Building An Empire: From 1 Facility, To 5, To 20, To Exit!đź’Ż
In this episode of the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast, host Richard Toutounji reflects on a recent panel at the Fitness & Wellness Australia Show that explored how fitness entrepreneurs can scale from a single studio to dozens, hundreds, and eventually exit. He shares his own background—buying his first studio at 17, building ComMarketing, and exiting two businesses—before summarizing the panelists’ experiences: Peter Hall (FitStop), Michael Jordan (U‑Box Training, formerly 12 Round), Sam Waller (STEPS Fitness Group), and Jacinda McDonald (co‑founder of Anytime Fitness). Across the discussion, recurring themes emerge: the necessity of a growth‑oriented mindset, stepping out of day‑to‑day operations to work on the business, building robust systems and a strong team, selecting franchisees who value proven systems over pure entrepreneurship, and continuously planning for an eventual exit. Richard emphasizes that scaling is not a miracle; it requires deliberate decisions, years of experience, and willingness to make sacrifices. He also highlights the value of networking, mentorship, and leveraging resources like his ComMarketing Ninja Program to help owners take the next step. The episode concludes with a call‑to‑action for listeners to book a complimentary “Marketing Muscle‑Up” call.
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You've got to have a mindset ready to expand to 100 locations. It doesn't just miraculously happen that we go from one and all of a sudden we've got 100 facilities. It's a different concept and it's a different way that we do our business. Welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. I'm Richard Toutounji. And if this is your first time listening, let me tell you a little bit of backstory on me. I purchased a fitness studio at just 17 and a half years old. Now, my plan to grow that studio was a bit of hard work— well, a lot of hard work. I purchased 2 A-frame signs, one to put at the back of my studio, one to put at the front of my studio, and I certainly had a lot of hope marketing, if you know what I mean. I now spend all my time helping health, fitness, and wellness business owners and teams how to become their own version of marketing ninjas in their business. I didn't have the money to hire an agency, and I certainly didn't have the know-how to. So I learned it all myself and now spend all my time on helping people how to do this in their business. And throughout, you know, these podcasts, if it's your first time listening or a new listener, I will unpack some of my other stories here of, you know, why we do what we do and why I continue to do this after You know, 10 years at ComMarketing and 20, you know, 20-plus years in the fitness industry. Now, I did want to talk about something really interesting for those who are wanting to exit their business. Now, I have exited 2 companies that I've had. I've exited that studio and also exited a corporate wellness business I started purely from scratch, grew to 90 staff in a really short time. And I want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about that specifically. I do want to talk about where I was a few weeks ago, and I was hosting a panel at the Fitness and Wellness Australia Show. And the panel was all about how to build an empire, a fitness empire, go from 1 facility to 5 to 20, and then to exit. As I said, I've exited 2 facilities, but I didn't exit when they were at 100 locations or 200 locations or 400 locations, but In that panel was great because I had a few different founders on the panel. Now, one of them was a guy called Peter Hall. He's the founder and CEO of FitStop. Now, FitStop are growing rapidly. You've probably seen them around. They've got, I think, 80+ locations already. I think there's another 80 that are ready to go. Michael Jordan, who I've known for quite a while, not the basketball player, but Michael Jordan, he's the CEO of U-Box Training. Previously 12 Round. You may have heard of those guys there. And again, they've got 80+ locations. Sam Waller, who we've had on the podcast previously, and he's the CEO of STEPS with a Z Fitness Group, and they have 24-hour gym facilities all around Australia. They've got 18 locations. And then the amazing Jacinta McDonald. I mean, Jacinta McDonald is the co-founder Of Anytime Fitness, those guys have around 400 locations. She has recently exited, and now she is she works in the boutique fitness studios as owner and advisor. And it was a really interesting panel because there's a very diverse range on the panel. You've got Jacinta McDonald, who has exited Anytime Fitness and still going strong, and. Justin, her brother, is running that with a whole team. You got Sam, who, if you listen to the previous podcast, he's gone from 0 to 17. He did it in a much slower manner, and I find his story really, really interesting. Michael Jordan, who was in marketing, had this opportunity and he went for it. And then Peter Hall, who has had this vision for many, many years, and he's just like, He's just focused on this vision. So I asked him a lot of different questions. The panel went for about half an hour, and I want to take you in an insight of, you know, what I got out of the panel and what a lot of other, you know, what a lot of people got in the panel. We had a lot of our marketing ninjas in the room. I had a lot of whole bunch of different fitness owners in the room, and there were some really engaging questions. And the theme of, I guess the thing that I wanted to get out of that was What does it take to go from 1 facility to 2 facilities? Because let's be honest, most people struggle with having that 1 facility that, you know, wants to get it grown, wants to expand it, but just can't get past the 1. So a lot of my questions were focused on how to get to 1 to 5. What do we need to get to 1 to 5? And so as I asked that to everybody in a different way, The, the one thing that I got out of having a facility, one facility, having and then going, okay, I want to get to 20 facilities or 80 facilities or 100 facilities. The biggest thing that everybody said is 100% how you go into the one facility and what you want to get out of that. Now, running a one-facility place, running a 100-facility place, we all have the same amount of time. So how does somebody take 100 facilities, franchise it or license? Most in these, all these case studies were franchise. How do we do that? Well, first step first, everybody agreed that you've got to have a mindset ready to expand to 100 locations. It doesn't just miraculously happen that we go from one and all of a sudden we've got 100 facilities. It's a different concept and it's a different way that we do our business. So if you are at one facility right now and you're saying, Richard, I want to get to 20 facilities, I want to get to 20, 30 facilities, or if you want to get to 1 to 3 facilities, that's different. And if you're going to stop at 1, 2, or 3 facilities, that's still a little bit different there because it is a different mindset now. You know, Peter Hall mentioned, CEO of FitStop, that when he had his one facility working in the facility, he pretty much had to exit that to work on the growth of FitStop and the growth of the business, because you are not working in the business, you're working on the business. Now, saying that, in those early stages, he had to answer all the questions around training, the types of training, how we train, to all his owners and to make sure that they were doing a good job. But what he wasn't doing, he wasn't doing the actual classes. He was working on the business to grow. And so everybody agreed that the first step is the decision to pretty much cut off not working in the business, But growing the business, and I think that's a huge adjustment for a lot of people who are going, "Well, I'm just struggling to get over that, that, that 100 mark, or I'm struggling to get over the 400 mark, or whatever it may be, or the 50 mark, or the 20 mark if you're a PT." It is a different level of thinking, and so from there. The decision was who's going to be on your team? Who are the people that's going to be in your vehicle to get you growth? Number one, who's going to be actually running the location? And then who's going to be in your executive team? Who's going to be on your growth team to get you to the next point that you need to get to? And then going from 1 to 20, you're working on Moving and getting more locations, but at the same time too, making sure the systems, the processes, the trainings are all working with the locations that you have. And and Sam, on the other hand, from Step Steps Fitness Group that we had previously on the podcast, you know he ran one location, Lismore. And he personally ran that and that became one of the best locations around. And that gave him a lot of confidence that his model works. It gave him the confidence to sell more locations knowing that he's proven that the model works. So the sort of second lesson here is if you have a struggle to go, well, something's not working or Or let's say you've got 3 locations and that other— and that person running the other location or the franchisee is not making it work. Well, sometimes it's just going in and proving the early stages that this works. We can get this to the number that you need to get it to. A lot of these locations, they go from 0 to 100 relatively fast, and I'll show you how to do that. Proving that this model can work, proving that you can retain the members. That they get the results, because as you know, results are the best form of marketing. And then you have the confidence to go and sell more locations. And that's a key point when you are in that 1, 2, 3 locations. Like, you want to have 100% faith. And everybody across the board— was it Sam, Michael, Peter, Jacinta? It was 100% faith. That this is the best way to one have a business, and if you're going to have a fitness business, this is the business to have. And so it's so it's an underlying 100% focused effort that this is the only place to get there, and just ruthless in the thinking. Jacinta went over to America to go and see the model, see how it works. And then from the early stages, that was the growth trajectory from them. It was like, yep, that's the decision to grow. So everybody also too said when they were in the growing stage, they were in their 20s, I believe, 20s, 25, 27-ish, around that age, even a bit earlier. And it was an underlying focus of that's what we have to get to the next point. And a lot of it requires years to do so. So when everybody asked that question, how long you been in the game for? Everybody 100% at least had 10 years on doing what they were doing from the early stages, which I found not surprising, but kind of made you realize that if you've been in this game for 3, 4 years and you haven't had that 4 or 5 location growth that you wanted, it's probably more normal than having the fast growth over 12 months because it's when they first started and then they have that growth later down the line. And the other question here is like, which I asked is, what do you look in a good franchisee when you are trying to grow and you just can't find anybody? And it's really Somebody that does want a system, somebody that's not an entrepreneur per se, so that they're either investor or it's somebody who can run the business. And it's really important to think about sometimes you don't want the people that are like you, you want the people that are purchasing a location, purchasing a business, that they can't do themselves, and that's why they're purchasing it. So it's really important to market. It's really important to create the system for that type of person. And again, as entrepreneurs, you might be a single base owner and you're going, well, I've got to do everything myself. I'm the only person that can do it. You're going to have to change that mindset to get to that next location. So it's little things like systems. Are they working? Team. Do you have a great team? Are they being trained up regularly? And so if you are, you know, been in business for a while and go, I want to take it, I want to be that next thing, that next Fit Stop, that next F45, well, it does require you to adjust how you're currently working at the moment. Number one thing is to get out of the business Work on the systems and create that, and then go and find a great team that can help you to get to that point. A great team that can help you get talk about the legal, the contracts, the brand equity, and continuing to grow that. Now I asked Jacinta McDonald then because she is the only she was the only person on the panel that had exited Anytime Fitness, and I said, "When's a great time to exit? When do you have to think about exiting?" And she goes. You should always be thinking about exiting. You should always be thinking about exiting. And I'll get her on the podcast as well. And so it makes you realize that you're always in the game of growth, but you're always in the game of knowing when is the time to make that adjustment? When is the time to make that shift? So these are some of the questions that I did ask them. Very entertaining panel because everybody's done it in a different way. And that's the most important thing. There is no one way to do things, but the right way is your way. And when you have an undesired path that you want to get to, well, it's a good idea to start learning and getting mentoring from the best. Now, after the panel, I had some, you know, some amazing clients that came up to me that we've worked with many years ago and they said, how do I kind of take that first step from going— and they got a great location down in Bondi. How do I take that first location and take the next step to the next one? Who do I kind of talk to? How do I get in contact with these people? And I think this day and age, we have such an amazing opportunity to go and connect with a lot of different people. Where I didn't have that before. So even being at this Conference of Fitness and Wellness Australia show, that's a great way to surround yourself with these type of people that have done that, to hear from other people, to get concepts in, to get new ideas. And, you know, that's a great way to start. And then from there, you can have a conversation after. You can talk to them and you just ask them the question, how do I get to the next step? Who can you put me in contact with? People are generally going to help you if you're ready for that conversation. And I say that if you're ready for that conversation. So always be ready for the conversation and always know where you want to get to at that point. And as a summary here, it's really being clear on your destination because nobody's going to basically, you know, lay down the path for you. They're not going to say, you know, this is how you get to 100, because not everybody wants that. Uh, you know, you know, whenever I talk to clients, I say, what is your goals? Where do you want to get to in the business? Now, it's nobody's job to say this is the path here to 100, because that's not for everybody. It's definitely not for everybody. Getting to 2 locations is not for everybody. Getting to 50 locations, everybody— it's not for everybody. So you need to really think about— and this is the last point I asked everybody— You need to really think about what do you really want and why do you want to grow? Because there's many sacrifices here that I didn't ask directly, but indirectly that these amazing operators had to go through, many sacrifices. And so you need to be prepared that to go from 1 to 5 to 20 to exit to 100, you need to be prepared for the sacrifices that you'll put into place. in learning and education and unplugging what you're currently doing, moving forward. And that's a big part of the learning growth part. So think about that. Why do you want to move to those locations? And then if that's for you, rip in and get it started. And I think a great way from here that you can do is go back and listen to Sam Waller's podcast. Michael Jordan's podcast, CEO of UBOX Training, is coming out. That's an amazing podcast. So make sure you listen to that one. Phenomenal podcast. He really talks about how you go from 0 to 100, the exact frameworks, what you're spending on ads, all those kind of things that really fascinating on that one. And Sam Law's podcast showed anybody who's been, you may have 3, 4, 5 locations at the moment and you are wanting to get to that next point. And Sam Law was in that non-growth stage for a while, and all of a sudden he had that, um, that inspiration and that focused energy of, okay, now I know what to do. Boom. And then he started growing. So I hope that helps, guys. Um, that's a bit of recap on the Fitness and Wellness Australia, uh, panel, one of the panels I did, uh, building an empire from one facility, 5, 20 to exit. Uh, you can do it if you want to, and it's always available if you want to. You just got to think, you know, what I want it and what can I do with this? Now guys, just a quick one on this. If you are listening to this, you love this episode, you're saying, hey, how do I get more of this? What do I do? I want to take the next steps. Listen, this podcast is always brought to you by Com Marketing Ninja Program. Now we help grow fitness businesses and most importantly, love the life while you love your life while you do it. So if you do want more information, jump on our website, commarketing.com.au. And book a 15-minute call in and take the next steps. It's called the Marketing Muscle-Up Call, and we will dissect your business. We're going to give you free advice to take to the next steps, what's working, what's missing. And that's all complimentary. And you go to commarketing.com.au, you'll see a box there, just put your details in there, and our team will give you a call back. And hopefully I'll jump on that call and take the next steps with you. Thanks guys. Have an amazing day. Go out, make it happen, and love what you do. Bye for now.
