, I haven’t done the math myself, but thir- something like 36, $36,000 a year.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. So- somewhere in that ballpark.

And I just wanna… I like sharing those numbers not to, not, again, not because y’all are going out and buying your Lambos with that, but to say like- … this one decision, right? This one decision to like, “Yes, let’s raise our rates,” and now hopefully every year they’re gonna go up a little bit. Doesn’t have to be 7%, but every year they’re gonna go up 3, 4, 5%, right?[00:16:00]

That’s, that one decision is a $36,000-plus decision, right? So I think you often use this analogy, uh, Business Free Unicorns, that small hinges swing big doors, right? That little decisions that we don’t really think much about, or in this case you thought a lot about in this case, right? But one little decision can have such a huge impact on long-term viability, sustainability of the business, comfort of your personal life, right?

It’s, that’s a huge amount, $36,000 over the year is a big jump for something that didn’t have that much cost [00:16:30] to you in terms of time, energy, money. You did, however, and this is very normal, lose a few clients. I think you said you maybe lost maybe, like, three, four clients. Is that right? Yeah. And I wanna say that I don’t know anyone that has a this- that has done like a big increase like this, like more than 5%, and hasn’t lost a person or two.

But on the grand scheme of things, that’s not even 1 or 2%. Right. And the amount of money that you made up is quadruple or more, the amount of money- Right … lost from those four clients, right? And

Speaker 3: to touch on that too was-

Speaker: Yeah, please, go

Speaker 3: ahead … the [00:17:00] number that you said, like three to four people. What I like to have for other gym owners realize is like that number was mostly open gym.

So three or four people were like paying 39 a month and they said, “Nah, I’m not really…” Or one person wasn’t going. I’m happy to say as far as one-on-one goes, I think we lost one one-on-one training client. Wow. We lost zero small group training. And so it, it’s impre- it’s im- it’s important that I wanted to s- get that destination down because if you’re doing a really good job and you’re showing support and [00:17:30] you’re crushing your one-on-one and doing the, bringing the value originally, for the most part, you probably won’t see a major change.

And that’s what- Yeah … we saw. We had a lot of people kinda say, “We get it.” There wasn’t really any- No … much pushback at all.

Speaker: That’s right. If you give them time, you give them reasons, you get them used to the idea, give them a little bit of a heads up, explain the, all the reasons why, like you did so beautifully in, in the email you sent, then yeah, th- most people are like, “Yep, I get it.

I’m not stoked, but I get it. You’re worth it.” That’s what most people… This is most, for most people, it’s a shrug. Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. Bill, what was your… When, once the, once it went live and you all sent out that email and you started to get responses and things, what were you thinking during that time?

Speaker 2: I was actually very surprised.

I don’t know why you guys kinda gave us the heads up on this several times and said like-

Speaker: Yeah …

Speaker 2: if they’re going to ca- if someone cancels, they probably had one foot out the door anyway.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker 2: And that’s exactly what we found. Yeah. Out of hundreds and hundreds of members to have four people say, “Eh, I don’t know, it’s a little too mu- Okay, I get it.”

Speaker: Yep. Yep. They’re people, you said, who already probably had one foot out the [00:18:30] door or were thinking about it. Right. And they just needed the extra excuse really. They needed a nudge, the reminder that they could leave, honestly. Yeah. And that just gives them an easy way to say, “I’m out.” And so that’s just really the best case scenario to only have a handful that leave, and not even your highest paying ones.

So it’s not even that big of a financial hit. And so I’ll ask you this, Bill. Moving forward, how are you all thinking about raising your rates moving forward?

Speaker 2: I think the big thing for us next is this was the big bump. We do plan to do it every year on a little bit of [00:19:00] basis. Uh, but the other thing to remember too is that even though we’re raising the rates on everyone, it’s not like our initial members will ever…

We can’t raise it enough for them to catch up to the current membership base. Right. So it’s not like they’ll ever be paying some, what they would consider an astronomical rate compared to what they joined at. So even year after year, raising them, they’ll never catch up to where our current prices are.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I

Speaker: think that’s really

Speaker 2: great. Uh, so it’s, I feel good about that. They still have this grandfathered thing. [00:19:30]

Speaker: Yeah. I think that’s the best of both worlds, right? That everyone’s going up every year, but the folks who’ve been with you the longest, they maybe have, for the most part, I, what I recommend is maybe like a 10, 15% discount behind all the new people.

In some cases it’s a little deeper and you might wanna have them catch up a little bit. But I think that’s the sweet spot for most gyms, right? Is that everyone’s going up, and if you’ve been around since the beginning, you’re always gonna be 10, 15% behind whatever our current rack rate is. And that’s a great gesture.

That’s a forever discount that is so valuable to them. And once in a while when you raise [00:20:00] rates, you, it’s fun to do that math and be like, “Hey, as a reminder, you’ve been with us for 10 years. Over that 10 years, you’ve been about 15, 20% behind. This is how much money you’ve saved by being an original member,” right?

Right. Sometimes you need to spell it out for them because they, it’s so normal for them, they don’t realize other people are paying so much more than they do. And so yeah, that’s really great. Anything you would add to that, Steven, about how you’re thinking about raising your rates moving forward?

Speaker 3: It is exactly what Bill said is- Yeah

is it’s not gonna be the 7%, uh, but we did not say that in an email. We said it was a little bit bigger of a [00:20:30] bump than going forward, but we didn’t wanna, we didn’t wanna pigeonhole ourselves into anything- Yes … ’cause you just never know what happens business client, and because now we’re going down this road of going back on what we said that we wouldn’t.

Mm-hmm. I was trying to keep it very clear, but also very open-ended in that sense. Good. Good. But we’re probably gonna land on between 4 to 5% year to year.

Speaker: Perfect. Yeah, I think that’s a really great sweet spot. And I think, and really just that initial ripping the Band-Aid off of, “Hey, we said we would never do this, [00:21:00] and we lied,” right?

That’s the hardest Band-Aid to pull off, right? Like, we, we didn’t know we didn’t know. We did this, we started this 12, 13 years ago. Like, we didn’t know that this was a, that was a bad idea. And so that’s exactly the email we had to send at MFF, right? This total mea culpa. “That’s our bad. I’m sorry. We lied.”

“We didn’t mean to, but we did.” And once you can get past that hump, the regular rate raising is, like, literally no big deal, right? Yeah. And in future years when you’re, it’s going up 3, 4, 5, 6%, no one’s, no one bats an eye. That’s just the way it works. Yeah. And it [00:21:30] keeps your margin healthy. Let’s do this. I think I wanna switch gears for a minute, ’cause we have a few minutes left, and I do wanna talk a little bit about something else you all have been working on.

So long-term listeners of the podcast might know that for Unicorn Society, we do these things called quarterly challenge. And so all of our Unicorn Society members often are challenged to tackle something new or, uh, some foundational function of the business every quarter. And usually we make it a little bit of a competition and it’s fun.

And this quarter that we’re in right now, as of this recording, is, uh, is we, is something called the Talk to Strangers Challenge, which is basically go out in your [00:22:00] community and meet strangers, right? Go pretend like you’re running for mayor of your town. Get three-mile famous. Make sure there’s no one in a three-mile radius doesn’t know that you exist.

And that looks like all kinds of things, and we can talk about what you’ve been doing. But in the chall- initial challenge, we teach people how to go set up a table at local events, go flyer in your local grocery store, set up partnerships with other local businesses, right? These are the kinds of things that help you, that you would do if you were running for mayor of your town.

And so maybe I’ll start with you, Steven. Walk me through, I know you all fully dove into this challenge [00:22:30] head first, so what are some things you’ve tried? What’s worked or not worked for you so far?

Speaker 3: We, uh, we got super sucked into this challenge. It’s so much fun. Yeah. It’s another one of those things that Business Unicorn is so good at is, you say you don’t know what you don’t know, but sometimes it’s, like, the dumb things that we’re still not doing, and it’s like you guys smack us in the face of, “Why are you not doing a bunch of business relationships?”

I’m like, “I don’t know. I don’t know why we’re not making that a priority.” So this has been awesome. We have established two new business, uh, relationships [00:23:00] in the month and a half that we’ve, we’re in the quarter. I think we’re midway here.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 3: So that’s been awesome. We’re gonna have a QR code, special design posters in their, uh, facility where they can go up…

Any customer can go up and scan, and they get a- Great … specific deal with us. I will get the lead. So my main job at the gym is I do the sales, so I meet with most of the prospects. And it’s good because, like, the way we’re going about it is, and we’re actually tying GMM in this, so that they get constant, uh…

It’s basically our, like, SEO for email marketing is not only will we collect their number [00:23:30] and I can actively approach them and try to book them a consultation, is they’re gonna be in our list now. They’re gonna be getting hit with different deals constantly over time. Okay. So those two things have been awesome.

We’ve gotten some huge swapping of email lists. Uh, one we just did with a business we’re very close with over the years, never thought to do this again. Uh, we got a 12,000 email contact list- Whoa … to swap that we added into our email marketing, so that was a huge win. Um- What kind of business is that? So we’re super excited.

[00:24:00] It’s a salon and spa- Great … right up the street from us. So we’ve been- Yeah … super close with them. We’re like family with them over the years, and we just never thought to do it. Yeah. And so we asked and they said sure, and we gave them ours, and we’ve been giving business back to each, forth each other for years, but- That’s amazing

never thought to ask.

Speaker: Yeah. Good for you. That’s huge. There’s a lot of people listening like, “Damn, my email list is not even 12,000.” So to, so to add 12,000- Right … that’s a huge number of people to add, and I think there’s… And that’s a real, there’s a real strategy to [00:24:30] buying and acquiring email lists. You have to go really warm them up and introduce yourself, and you’ll get a ton of opt-ins.

But hell, even if you got 50 opt-outs, I should say. Sorry. Even if you got 50% of those 12,000 to opt out, you still increased your email list by 6,000 people. Right. Right? That are local- And they’re all our avatar … and care about their… Yeah, exactly. They’re local. They care about health and wellness. They’re willing to spend money on it.

What a win. So bravo to you on that. I think most people forget about that as well. Forget that other small businesses out there also [00:25:00] have email lists and social media followings. Yeah. And if we can just get in front of each other’s audiences, swap lists, do Instagram takeovers, whatever it looks like, that’s so powerful, right?

‘Cause it costs both of you almost nothing to get leads from each other’s folks, and especially when you find businesses like that where you’re not in competition with them. Those, your services are really complementary. Yeah. I think that’s fantastic. Let’s just go back to those business partnerships for a second.

Yeah. Either one of you can answer this one. What, how did you choose which businesses to approach, and what was your approach when you first [00:25:30] reached out to them?

Speaker 3: I can tell you the two that we really established with were actually two that reached out to me. One was very recent, so it kind of lined up perfectly with the quarterly challenge, and I kind of- Great

jumped all in and said, “Let’s do this.” It’s funny, another one had been asking me for the last year or so, and I just didn’t feel like I had the system set for a, a really good business relationship. I kind of thought, my– in my mind, I kind of thought, “You want my members, but what can I do for you?” They’re kind of- Mm-hmm

you know, “I can offer you this for…” And [00:26:00] going through the challenge and working with you and Mike and learning more about what a business relation can really do for you- Yeah … changed my mindset a little bit, and so I kind of reached back out and we set a meeting the next day. They were ready to go. Great.

Great. Um, and we’re looking- And what kind of businesses are

Speaker: they?

Speaker 3: So one of them is a nutrition business. Mm-hmm. It’s like Meals on Wheels kind of place.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker 3: S- and they’re– and we just line up as far as value-wise. The owner is amazing. She’s super cool. Yes. So that was very important to me, too. Uh, b- building trust.

If I’m gonna have these people come in and set up tables at my [00:26:30] gym and vice versa- Sure … I wanna make sure I trust them coming into my home and by my fitness home. Yep. Uh, and then another one was a, believe it or not, is a men’s testosterone and peptide boosting-

Speaker: Oh,

Speaker 3: great … company.

Speaker: Yeah. Very,

Speaker 3: that’s very- Um, so w-

they’re very popular.

Speaker: They’re

Speaker 3: popping up everywhere. Yes. Yeah. And that will tie in with us as well.

Speaker: Yeah, I love that. That’s great. One of the things that we talk about in the challenge, and I’m sure our listeners have heard me say before, is that I think it’s great to start with these services that are in the health and wellness zone, just because it’s most likely to have a very similar avatar as us.

So it makes [00:27:00] nutrition, testosterone boosting center, all these things. That makes sense. And, and you know this already, so I’m saying this to our listeners. But listeners, when you’re thinking about this, please don’t limit yourself to health and wellness companies, right? ‘Cause your im- your avatar also does other things with their life.

They also go to coffee shops and hair salons and all kinds of things. They go to chiropractors and things like that in health and wellness. But they also go to golf clubs and there’s lots of other businesses. Grocery stores and you name it. Daycares. There’s lots of places where your avatar also [00:27:30] goes, so just make sure you don’t limit yourself to just the health and wellbeing market.

Let me ask you this, Bill. When you think about maintaining these partnerships long term, what do you all f- how do you all envision this fitting into your big picture long-term strategy for getting members?

Speaker 2: I think it’s great we figured out, like you guys have given us a lot of really great ideas about how to come up with special LBOs for these folks and that kind of thing.

Mm-hmm. And it’s just, it’s I think long [00:28:00] term gonna give us so many more, uh, so many more leads. It’s like it’s finding other people to help start to fill the top of our bucket.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, that’s it.

Speaker 2: The top of that funnel.

Speaker: That’s exactly it, Bill. Yeah, I think you’re right. That is a good way of thinking about it.

It’s just like, it’s just gonna give us so many more, we often use the analogy like poles in the water when it comes- Right … to fishing for leads. Like these are just different poles. You might do some s- organic social media, paid social media. You’ve got now business partnerships you can put on this list, email marketing, which you’ve already been doing, but you can amp up through these [00:28:30] strategies.

These are all just different poles in the water that bring people to the top of your funnel, and I think that’s a great way of thinking about it. I know we’re marking- What did Mark say?

Speaker 2: Nets, fishing nets and poles,

Speaker: right? Yeah, fishing nets and poles. That’s exactly it, right? We use a lot of fishing analogies even though neither of us fish.

You don’t either. Yeah. It just makes sense. We have to wrap things up here, so maybe I’ll l- ask you just a few kind of parting questions. I’ll start with you, Steven. Obviously, you’ve got– You’ve made a lot of changes since you joined Unicorn Society, and I hope we get to work together for many years to come.

Can you just talk a little bit, [00:29:00] uh, about how you’ve managed yourself and your own time when it comes to doing these projects? That’s often the barrier we hear from people and listening to the podcast is, “We like all these ideas, but who has the fucking time?” Like how do you manage yourself to make time for these kind of new initiatives?

Speaker 3: I think one of the main things, right off the jump when you become a Unicorn Society member, the onboarding process is they kinda get into a timing- Mm-hmm … of each session, and you kinda lay out of like how much time do you spend on everything during the week. So that is an eye-opening [00:29:30] right off the bat.

So you can kinda start to cross off- Mm-hmm … and start opening up some blocks right off the jump.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: But I often, real quick, people ask me that now, too, “You’re doing all these things, BFU, you were busy before.” You have to start to prioritize what is moving the business forward, and guess what? That is now the priority.

And so some things go by the wayside, and you’re gonna have to make decisions, but you guys make it very clear on what is gonna move the business forward, and you gotta just, you gotta jump in and keep it moving.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Sad. Yeah. Thanks for that. How about you, Bill? How are you thinking about organizing yourself and your own time [00:30:00] to take on some of these projects?

Speaker 2: There’s certainly no lack of… He has two small kids, I have two small kids, we’re running a business. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot going on. But I think we’re also both really, like you say at the top of the podcast, fitness business geeks. Yeah. This is– We really geek out on this stuff, man. Like- Yeah … we really love it, and so to be surrounded by other people who really also love it, I think, and get excited about this kinda stuff, it’s really, I know for me personally, has reinvigorated my love for the business and really [00:30:30] has made a huge change.

Speaker: Good.

Speaker 2: So.

Speaker: Good. Yeah, it’s awesome. Yeah. I’m so glad. I’m so glad. We’ve loved working with you all so far. I hope we have many more years to come, and congrats on all the success you’ve had. I know it’s just the beginning of our time together, but hopefully these seeds you’re planting now are gonna continue to bear fruit for many years to come.

So thanks for being on the podcast. Congrats on all your success. I’m sure we’ll have you back again in 6 to 12 months when you’re crushing it even more. Yeah. And I really appreciate your time today. Last thing is, how do people find Tenacity online? Where can they go find you? [00:31:00] Steven?

Speaker 3: So you can find us on, it’s Tenacity Fitness.

It’s, uh, Tenacity Fitness on Instagram. Tenacitytraining.com is our website. Those are the, probably the two quickest way to find us.

Speaker: Awesome. We’ll leave all that information down in the show notes where we can go find you, check you out, and, and be inspired by your great work. Steven, Bill, thank you so much, and listeners, have a kick-ass week.

I’ll see you on the next one. Bye, everybody.

Speaker 2: Bye. Thank [00:31:30] you.