Ep45: How Jack Was able To Turn His Business Around From Feeling Lost & At A Plateau

Alrighty, team. Happy Friday. Welcome to another episode of the PT Profit, Leverage and Lifestyle Show. I'm your host, Matt Dart and I've got an absolute superstar client of mine, Mr. Jack Smith, with me today. Longtime friend, pretty much saw his entire PT journey from start to finish, which has been super exciting to see. But for those who don't know Jack, do you want to give us a bit of a summary of, you know, where you're at currently and, you know, how long you've been in the industry, all that type of stuff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess like I've been. Been a PT for a couple years now. I think I started back in 2021, which seems like a lifetime ago now. Yeah, so I started up at Good Life, started there, I mean before that as well. Like, like I was working in retail. I was working as a, like deputy manager over like Aldi and whatnot and I was doing some study for secondary teaching. HP in science teaching for those that don't know. Yeah, always knew that I wanted to like trypt and like get some learning experience and like some practical experience from like a cert for going into teaching originally. That was the, the original thought. And then yeah, I did my PT course, wanted to get the most out of my business, which is where I got in touch with you of course, when I first started off at Good Life and then. Oh, that was before I even started at Good Life, but that's how I got in touch with my first business coach. And we, we did really well. We got started at Good Life, which you know about. Yeah, yeah, good, Good times.

We'll dive into that a bit.

Yeah, absolutely. And then, yeah, from there, did about a year and a bit there, then jumped over to where I'm at now, which is in Anytime Fitness. And I've been there for 200 years now. And then, yeah, we're here.

Awesome. At the start. I've been kind of involved with some things with your business over the last couple of years. But yeah, I remember even, even before you were qualified, we were talking and you're always very curious about how things worked and obviously very. I don't know what the word I'm trying to find here, but you're always asking a lot of, a lot of questions around business and that type of stuff, which is really good to, good to see. Do you want to take it to when you first started personal training or even, even just before that? So did you actually get your union degree for teaching or.

No, no, no. I currently have about 27 grand in hex debt that is completely useless to me now.

I don't know. Well, that's interesting. Like what. Do you know Josh who used to work with me at the gym? Remember Josh? Sure, if you met Josh.

I think I met him.

So. So he's in with me or he's obviously doesn't work for me anymore, but he's now at Jets Bracken Ridge. But when I had my gym, he was with me for about 12 months up until I obviously closed it down. But he basically did the same thing. He was, he was. He's now recently not, not going to uni anymore because he decided that he liked PC more and he. Well with PC as well. So it's interesting because I, I don't know, I don't even know if you know this about me, but I dropped out of uni as well. Not for business reasons, but like I was studying business but I decided to defer for a year to go traveling and then never went back. And of course like I think my X, that was like 10k or something like that for the year or whatever. But yeah, obviously completely wasted money and yeah, I'm sure you feel the same way about your, your 27th. What, what made you not or what made you stop going to uni and you know, go all in on the PT side of things?

Well, I guess like I got into uni because that's just obviously like how I was brought up. I think I remember because I watched the last episode that you did with Matt. I think you might have mentioned that you went to uni then. And I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But like, yeah, so like, and it pretty much the same, same situation with him. Like I didn't have any other idea than going from high school to uni. So that's what I did. Went straight into uni from high school. Thought I wanted to do teaching because deep down I knew I always liked helping people. I learned that pretty quickly. I always knew my purpose was going to be to always help people and be with people. And I always loved physical activity, fitness, sport, all that sort of stuff. So that's, that's sort of what drove me towards like teaching and HP especially. And I knew I wanted to do something there. I didn't realize that it was going to turn into something else down the track until I got into uni and learned a lot about how the schooling system works, how the curriculum works, how very regimented it is. And I'd always had this like trickle in the back of my mind of entrepreneurialism because my dad was a sort of a. Sort of an entrepreneur. And he was always thinking of, like, alternative ways of making money, you could say, because he never had super or anything, because he went all in on his golf business for about 10 or 20 years and it did okay for a bit there. But then. But yeah, he doesn't really share much about it, but I knew roughly what was going on. And yeah, it didn't really work out for him and he had to get a job doing real estate, which he loves that now. He still does a bunch of different things and he's very well off. But that's where I sort of got the trickle of entrepreneurialism when I was about 18, 19. And I just like played around with like, different ideas. Like Shopify was my first thought. I started to like, explore that. That never worked because I could just never get it off the ground. So that was like my first taste with like, business and like that way of thinking. And I got into like audiobooks and all those sort of things. And like, I started to learn about how entrepreneurs think and how they perceive the world. And it's just such a great way of perceiving things. It's like it just completely contradicted the. The entire schooling system that I believed in. And I totally agreed with it. I totally went for it. And that's why, like, I fundamentally knew I couldn't do teaching. Mind you, this happened, like this realization probably happened after I started PT and I fell in love with PT and I just knew, like within the first couple, like within the first sort of 12 months of PT, I knew I wasn't going back to uni to do it ever. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a long winded answer to that question.

But yeah, no, that's cool. That's interesting. I didn't know that. So. So now obviously. So obviously you're not going back to uni, which is fair call. So talk me through the beginning stages of the PT journey. So from memory, like, obviously. So we both used the same business coach when we first started in the industry, which is great. How did things with things. Things take off? I can't remember exactly, but did things take off pretty quickly or was it a bit. Bit slower or how did it kind of start off?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, initially, like, I had my own issues coming into the industry. I remember singly, the biggest issue I had was sales and crossing that boundary because obviously, like me wanting to help people, it's coming from a notion of like not asking for anything. In return, which is usually what you do as a teacher and then just naturally trying to help people. You don't really expect a cost for that. So that changing my mentality around that getting into PT was a big, big barrier. And that's what we worked through pretty well from memory. We found something that worked well for me and I took off pretty quickly. It was a slow start, but it, I think it took 12 weeks to get to a reasonably sized amount. Mind you, this is, this is when I was going through like personal issues with my girlfriend at the time. And then that sort of sparked a lot of issues in the business and whatnot. So I, I knew I really had to put everything, put everything into it and, you know, go for it. And I did. And then obviously the situation at the gym where I was at went south quick. And that's where we made the assessment to get out of there. And then we transitioned over to where I am now. And it was as soon as I got to the floor, like, I, I think, I think it took me three weeks to get to like six figures. Three or four weeks. It was, it happened so fast. And then from that point on I was just maintaining everything.

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, just, I just wanted to touch on because you're obviously a good life and you know, everyone has some mixed opinions on good life, which, you know, I'm sure there's some good experiences, but there's a lot of bad experiences that I've had. But what were some of the red flags that happened to you? Because I'm sure some other people that are listening to this, you know, maybe in a similar situation, it might not, not necessarily be good life. But what are some of the red flags that you experienced at that gym that made you move to Anytime Fitness?

I think the biggest one for me, and I've seen this ever since I left Good Life because it's just the way the, the organization works. I don't like corporate based gyms. So gyms that work under a corporation, I much prefer the franchisee version of, or the model of owning a gym. We have a franchisee owner for like, we can be like one gym or like, you know, five to 10 gyms, but it's like someone that actually cares about that location. Because there was no flexibility whatsoever in terms of the staff. It was really easy to have bad relations internally, which caused a really bad dynamic. Those were the biggest issues because we'd always be constantly fighting. We always referred to it as like rebelling against corporate, like literally just to have A social media account for the gym. Like how. Yeah, I do explain that but that's just.

Yeah, well they didn't have a social. They didn't have.

Nope.

Interesting.

They had like a general Facebook page which, which, which was controlled by corporate but like an actual like Instagram page that was controlled by the club. Nana.

Wow.

I don't know if that was just a, a Good Life specific issue. Obviously there's other gyms out there that do okay with it. I know like fitness cartels all have an individual like page for it. But they're like one of the industry leading gyms at the moment, you know, which is half the reason why that model works well. But like me knowing that it just didn't make sense to stay at Good Life. That was one of the big reasons. And there's obviously interpersonal relations that affect every sort of situation that.

Yeah, yeah. And obviously so massive results. Those six figures in. I think you said like three weeks or something or four weeks. Whatever it was.

Yeah, it was, it was stupid quick once I got to anytime. Stupid quick.

Yeah. That's awesome. Was there anything that you did differently at any time fitness compared to Good Life?

I think I just like it was really the culmination of like all the work I'd put in with my old business coach and getting myself to a really professional standard when I got to anytime like taking all the lessons I'd learned from that experience and then just it was the culmination of that. I think that was the biggest thing because like, like the club managers at the time when I was starting were just shocked at how like professional I was, how well I was doing with clients when they once they were onboarded and just the way, Sorry. Just the way I was like holding myself and like being super present. Like it was just a combination of all that and I just nailed it. And plus I timed it really, really. Which I think did really well for me because for those that don't know anyone fitness as a brand do a one day sale bike orderly. So I timed it well. So I started the week before one day sale. So I transfer. I'd transfer. I'd gotten a fair few clients before that and people followed me.

Yeah.

It just all culminated in that working really well.

Yeah. Road the momentum I would say essentially. Yeah, yeah. Very good result. So that's awesome. Okay. Yeah. So obviously you're at any time fitness now doing really, really, really well. So we always, we're obviously talking about this the other day. So you're getting pretty close now to. I Don't know what you're right now. So coming up to almost 3k a week, which is awesome. But I want to get into, obviously, the next kind of stage for you, which is super, super exciting because you were plateauing for a while there, and it's been good to see some. Some growth. And actually, before we get into the future, I want to actually talk about why you plateaued for so long. I want to talk about that and then how you actually got out of that, because I'm sure people are going to be able to relate to this. So what happened with the plateau? Why do you think that kind of happened?

Totally agree. Very glad that you directed it that way because that's. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's half the reason I reached out to you, I think, several times. Third time's the charm.

Yeah. Yeah, literally. Yeah. I think. I think you came to see me in probably early, early in the year, because my gym at the time, I think I told you the news that I was going to close it down. And I think we caught up at Birken Gary back then. And then. Yeah, maybe one other time. And then I'm not sure how long we've been working together now, but probably a couple of months. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it. I think it was like February or March and then because, like, fun fact, I was actually thinking of moving gyms because the plateau had gotten to me that much. I think it was just a situational thing with some management turnover that made me start wondering, you know, is this location any good for me anymore? Um, and do I need to get out of it? And, like, that was making me really consider, like, other options. Um, I thought, yeah, that, that was. That was half the reason I reached out to you in the first place. And then that then again happened when I reached out to you and finally signed up with you. So, yeah, it was. It's just cycling bouts of motivation and like. Yeah. Wanting to do something but then never actually acting on it, which was just. It. A never ending cycle until I broke it.

So. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. So there was a bit of, you know, procrastination in there as well, but also. Also because, like. Because you're obviously doing really well at that stage as, like, 97 people would be completely fine with what you were doing. And even if. Even if you were plateauing with the amount of sessions that you were doing, most people would be pretty happy with that. So why did. And I think this is a good point for everyone. I think everyone's always looking to grow in some type of capacity, whether it's income, you know, intelligence or whatever. But I think most people are always looking to grow. And that's where, you know, you most likely would have got quite frustrated that you weren't seeing that progression, whether it's been in business or whatever. So at what stage, and I'm just curious as well, was that. Was there a certain. Was there something that happened that made you be like, okay, that's enough now. I need to talk to someone about sorting this stuff out.

Yeah, I just had a thought, baby, and I'm just gonna say it before I forget it.

Yeah, a thought maybe.

Yeah, I got a push, man. No, so I guess, like, in the same way as, like, you do in the gym, like, progression will always stall out unless you make a conscious effort to, like, make it, like, to get better. And, like, the way you progress in the gym, obviously, like, say if you're talking about, like, specific lifts, and I'll just use powerlifting as an example here. You know, like, if you're stuck at certain weights for so long that. That obviously gets frustrating and you. You wonder why you're doing it half the time. But, like, the way you progress your lifts in powerlifting is either over time you get better at the technique, which makes the weight feel easier, or you just add more weight and you grow, which is that growth element. But, you know, with business, you never really think about, like, getting better at what you're doing currently, because obviously, like, if you're doing the same thing week in, week out, and you've got the same problems, you never. You're never fixing them, never addressing them. That's sort of where I'm going with that analogy. And it was just a constant cycle of that. Like, I was always just doing the same thing week in, week out with the same issues that I didn't know how to solve, which I think was what was getting to me over that period of. I called it. I call it the picture period of complacency. Because it's like I was just very complacent with where I was at, business wise. And obviously I had, like, ambitions to grow beyond that, but I had no idea how to do it because I just sat in that period of, like, complacency and not being actively aware that it wasn't growing, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And like, half the reason that happened was because obviously, like, my. And you know, this, my partner and I, we. We just bought a house a year ago last week, which is cool. So, yeah. Yeah, I had. I Had a lot of focus externally from the business on, obviously, that. Which took a, like, long time to happen, which is why I sort of stayed at the same spot in my business for a long time. And obviously now that we have the house and we've moved on from that and, you know, there's room for growth. That's why I was getting so frustrated throughout this year and trying to make something happen without realizing what I needed to do, which was to, you know, ask for help and then go from there and whatever that turned into. Which eventually it turned out into you and I connecting again, which was. It's been really great breaking that cycle and actually growing for the first time in what has felt like a year, which it is a year.

Yes. Awesome. I love it. That's really good. Sometimes you just need a different perspective or a different point of view to push you past the plateau. I've done it heaps of times before. I've literally just invested in another mentor last week for me, me, because I'm plateauing in something that I've been working on. So, you know, everyone has to. You know, I always tell people, like, you just got to find someone that has done what you want to do and, you know, work with them, do exactly what they say, and, you know, more than likely you're going to get past whatever challenge that you're experiencing at that time. So, yeah, well done for obviously acknowledging the complacency. Always a big thing as well. But what's been the biggest shift since. Well, I'm just curious as well, like, from. Since we started working together, like, obviously you've had some awesome wins. Like, we've increased your pricing, which is awesome. Got heaps of new clients, which is great. What's been the biggest change for you in terms of progression?

I guess you could say just like, actually knowing what to do to grow the business and actually having some structure. Because before that, I didn't have any idea what I needed to do to grow the business. And now I've got essentially a plan for the next three years of what I want to achieve and then have done. And then from that, we've just reverse engineered it and been like, all right, what are the steps that we need to do to actually get to that point? And now it's just essentially just following following those steps, which is given us a lot of, like, clarity and actually driving to a lot more drive to actually get that done. And you can start to see what that progression chain's like. And I guess that's. That's to answer that question, I guess.

Yeah. 100. I love that. So now you've got. Obviously you've got some. Especially if you've got some intrinsic motivation. So you can. Because you can actually see what's going to happen in the future. And all you need to do is take the micro steps each day or each week or each month or whatever over time that compounds obviously, and you eventually get the result. So that's awesome.

I think you go, yeah, yeah. I think a really big part of that too is like, because we did the quarterly catch up a month ago, I want to say. Is that about right? Yep.

Start of October.

Yeah. So that's been a really good thing as well, like, especially like for just outlining that. So that's been really powerful to hold myself accountable. Because you said it earlier, it's a bit of procrastination. I am the worst for procrastination. And you know this. Yeah, yeah. All. Yeah. All throughout uni and the rest of it. It's. I'm horrible and like, yeah, I'm horrible for it, but I'm working on it. So. But like, yeah, setting. Setting that fiscally there and having quarterly, like deadlines to get stuff done has been really powerful because I'm actually starting to get stuff done and I have finally put dates on those action items that you mentioned.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Only took about a month, but that's okay. We got the. It's good.

Procrastinator.

Yeah, that's all right. That's all right. I'm like that as well sometimes with certain tasks. But that's okay. I'm. I'm curious now as to like, I'm. And if it's okay, I'd like to dive into what the plans are for the next couple of years because that's where it gets the most exciting in mind. Do you want to give us some insight into. Of what you're planning in terms of business or structure or. I know obviously you want to do some online stuff. So do you want to give us some insight into what you're thinking?

Yeah. So obviously with the. My old business coach or our old business coach. And you've experienced this physically through leverage. I always knew I wanted to do leverage. I just never figured out what that was for me. That's why I never went through with it, to go through and do the leverage business model with him just because I didn't know what that was going to look like. And obviously there was other stuff going on, extenuating circumstances and all that. But I always knew I wanted to leverage. And of recently through I think Tom and then another one of the coaches in our gym, I found out about this hybrid training model which is essentially where you eventually switch over all your clients to online as your base model and then you do PT sessions on top of that, which essentially just means all of your clients, regardless of what goes on, are online. But then you can sort of work in face to face through that system. And that really intrigued me and that's sort of where I see my business going into the future. So for now like the goal is to, the end goal is to have that set up within the next three years so I can do as much face to face PT as I want to, but also scale it back as much as I want to because in three years time my partner and I, we're going to be trying to start a family which is really important and that's why I wanted to obviously get this stuff done and on top of, so I can actually be there for that. And plus it also opens the door for future study because I want to get into like physiotherapy down the road. So having the actual time to do do that is super important to get that done. So you know, there's those powerful motivators to get that done in the next three years. So in the next, you know, six to 12 months, the aim is to get an online training model sorted and deciding to work on those bits and pieces so I can essentially work down towards doing or leveraging my business through an online platform. That makes sense.

Absolutely. Love it. And we've had conversations like this before and I've always said if I knew about a hybrid model years ago, I would have saved myself hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yep.

So you know, you live and learn but that's, that's all well and good. So that's super exciting and exciting news about, you know, wanting to start a family in a few years. That's super, super exciting. So you're literally just a few years behind me like in, in the, in all that type of stuff. Like obviously I've had the hybrid model for probably since I wanted to start closing down my locations probably the last 12 months or so. And then you know, as people know, like I'm now full time online PC plus obviously the business coaching. I'm curious from your perspective, why, why do you think the hard or personal preference, why do you think the hybrid model, why do you think you're going towards that rather than hiring team members or trainers?

I think It's a control thing mostly.

Yeah, settle.

Yeah. Because I have a very individualized approach with like, all my clients and they all know this. I just care about people. I care about helping them. And I hate the idea of like, you know, selling to someone and then like selling them on the idea that I'm going to help them through their, their problem and then be like, all right, here's Bob.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I guess I just don't, I don't fit. I don't sit well with that idea. So obviously taking clients online and still obviously keeping like face to face for clients that are a bit more high needs and all that sort of stuff and people who just prefer that and whatever, but that's a, that's a standard, but it still gives me that control to be able to help them specifically and like, individually, which I, I just like the idea of that. And plus it's, it's starting to go along those lines of leverage, which I know I need. So.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, let's, let's dive into the whole leverage thing with, with kids because I think that would be an awesome topic to, to cover as well. I'm not sure if we were talking too much when my daughter was born, but she's two and a half now. And at that stage, I think, I think two years ago I would have been maybe had seven or eight trainers at that time. I'm not sure. But even though I was pretty much leveraged out of the business, the amount of stress that I encountered from having to manage that many people and also that many clients because everyone still had access to me. But by having a leverage, like a hybrid model, like you said, even if, for example, something happened, then you can't train the clients face to face because the baseline model is the online, your income isn't really going to get affected too much. Prime example, with PTS coming up to Christmas time, most PTS lose 50% of their income because either they go away, clients go away or whatever, but you know, if they, if you had a hybrid model or even just a standard online model that you were running, you'd keep 80, 90% of your income. Like, you know, we always have some people just not training over holidays, which is fine, but, you know, it gives you more stability, especially with having a.

Family as well, 100, like, and even just touching on like Christmas, like, literally in my situation. And a fair few of my clients know this and I, I communicate it well because I'm, I just like to see, like to keep transparent with it and obviously justify it for their end because they get to get extra training. But, like, I'm only going to be going to be doing makeup sessions to cover, like, mortgage and like, you know, like food, rent, anything like that. Like, it's just going to be covering base expenses. So it's however many sessions that covers, that's how many makeup sessions I'm going to be doing over the Christmas period. So I'm taking two weeks off and I'm going to love it because I haven't taken one break this year.

Yeah. Wow.

Regrets.

Well, that's another thing about the hybrid model that'll allow you to actually have more time to, you know, go away with Nat, for example, or. Yeah, go do whatever, spend some time with yourself, for example.

Yeah, and that's. That's a really big reason why I want to get it set up and build into it. Um, so I can essentially take time off from the business and have a less. A less stressful life. Because, like, the biggest reason why I wanted to obviously go down that path was, I think I said this to you. If I can work, like, if I can get the same income for, like, I think it was like 70% of the time and be like 50% less stressed. I love my life, which is essentially why I want to go down this leverage path so I can have more time to not be burning at both sides of the candle, you know.

So, yeah, 100% agree. So that's super exciting. I'm excited to see the progress over the next couple of months and couple of years. If people want to follow along the journey and see your success. You also post some really good content as well. People want to learn some more things around biomechanics and type of stuff as well.

I post mediocre things at best, but, yeah.

I don't mind them. I actually quite enjoy them. Where would they find you? Like, what's your Instagram handle or where people find you?

My Instagram handle is probably the best one. It's Jack Underscore Blacksmith Fitness. That's where most of my content goes and then it just gets filtered through Facebook. But that's probably the best one to go to.

Beautiful. Happy days, my friend. Well, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast.

Oh, cheers, man. Cheers for having us.

No worries. And well done on your results. And I'm super excited to see, you know, the leverage model in action.

Yeah. 100, man. So can.

Awesome. Thanks, mate.