Episode 85: Bedros Keulian - What It Takes To Build A Fitness Empire With 700+ Gyms Worldwide

Legacy of Monsters an Apple original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh, my God.

Go, go, go. Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV. Plus.

Hold music. You want to avoid it and so do your customers. So say goodbye to holdmusic and hello to faster, smarter support with Salesforce. Make service more personal and agents more productive using built in trusted AI. Then watch costs and wait times drop and satisfaction soar. Support customers in a whole new way with Service GPT. Learn how@salesforce.com ServiceGPT all right, what's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the build you'd Empire podcast. And today we have Bedros Kulian with us here today in the build your empire studio. And it's a pleasure to have you on the show, man.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate the opportunity, Casey.

Absolutely. So I know that we've connected before in the path, Bedros, but I know that it's number one. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. For everyone that doesn't know Bedros, he's the CEO of Fit Body Bootcamp. He has over 700 gyms worldwide. And it's crazy because it's such a small world when it comes to social media and just. Just having the time of day for you to come on the show. I definitely appreciate it, but yeah, I just wanted to kind of give you that intro and really just jump into it because I know everyone that's listening to the build you'd empire podcast. They're anywhere from 18 to 25, but to kind of just bring people up to speed. Bedros, I'd love for you to just kind of tell the audience what you're currently working on day to day. Just kind of recap everything.

Absolutely. So these days, I do less of the in the trenches work and more of the visionary and in the clouds work. And what I mean by that is I'm grateful that I'm the founder and CEO of FitBotta Bootcamp, one of the fastest growing franchises on the planet. We're adding about 15 to 20 new franchises per month worldwide. And so I'm the CEO and I have two VPs under me who answer to me. And then of course, we've got a team of about 48 to 50 people who answer to them. And so every day I'm working on deals like bringing a supplement line to our fitbody bootcamp locations worldwide. Seeing how we can drive more traffic from shows like Housewives of Beverly Hills or hooking up with dancing with the stars, et cetera, to get build our brand and so on, and not just driving Facebook traffic all day long. We certainly drive about a quarter million dollars a month worth of Facebook traffic. But we want big branding, we want alignment with celebrities. And so I do the big thinking. And in addition to that, of course, I've also wrote a book about. Well, published about eight weeks, nine weeks ago, and it became a best selling book on Amazon and it's about to hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller book. And the book is called man up how to cut the bullshit and dominate in business and in life. And it really is about peak performance and entrepreneurial leadership. But outside of those two things, I'm not doing anything else because I believe in singularity of focus. And the more I focus on the things that matter, the faster they grow.

That's amazing. I think one thing just regarding just the branding that you are doing, just from a personal brand standpoint too, I think it's ironic because you have your show called the empire podcast. The Empire show, Right. And it's amazing because I know ours is build your empire side. There's some great synergy that we have there. But I think it's so cool because just based on what you told the audience so far, it's like you really built an empire. That's what we like to call them here at build your empire is an empire voter. Right. But for everyone that may be listening, when did you start fit body Bootcamp? Because I think the coolest thing about doing interviews is you hear the success, you hear the just everything, the journey. But when did this fit body bootcamp journey start?

Casey, I'm glad you asked that question, man. Especially for the demographic who's watching and listening to your show, because they're the younger audience and they're entrepreneurial minded, they're driven, they're ambitious. And I think that's important to really get the context of where this started. Because oftentimes they think, well, I gotta come up with this shotgun of an idea that has to be just perfect. Not true. I was a coach, a business coach and a consultant to personal trainers, because I used to have five personal training businesses in the early 2000s gyms in San Diego. I sold them off and I started coaching and consulting personal trainers. And everything was going great, man. Everybody was making money. Well, then of course, the economy crashed in 2008, and when it did There was less and less one on one personal trainers making money, which meant that I had less and less coaching clients to make money from because I was their consultant. And so I quickly had to figure out, like, how to pivot and still make money for my family and pay for my mortgage and my two kids, et cetera. And so right around that time, of course, if you remember, back there was boot camps happening outdoors when personal trainers were running boot camps in parks and school parking lots and stuff. And in my industry, in the personal training industry, we personal trainers always looked at boot camps almost as a redheaded stepchild. Like, hey, my real bread and butter is one on one personal training. That's how I make most of my money. But on one hour a day or on weekends, I'll run fitness boot camps. Well, when the economy crashed in 2008, 2009, and now no one could afford one on one personal training because it's just way too expensive, all of a sudden I realized this is the time to turn this outdoor boot camp that everyone looks at as a side hustle into a mainstream business model. And so by 2010, we had our first indoor boot camp running. And I didn't even know if the model would work. So I said, fuck it, I'm gonna run it inside of a gymnastics center because I'm not gonna go sign a five year lease. And so gymnastic centers don't open until, you know, after 12, one o' clock in the afternoon. So we were running boot camps at 5 in the morning till about 10, 11 o' clock in the morning and making good money doing it. And that's when I realized, hey, if I can bring boot camps indoors and run six to seven classes or sessions a day, I could charge people a lot less. Which means more people can afford $150 a month than $600 to $800 a month. And now it's weatherproof, which means I can do it all across the country, all around the globe. You could do it in the wintertime, whether it's raining, snowing, whatever. And so really it was out of a, one, out of desperation for money, and two, out of a disaster, a financial disaster, the economic crash, where Fit Body boot camp was born. And people go, well, you just got lucky, right place, right time. And I go, let me just remind you of one other person. And there's literally dozens of other people who have built their millions like I have as a byproduct of the economic crash. Gary Vaynerchuk, he started right in 2009 as the economy crashed. Less spending on Facebook, buying ads and stuff. And so he knew this was the opportunity to buy traffic at wholesale. And so he went all in, just like I did. Just like probably hundreds of thousands of other people did who weren't afraid to expand while everyone else was afraid and therefore contracted.

Okay, that's so. So just for people, if they, they missed it, just. Fit Body Bootcamp, it's. You started out gymnastics, gymnastics area. Now there's 700 different locations. You're franchising. You said 20 to 25amonth, correct?

Correct.

So. So when it comes to like the actual like what happens at these boot camps, I'd love for you to just kind of give some people some context about like if they are a part of Fit Body Bootcamp, like what should they expect internally?

Yeah, yeah, good question. So if someone shows up to a fit by the bootcamp, we don't even call them classes. I hate when people call them classes. We call them sessions. Just like a one on one personal training session. You show up to a fit by the bootcamp. The difference is it's not one on one, it's one on many. One coach. And anywhere from 15 to 30 clients. And we've got a proprietary system called the four station rotation. We've got four stations set up. Each station has five TRX, let's say five kettlebell, five plyo boxes and five sets of dumbbells. And every day you might come in and there's still four stations. But those stations are different things could be battle ropes the next time instead of trx, et cetera. And so we get people in every station and in a 30 minute time zone, we rotate them several times and people get amazing fat burning workouts that build muscle tone. They can turn off their brain and go through the workouts. Best of all, there's a personal trainer coaching them through the entire thing. And then of course we hold them accountable and give a nutrition plan to follow as well. Just like a personal trainer at a fraction of the cost.

Okay.

So to us, when a client comes in, we don't treat them any different than we would treat a one on one personal training client. And of course to the entrepreneur now instead of just having the 1% of the community as your prospect, you've got like 25, 30% of the community as your prospect because more people can afford a boot camp pricing model versus a one on one personal training model. So it's a win win for everybody involved.

That's amazing. It scares me because I know for me being 18 years old. I think the biggest thing and actually posted about this today, it's like health is wealth, right? So just growing up, like when did you make the conscious decision to like actually put focus into health and being fit? Because I think there's obviously like majority of America is overweight, right? Obesity is at its high. So has that always been the case for me since you were in your like young teenage years or when was the decision to actually like pursue fitness for a full time career?

Dude, that's a really good question. And me getting into fitness was a byproduct of trying to get a date for the prom. You know my story because we've been friends for a short period of time and you know my story that I'm a foreigner to this country. I come from a communist country, English is a second language for me. And growing up as a foreigner, we kind of had to live hand to mouth. And we were eating out of dumpsters that we found behind grocery stores where we found food that was expired but it wasn't rotten. So my mom and dad would have us fish it out and we'd eat that. We lived in Section 8 housing, so eating healthy wasn't the highest priority. It was survival.

Right.

So when you grow up and you're fat and overweight, you kind of stay that way throughout elementary school, junior high and into high school. Well, as my junior year of high school came about, I knew that next year is prom. And man, I had the hots for this girl named Nakaya. And my only goal was to be able to take her to the prom. So I figured, well, if I could just lose weight the summer before senior year, get in shape, there's a higher chance of yes when I ask her out, right?

Yes.

So basically a young man who wants to have the prom has the opportunity to do so. But my theory was if I lose weight, I'll have a higher chance. Now that summer I lost the weight. I came back looking lean, athletic. A couple of friends of mine from high school helped me get into the gym and work out. I've never worked out before. I had never eaten right. So they helped me structure my diet because they played high school football and so they had a better background than I did. But dude, I was still. I didn't have the confidence to ask Nikaya to the prom. So while I was in great shape, I never asked her to the prom. So I never went to the prom. But from that point on, senior year on, I knew I wanted to be a personal trainer. When I left high school I wanted to help more people achieve what I did, which was the confidence, the self esteem and, and the health. And I never looked back. It wasn't an easy start. It was definitely challenging. And I had multiple side jobs just to make ends meet. But I knew that hell or high water, I was going to become a very successful personal trainer. And today I look at all 700 plus locations that we have worldwide.

Crazy.

That's how I'm training people worldwide now.

Yeah, that's amazing. So just regarding fitness, was it something where you said coming from a communist country, did you ever play sports to like keep yourself in shape or was it like as soon as it hit senior year, it was like gym only. Like, what was your sort of like regimen during the Bro, even now embarrassing.

My, you know, because I'm 44 years old. Right. So I'm literally probably old enough to be your father. My son is 13, my daughter's, my daughter's 11. They both play sports. I'm on the sidelines, I'm watching them play soccer or football, but I have no idea who's doing what. I just know what a goal looks like or what a touchdown looks like.

Yeah.

And I root for them. But I played no sports. I was inactive.

Okay.

I was just that kid watching. I'd come home from school, watch tv, eat a bowl of cereal, and then peanut butter and then, and then, you know, baloney sandwiches. So everything I was doing was the opposite of what a young man should have been doing.

Okay.

And so literally the senior year or the summer before senior year of high school is when I, when I was bit by the fitness bug, only because I wanted to ask a girl out to the prom.

That's amazing. That's, that's so cool.

Today, fitness is a big deal in my life. Right. I don't work out, it mentally screws me up. But back then, that was the last thing I wanted to do was get in the gym and get uncomfortable.

Totally. That's super cool. So nowadays, like, what's your workout routine? Cause I think it's like coming from someone that you said eating a bowl of cereal every day, right. You got the fitness bug, like kind of throughout the journey to today for some like applicable advice to people listening, like, how does someone like yourself that's so busy running a company, 700 locations, so much to do. You're the visionary for the company. Where do you fit fitness into your schedule on a daily basis?

I fit fitness just like, just like my business, just like my family, I fit fitness into my priority list. And if something matters to you, you'll make time for it. If it doesn't matter to you, you'll make excuses, right? And so fitness is really important to me. I kind of treat my body like a fighter jet. I always say there's two types of humans on the planet. Crop dusters who will abuse their body, abuse their mindset, just barely make it by paying their bills. And then fighter jets who keep their mind strong, their relationship strong, their body strong, and make a shit ton of money and do a lot of good with that money. And so I look at myself as a fighter jet because of that. I go, I make time, I schedule my workouts every morning between 9 and 11 o'. Clock. You'll find me in the gym, working out, doing mobility, flexibility, and then strength training, cardio. And then I come here to the office, which is why it's 12 noon now and we're doing this thing now and not in the morning, because the morning is my time to take care of my health so that I can serve you and your audience and all my franchisees worldwide. So that's when I work out, man. And I do it seven days a week. And the reason I do it seven days a week, and that's the advice I want to give your audience, is if you plan on working out seven days a week, then you'll get in about six days a week, which means your body only needs one day of rest. Quite honestly, no one's working out like a freaking super athlete where they need to recover so much and so make it a priority. And I'm convinced that my business and my money grows faster because I'm fit, athletic, and I can withstand more torture, more adversity than the average person.

Got it. Got it. That's super cool. And it's funny because I feel like people that I meet that are just like, ripped, that's where I want to get to, right? That's always the end goal of someone that's hitting the gym. Working out is to really stay on that schedule and be consistent with it. But do you think that correlation like you just said, like, do you strongly believe that correlation in the gym will help you in business based on your journey or how does that look?

100%. Here's why you work out. Obviously, you know that you're in the gym, you're pumping weights, it's like, oh, man, I still have four more repetitions to go. Your mind says, put it down. It burns, it hurts. You don't know if you're going to be able to do it. But your body, you know that if you just go through those four more repetitions and you go through that adversity, your muscles will be bigger and stronger and more resilient. And next time, you'll be able to lift more muscles. You'll be able to run faster on the treadmill. You'll be able to jump higher on the plyo box. Each time you do that, two things happen. One, you're teaching your mind that when I want to quit, I don't and I go for the outcome. Well, the same thing applies in business. When in business, things get tough, the suck factor kicks in. Your mind says quit, but your body's going to go, no, go through it. Because when you went through it in the gym, you got the happy outcome. Go through it in business, you'll get the happy outcome. So just like we can build our muscles in the gym, we can build our entrepreneurial muscles at work by constantly going through the suck factor and then coming out on the other end more resilient, more rich, and of course, more resourceful.

That's amazing. And I want to touch on something because I think this is something that. Where a lot of maybe young people or even myself, when I look at you as a person. Right. 700 gyms, there's so much going on within the back end of your company that people don't see. Right. And one thing I want to touch on is just like scaling a company and really just hiring the right people. You said how many people are on your team now? Just so we can reference that, just over 50. So. So, so you have over 50 people. And I think that even for myself, that we're struggling, that I'm struggling with here, it's like when it comes to building out a team and scaling a company to the sense of bringing more people on board, how was that, I would say growth curve for you, and how did you, I would say, jump over the hurdles that came along the way?

So the growth curve, like anybody else, was painful because, you know when you're running a company that's doing a million or 5 million or 10 million, all you know is what you know at that time. And all you have is your three or eight or nine or 10 employees. Yep. And all of a sudden you go, holy cow. The first time we hit that, we. So we've hit the Inc. 5,5000 list four times now. This year is the fourth time. The entrepreneur 500 best growing franchises twice.

Amazing.

This year's the second time. So every time we hit a damn List, which is a good thing. We end up. More people buy our franchise because they go, hey, look, this is a thriving franchise. We're getting so many accolades from Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur magazine. And so I know that once the big announcement happens again from Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur magazine, in the next two months, we're gonna get. We're gonna onboard more franchisees. We'll probably onboard 30 or 40amonth for a while. And so when that happens, I gotta beef up my team. Our revenue is gonna go up. So what's gonna happen? Well, I'm probably gonna hire 10 more people in the next 60 days. I know all 10 of those are not going to be unicorns. I know that I'm going to get some donkeys, and I know that I have to probably fire some of them, and that's not going to feel better. They're going to cause a mess. And some people might cause. Might go and complain to the state of California about whatever, that we wrongfully fired them or whatever. But my point is, I'll deal with all that kind of adversity because I know the outcome is going to be greatness. And so the learning curve has always been a challenge. And so now what I do is I surround myself with mentors. There's a. There's a dude. So I have a speaking mentor. Cause I speak from this. Teach a lot. I've got a speaking mentor. I've got a. His name is Cameron Herold. He used to be the CEO of 1-800-got-JUNK, those trucks that come and take all that junk in your backyard. Right. He grew that thing to a $200 million company. Now fit Body Boot Camp is going to be a $200 million company very soon. So I've already hired a coach, Kevin Harold, who's been where I want to be so that he can tell me what's coming up for me in the growth trajectory that we have. Right. And so between taking those risks and just hiring the people, knowing that not everyone's gonna work out, but rolling with the punches anyway and then hiring a mentor who's already been where I am, and he can guide me along as I go, that's pretty much how we get through the growth phases.

Okay. Okay. One thing I want to touch on because I think just mentorship, self education, I really, when I was 15, had a neck injury, was in a neck brace. That's when, like, I pivoted to actually, like, I picked up a book, actually started reading. And I. I see that you have books in your office right there. And I want to touch on something that really is just something that comes from the personal heart of myself. And that is when was the pivot point to actually like pursue self education? Because you always hear the quote, it was like, self education will make you a fortune. Modern education will make you a living. Right? So that sort of quote mentality does you bringing up mentorship and paying and seeking counsel. I think a lot of young people hear it, but they don't know how to apply it. And based off of, even from the video that we have right now, the books in the background, when was that transition in your life that actually like allowed you to grip onto self education?

Casey, I'm telling you, man, you are wise beyond your years with that question. I'm glad you asked that because you're doing your tribe a massive favor. And so for me, I wasn't that smart. So when I was a personal trainer in my mid-20s, at this point I was around 24, 25 years old. So certainly older than you are now, correct?

Yeah. 18.

Yeah, you're 18 now. And so I was a personal trainer in a big box gym working for the man. And because I didn't have enough personal training clients, I also worked as a fry cook at Disneyland. And I also worked as a bouncer at a gay bar because the gay bar paid more than the straight bar.

Okay?

And now I didn't want to have those two other side jobs. No one has the ambition of being a fry cook or a bouncer. You have the ambition of being a personal trainer, a cop, a doctor, a nurse, an accountant. So one day I was complaining to one of my personal training clients and that's something you should never do. You should never complain when I'm planning personal training clients. Because he asked me, his name is Jim Franco. He said, bedros, why do you look so tired? It was a Monday morning. I go, jim, I was working all weekend at Disneyland at the bar. I hardly got any sleep, I hardly did any self care and workouts. Like, I'm exhausted, man. And I'm complaining to him. He goes, well, the problem is you don't know how to sell. And I actually got into an argument with him, Casey. I said, jim, actually I do know how to sell. Because if I didn't know how to sell, how would have gotten you as a person personal training client? He goes, no, no, you didn't sell me. He goes, you just took my order. You're an order taker. And I said, what do you mean I'm an order taker? He goes, I knew I wanted to work with a personal trainer. I knew I wanted to work out three days a week. And I came up to you and I said, hey, I want to do these things. And you just signed me up and took my money. He goes, but when I see you let people walk because you refuse to sell them and close them, you just let them walk. When you listen to their objections and actually believe it and let them walk, he goes, my heart hurts for you. I go, well, Jim, then what do I do? And I was kind of being condescending when I asked that. He goes, tomorrow, I'm going to bring you something and you're going to read it. And he brought me a Tom Hopkins sales book, okay? And Tom Hopkins did real estate sales back in like the 80s, he taught people how to sell real estate. But Tom Hopkins sales book led to a Brian Tracy cassette tape that he brought me on sales. Then that led to a Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and Tony Robbins. And before you know it, I'm like digesting all the sales, marketing, persuasion, influence, self help stuff. Only because my personal training client was kind enough to force this on me when I asked him in a condescending manner.

Okay?

So it wasn't 25, 26 that I started to voluntarily consume books, cassette tape, CDs on this kind of self growth and education. I regret not doing that a decade sooner.

Okay? So it was that personal training client that really like pivoted your focus and attached you onto that. That's amazing. Same thing for me, that's like when I found out, like when I was in my neck brace, Tai Lopez, it was like the pivot point for me to pick up a book by Gary Vee and start building my brand. And that's something I want to touch on now because obviously that's how we connected is social media. And that's really what got me into this whole space, is picking up a book, understanding what's happening on social media. And it's really led to just such an abundance of a networking opportunity and just so many opportunities in my life. But I want to ask you as someone that's built a massive organization, over 700 franchises this huge, like from people looking in, it's just phenomenal. And it is. But when was the, I would say, transition you made to build a personal brand? Because I think a lot of people, CEOs, some people are the face of the brand, some people are struggling with building a brand. And you're putting out so much content speaking on stages, you've built a massive brand over the last year when I started following you and it's just phenomenal the content you're putting out. So when was that transition? As someone that was already building a company to even care and focus on social media, like, when was that transition and why did you do it?

Good question. So. So again, I started bit by Bootcamp 2009, 2010 was when I really started ramping up. In 2012 is when I turned it into an official franchise. Before that it was a licensing program, kind of like CrossFit where they're affiliates, right?

Yep.

So really, when you think about it, I got serious about Fit Body Bootcamp in 2012.

Okay.

And even then, 2012, 13, part of 2015, early 2015, I was just still focused on growing fit by the bootcamp. Then I realized as people are reaching out to me because they're hearing about Fit by the bootcamp and the growth and people are doing the search, who's the guy behind it? And I had a blog at that point, but I never really was active on social media by way of I would buy social media traffic to grow my business, but I wasn't out there putting content out. But I realized I really enjoy the idea when people would reach out to me. I enjoyed the idea of helping them, coaching them. And I do have, you know, several, actually a few dozen, few hundred actually coaching clients. I have a few dozen private coaching clients. But I've got mastermind programs that I run and I got a few hundred people in them. So I realized, man, I really like this, but there's so many people out there who can't afford to get coaching and consulting from me. Maybe I ought to use the social media platforms as a way of giving back. Right. Like basically being the Jim Franco. Like what Jim Franco, my personal training client did for me at the gym. Because there was no social media back then in 1990, something I'm going to do here. And so I decided to hell with it. Early 2015, I launched my Instagram account and in three short years built almost 100,000 person following. And because I've got a four person video team, because they go out to our franchises and videotape them and that's the case studies that we use to run ad campaigns. You know, I always have one of my video guys traveling with me everywhere I go. And I just started to make it a personal brand. Here's what I realized. Not only am I being able to pay it forward and mentor, because giving back is really important to me. I believe the more you give, the More you get. So giving back is important to me. And the more I give, the more connections I've made. Great people like you and Ed Mylett and Andy Priscilla and, you name it, Steve Weatherford, right? So I've met such great people through social media, number one. Number two, as it turns out, I'm also building my franchise through social media because so many people are like, hey, you know what? If I'm going to open up a business, I want to open up a business with a guy who's got these values and this mission. And I'm very open about my values and my mission. I'm a very intense guy and I talk about that. And people who are intense and want to open up a gym of some sort, they get on board with the Body Boot Camp instead of some other brand. And so to me, paying it forward is important. I started in 2015 with the social media thing because I wanted to build my personal brand because I figured, one, I could help and two, I can get coaching clients and sell franchises. And that's kind of what we've been doing.

That's amazing. One thing that stuck out to me was you said in 2012, that's when you said you took it seriously when you actually made it, the franchise model. And I think that that's. There's some depth right there that I want you to touch on. And, like, what does it take to, like you said prior to that it was more of a leasing agreement or you said something like that. Yeah, licensing agreement. What, like, what was. I would say the jump to do a franchise. And what does that mean from a business perspective for the people that may not know?

Oh, good question, dude. So here's how I look at a licensing program is real simple. I can say, hey, Casey, you can run the fit by the bootcamp flag and call your business a Fit Body bootcamp. You can use some of our systems and just pay me whatever, 300, $500 a month. But a franchise, now, I can give you protected territory. I can say, hey, I'm not gonna open up another franchise. Fit Body Boot camp location within 5 miles, 8 miles, 3 miles, depending on the population density. And I can ask you to use, hey, use this front desk system, the software here's a pricing model so we can drill down specificity. And I realized the more specific things I can have my licensees do, the more I can predict their outcome. And so for me to give a protected territory, for me to tell them what kind of pricing from, what kind of software to use, what kind of Systems, I had to turn it into a franchise. And I also knew that if I turn it into a franchise, now the government is involved. The Federal Trade Commission oversees all franchises.

Okay.

And so there's 11 audits a year. 11 times. So when people are like, man, I don't want to get audited. I get audited 11 times a year voluntarily. All franchises do. Subway does 7, 11 does. Chippy Lube does. And so you're kind of stepping into the big boy field there. And if you have a very high failure rate, the Federal Trade Commission will stop you from selling franchises until your failure rate has dropped. So we've got like a 2 1/2% failure rate in our franchise. Just to give you an idea, the threshold the Federal Trade Commission has for before they stop you from selling franchise locations, it's about 20, 25%. So this is like the big leagues, but if you want to really build an empire, you have to go in the big leagues. You can't play small, and license is a small play.

That's super cool. That's interesting to me. And, like, from a personal perspective, like, when you made that jump, like you said, like, into the big leagues, like, how did your mindset change of, like, going like. Like you said, you literally called it. Like, you have to make that jump into the big leagues. Like, how did you as a person change at that point in 2012?

Oh, dude, this is. You're asking such great questions.

Thank you.

Yeah. So honestly, nothing changed in me. And that was the problem. And that's why, even though I franchised in 2012, in 2013 and 14, those were the worst years of my life. I had a massive anxiety attack in 2013. I had franchisees leaving faster than they were coming on board because I promised a unicorn, but I was selling a donkey. I had no personal discipline, so I thought I could just still sleep in it every. Every morning and not have to wake up early and work off a list that I had made the night before. And basically everything crumbled on me to the point where the state of California said, hey, look, you can't sell any more franchises until you fix these problems. And so I had to suffer because it's almost like someone who goes, hey, even though I'm really good at high school football, I'm going to go into the NFL but still maintain my bad habits as a high school student. Now, you might be a talented person as a high school athlete, but on that NFL football team field, you're going to get crushed if you go in there with Bad habits, bad work ethic, et cetera, bad discipline. And so it was out of that that I decided to. I got to do something about that. I had massive anxiety attacks and stuff. We were $600,000 in debt in 2013. So really it wasn't an uphill swing until right around late 2014 when I started to what I call man up and started building discipline. I got clear on my vision for fit body boot camp. I became a better communicator. I became more decisive and make faster and better decisions. And some things in my life became non negotiable. Like I'll never go to the dry cleaner, the grocery store. I'll never stay awake past 10:30 at night. And when I started to dial in my life, then my business took off. Which is no surprise that we hit the Inc. 5000 list in 2015, 16, 17, 18. Literally when I manned up and fixed my leadership problems, okay, my business took off. And that's actually was on the heels of that that I wrote this book, Man Up. And I outlined all six pillars of my success in there.

That's amazing. That's amazing. And I'll make sure that we put the link down below for everyone that's listening so they can pick up a copy of that. But one thing that stuck out to me just from there, you said you made a discipline list of not staying up till past 10:30, never going to the grocery store. So is that still you never go to the grocery store? That is. That stuck out to me. How does that work?

Yeah, I don't go to the grocery store.

Okay.

You know, my wife doesn't either because she's a CFO of my company, Chief financial officer. We have a full time house manager, Marlon. Marlon goes to the grocery store. I don't change the light bulb. If there's a burnt out light bulb, Marlon changes the light bulb.

Love it.

And if something hardcore needs to be worked on in the house, just because I'm handy, I don't go working on the plumbing or the garbage disposal. Marlon will call in someone. Marlon makes sure that our life is maintained so that I could be the fighter jet. You don't see the fighter jet pilot picking up a pistol and going door to door clearing houses. Like he's up there in the spider jet dropping bombs and doing the big destruction. The big moves I love. I look myself that way and that's what I do. So I'm at the dry cleaners. If I'm getting my car washed, if I'm at the grocery store, then I'M making small moves, and small moves produce small outcomes.

That's amazing. That's literally. So it's just like, at the end of the day, like, delegating the things that, you know are not going to help the big picture at the end of the day. Love it. So man up. The book. When did you start writing the book? Cause I think it's super cool. Like, whenever I'm reading books, I'm reading a book called Traction right now. And it's. I always like to figure out, like, all right, what was someone's purpose and intent for writing the book and for you talking about that. I'd love to hear that from your perspective.

Yeah. So in 2015, once we got our first nod by Inc. Magazine, and our business started to really take off and scale, I was like, holy crap, I can't believe I made through those two and a half years of the terrible, most worst time of my life. And people around me kept saying, dude, you got to write a book about how you took a company that was pretty much on the brink of failure and turned it back around and turned it into an Inc 5000 company. And so enough people keep telling you that, then you go, you know what? Maybe I ought to do that. So I started really writing the book. Then as far as the ideas of what the book would instill, reached out to a publisher in 2016, got a publishing deal then. And then, of course, we launched it September 18, 2018 or so, a couple months ago, and it's just been a smash hit.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So one thing I want to touch on, just like everything that has been going on in your life, I know that you said you have two kids, correct?

Yeah.

So I'm just building your business, scaling franchises all over the world. How. How did having kids change that in your life?

Well, actually, having kids made me even more disciplined, because, as you may know, I mean, you were a kid, right?

Yeah. Yeah, Mom.

You have a dad. You probably want them to be around as much as possible, if you like them, at least. And so for me, I realized my kids are either going to end up going to therapy when they're older because dad's poorly disciplined, which means I have to do a lot more work to keep the wheels on the bus, or I've got to get even more structured, more disciplined. And so I did. And so, believe it or not, the more disciplined you get, the more time you have in your life.

Got it.

You look at what does your morning routine look like? And I always tell Them. My morning routine starts the night before when I take my iPhone here and I write down the three to five things I'm going to do that's going to move my business forward.

Got it.

I do the brain dump the night before. That way in the morning when I wake up, I've got a very structured morning routine. And that morning routine is always leading to a predictable outcome for me. And that means. So I literally work in surf time when I'm gonna go surf with my son. We've got that scheduled on the calendar. It's not a. Hey, the waves are good today. Do you want to go?

Yeah, yeah.

We try not to drown. If there's no apes, then we're just paddling around in the water having a good time.

Yeah.

Because we schedule everything in our life and that's how it works for me.

That's amazing. That's something that I think everyone needs to get to. Even me, personally, I think I have a even just from being in this social media world. Personally, I'll get distracted sometimes. And I think it all goes back to discipline what you're talking about and just organizing your life. Right. And when would you say you were. You got to the point when you were like, you could actually remove yourself and understand that things are scheduled. Was it having that person that would manage things for you in the back end, someone that would book your meetings? Like, what was that one thing you'd say that, like, really helped you, like, take a deep breath, gain clarity on your day to day schedule so that you're not stressing about the little things? And how did you, I would say, get to that point?

Good question. Actually, I'll tell you what it was. There was one incident that happened that gave me absolute clarity. And the incident took place right around 2013, in the middle of all that chaos, in the middle of all that chaos of anxiety attacks and losing money. God, this is embarrassing. The sprinkler in our backyard sprung a leak, right? My wife's like, hey, can you fix the sprinkler? And I was like, yeah, sure, I can fix the sprinkler. I'm a pretty handy guy. So I'm like digging a hole trying to get the sprinkler. And in the meantime, my assistant comes down. It was in our guest house, where I'll sometimes work out of my guest house before. You know, we also have a corporate office, but guesthouse. And my assistant comes down and goes, hey, there's someone on the phone who wants to get coaching from you. And you're the best closer we have. So you need to get on the phone. I'm like, hey, Amanda, I've got mud all over my hands. There's no way I can talk to this person.

Okay.

You've heard me give the pitch a hundred times. Just close them and go do it. You got this, right? So of course she does it. After I'm done working on the sprinkler and fixing it, I go upstairs, I go, hey, how'd it go? She goes, yeah, I wasn't able to close the deal, so I ended up doing a $25 plumbing job instead of closing a $5,000 coaching program. Right. And in that moment, I realized, listen, there's a lot of things I have to do as a human, as a husband, as an entrepreneur, as a father. But of all the things I need to do if I want to grow my business, about 5% of those things are the things that matter. My job is to delegate, motivate, sell. That's it. Anything outside of that, pass along. So I focus on my 5%, and I delegate the 95%. And that was the day that I created my 5% rule. And now I have assistants around me to do things. I have house managers. I have a chauffeur. I have. I wouldn't even drive. Long distance drives me. And if Hugo's not driving me, he's driving my mom and dad because he's on the payroll, and he might as well have a job.

Yep.

But those are the things that matter to me. And if I'm not focusing on my 5%, I'm not growing my business.

Interesting. I love that philosophy and just that routine. So you said dealt. It was the three things. Can you repeat those again? The three things that you focus on?

Yes. The 5% for me and most entrepreneurs, by the way, is to delegate. Delegate and sell. And you're gonna delegate most of the stuff that don't matter, that have to get done, like payroll has to get done. I don't need to write the payroll checks.

Yeah.

My accountant does. Right? Yep. So you delegate as many of the things you can to fall in the 95% category. You motivate your clients, your business partners, your customers, your staff so that they can get their job done. And then you sell. No one can sell like I can. I can delegate this podcast to someone else. I have to be here. You're doing it. I'm selling my message to you, and you're selling this message to your tribe. So delegate, motivate, sell.

Got it. So question now regarding delegation. In 2013, when your business was collapsing, you said, how much delegating were you doing then?

Not enough.

Okay.

Because I could do it better. No one's gonna do it as good as me. Or when I would delegate Casey, somebody would screw it up, and I go, see, that's proof that they can't do it good. And I would take it back on. Truth be told, an effective leader delegates. When someone screws up, they go and correct them, and then they teach them how to do it. Right. Because the more you put on your plate, the slower you get. I want to be fast, and I want to be able to pivot quick.

Got it. Got it. So one thing that's important to me, that I know is important to you as well, is just maintaining good relationships. Right? And obviously, we. I've met you, I've met a lot of people, like you mentioned earlier. And my Let all these guys that I have so much respect for. Including yourself, just regarding relationships and managing relationships from a personal level, how does that, like, I would say, go about in your life? What's your. I would say, key to maintaining quality relationships just over the course of time?

For me, it's simple. And the people that I value and the people that I want to maintain relationships with, I make an attempt to either see them or reach out to them. Ironically, just yesterday, I was texting with Andy, Priscilla, and I was like, hey, Andy, haven't seen you post on Instagram for a while. What gives? And we got to talking about that, and then he was telling me about the hernia he's going through, and I told him about the pector that I have right now that I got that. I thought I had to get attached surgery, but it turns out I don't. I just found out this morning. So we just started talking. But instead of just going, wow, I haven't heard from Andy. I wonder how he's doing. I reach out, and then, you know, I'm good friends with Lewis House and Ed Milet and Tom Bilyeu and all these guys, but they're all busy. I'm busy. So every six months, I organize a dinner. And so in a week and a half, a whole bunch of us are going out to Mastro's First Steakhouse here in Southern California. Me, Ed Mylett, his wife, my wife Louis, and a whole bunch of other dudes and their spouses. But I create the opportunities for the people that I value. If I'm going to come and visit Scottsdale, I'm going to reach out to you and some of my friends out there and go, hey, man, I'm coming out to Scottsdale. I'm going to work out anyway. Do you want to go catch a workout together? I'm going to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Do you want to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner with me? So I'm actively participating in building my relationships versus passively waiting for you or any of my friends to reach out to me.

Got it. That's some good advice for sure. Especially in the travel schedule. I like how you said that if you're in a certain city, you always make sure you reach out to those people. That's. That's golden. So I have a couple more questions before I let you go. I know that you're. You're a busy guy, Bedros, but regarding leadership, I know that we've touched on this throughout the podcast. You're saying a good leader does X, Y, Z. What do you think creates a good leader, especially in a company that is on the scale of yours of just managing up to 50, 100 people? What do you think, from a characteristic standpoint, creates a leader that someone is actually looked at as someone that's respected and not someone that's being an asshole or whatever that may be. But how do you maintain that? And what are the characteristics that build that specific leader?

Good question. So I'll go through the. A couple of characteristics for you. One, the best leaders are servant leaders. In other words, leaders who practice what they preach. If I tell my staff, hey, I want you guys to show up on time and be prepared and make sure you do this. Set up this webinar, right? Or podcast, right? But then I show up late unprepared, they're going to go, hey, your actions speak louder than your words. And so they're not going to do what I want, right? So you got to be a servant leader. So, one, you gotta be disciplined. If anyone's gonna be a great leader, they have to be disciplined and be clear in their vision and their mission. No leader will have a strong following, whether employees or a pastor who has a congregation or a cult leader who wants everyone to shave their heads. If you are not clear with what your vision is, as dark and twisted as this may sound. You know that cult where everybody drank the Kool Aid and wore the Nikes and then killed themselves? Well, they were very clear where they knew what the vision was. When that Hale Bob comet comes flying over the earth, we're all going to drink the poisonous Kool Aid at the same time. Like, they were very clear on the boss's vision and mission on what the vision is, meaning we want to achieve and when we want to achieve it. So in my franchise, all of my team members know and every webinar or podcast I do like this. I always talk about 2,500 Fit Body Boot Camp locations by the year 2023. And that means 34 locations a month, which means we're behind schedule right now to get there. Which means, means 1.3 locations per day. Every one of my team members know that that is the vision. The reason that's the vision is because the mission is to impact 5 million people every single morning through health, fitness and a positive mindset. That's how clear we are. So if you can be a servant leader, if you could be personally disciplined in your life, meaning practice what you preach and then have clarity of vision, clarity of mission, and then communicate that, that's the fifth and final thing. Communicate your clarity of mission and vision. You will be an effective leader. And leadership, by the way, is one every day. The moment you decide to fall out of discipline or no longer let your Greek glands secrete and no longer become a servant leader or have you lose focus of your vision or mission, it's over.

God, that's amazing. And so you said by the year 2023, 2500 locations. That's the vision.

Yes, sir.

Got it. So from a leadership standpoint of someone that's in this, curious to know as like, all right, people have, they hear your story, they hear everything up to this point. I'm curious from a forward looking statement of, are you guys 700 now? 2500 is the goal by 2023, from an individual and a leader of yourself, what goes into that scaling? Is it more team members? And how does that, I would say, play out regarding just like the scalability of a team? Because I think at the end of the day, everything that's happening internally with the company, it's like, all right, how many more people do I have to add? So as someone that's scaling and maybe the people want to know, maybe they're scaling their company, maybe they just want to know from the outside in, like, what does it take to get from that 700 to 2,500 level?

Great question. And we totally figured that out because we know right now we get 39 applications a day. So if we're getting 39 applications a day and we're closing about 20 locations per month, well, we need 34 locations per month. So we figured out very quickly we need to go from 39 to 59 or 60 applications a day so that we can hit 34 locations. Well, to get those many applications means one, we got to spend more money on Facebook. But number two, in my business, the moment the application comes in, we have the golden hour. If I don't reach out to a prospect within that first hour, someone who's shown interest in a franchise, they're already off looking at another franchise at 45 Orange Theory, CrossFit, whatever.

Got it.

So that means I got to build my sales team. Well, if I build my sales team now, we can get more eois in expression of interest forms the application.

Yep.

I also have to build my downstairs team. I'm on the second floor right now of our building. Our downstairs team is our operations team, the coaches. So when Casey becomes a brand new franchisee, we take Casey from sales, we hand Casey to a coach, and that coach helps you find your territory in your area. They help you negotiate your lease, sign the lease, build out your location, hire your team, start getting clients, etc. And so we don't have a team big enough downstairs right now to support the growing sales team and the application. So the weakest link that I have right now in my business is good coaches downstairs who can support all the franchisees we're bringing on board. Because if I have shitty coaches downstairs, then my failure rate goes from 2 1/2% to 20%.

Got it.

Right. As I explained earlier. So right now we're building a massive onboarding team, downstairs operations team so that we can. Because the easiest part for us in my business is to build the sales team and drive the traffic.

Got it. No, I really appreciate the insights. That's something that I think that itself people will get a lot of value from for sure. So just for everyone I know that I always like to talk about just I have two more questions for you specifically, just when it comes to bedrose, as an individual, your passions. I know that you brought up surfing earlier. Right. For me, growing up I played lacrosse, hockey, football, all these different sports. Just so on a day to day basis or just like taking a step back from business, like what, what are some things that you're passionate about that you tend to fit in your schedule? Because I know that you said you're very meticulous with your time. So what's just some of your passions? I'm definitely curious.

Yeah, good question. So I love to eat, which is one reason I work so hard. I love really high end expensive restaurants and so several times a week we're eating at high end restaurants. The rest of the time, excuse me, we're cooking at home. So that's a big passion of mine. But even a bigger passion is working out. Like, I just, I've been gifted with great genetics to lift weights and so I love lifting weights. I do lift twice a day. And it's because I. Yeah, it's because of that that I spent $3 million and I built myself a private gym. And so BK Strength is my. It's a 6,000 square foot private gym, better than any other gym you'll find on the planet. And people go, hey, why don't you get a private jet? Well, it would cost me about 1.8 million to get a used G4 private jet. I don't want a private jet. I want to travel less and have more people come to me. I want a private gym, not a private jet. So I got myself a 3 million dollar private jet about a mile and a half from here. And of course I love surfing and then going out shooting guns. So we've got a really nice outdoor shooting range here. And a couple of my friends are special forces guys who have taught me and my son how to shoot properly. And so those are the kind of things we do. And we've got a pretty big backyard where we set up an entire shooting scenario. I live on a one acre property and so we set up a real cool shooting scenario with 23 targets and we time each other. Yeah. Going through with our, with our airsoft rifles and pistols. And that's what we do, man.

So the real question then is, when can I come out?

Dude, anytime you want. Anytime you want. It is so much fun. And we do the courses at night. It's a little more challenging.

That is sick. No, we'll definitely have to set that up. That sounds amazing. All right, so one more thing to wrap it up. Just number one, I really appreciate your time for taking the opportunity to come on and I know that we're definitely going to be connected for a long time. But just for everyone that's younger, maybe they're 18, maybe they're 25, they're starting in business. Looking back throughout your journey, what do you think is the most critical aspect of just fundamentally starting your business from operations standpoint, so you're not cluttered, you're not all over the place. So everyone's clear on their mission. Like, what do you think separates someone that is starting today from another person that's starting today as like a core? I would say stepping stone in business because I know there is a lot of Young people that are, maybe they're just getting started, maybe they're hearing this and they're in the fitness space and they may be interested in building a brand or doing whatever that may be just throughout your journey. Like, what would you say, like, is the one thing that separates someone when they're just getting started?

I'll tell you this, I don't know if there's one thing, but I know for a fact there's two things. And so I'm going to tell you those two things. And it doesn't matter if it's fitness supplements, apparel, finance, real estate. These two things are universal and they're a fact. They're a prescription, not a suggestion. And one, success leaves clues. And so go find a mentor, just like I have, and pay for that mentor to coach you, guide you, and help you time collapse your results. That's number one. Number two is singularity of focus. I was a young man before. I still see myself as a young man. 44. I'm fucking strong as a horse and I'll fuck. Having said all that, I'm a lover, not a fighter. But going back to this point, the way I see it is I was a young guy and I had so many great ideas and so I had so many irons in the fire. There was no singularity of focus. And I. So I was here, I was there. And ultimately a year would go by and I brought nothing to fruition. When I went to singularity of focus, I was able to really drill down and bring my idea into fruition, turn the business into an empire. And so mentoring and singularity of focus and anybody will dominate in any industry.

Amazing. Those are. I like, I love how you said it's a prescription, not a suggestion. Not a suggestion. That's amazing. And I think a lot of people that may have just heard that, they want to know, where can they find more of your content? I'll make sure that we link everything. But where's the best people to actually figure out more about what you're doing and stay connected? Or even if they, let's say, want to start a franchise, where's the best place for people to reach you?

Absolutely. The best place for people to reach me is on my website, man up.com or of course, on Instagram and Facebook at Pedro Scullion.

Amazing. And everyone that's listening, I'll make sure that I put all the links down below. And last but not least, I definitely. I know I said this enough, but I just want to thank you so much for taking taking the time out of your day to hop on the build your empire podcast. And I know that the people listening, definitely, they listen to this. And I think, I think the biggest takeaways I had is just the fundamental truth of leadership and actually understanding your vision. Because I think a lot of people, they're not clear on what they're doing from a day to day standpoint. You know, what you hear all the time, it's like, how do you start your day? And you say you started the day before. Right. And I think that just those little things that people that are listening may have taken out and taken out of this podcast, like definitely. I know there was so much value in here. I just can't appreciate it enough.

Thanks, my man. I appreciate you and I appreciate the opportunity. Casey.

Absolutely. So everyone listening. Thank you so much for listening to the builder Empire podcast again. Thank you so much. Bedrooms for hopping on. And everyone makes you go check out bedros book. Tune into his Empire podcast a little. It's like the Builder Empire empire. There's so much brand correlation. So make sure you go check his out as well and I will speak to you guys soon.

Legacy of Monsters An Apple Original Series the world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh my God.

Go, go, go. Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.