Getting Raw Ep #21 Wayne Grimes - Step Into Life Western Australia

This is Richard Mark and welcome to Getting Raw. Today I've got a special guest. He's a Perth boy, Wayne Grimes. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Richard. Thank you. So this is Getting Raw. I'm really interested today to talk about your history and your lead-up to the fitness industry. You now hold the position of WA franchisor. Yep, that's right. For 7 to Life. Yep. You've got 22 franchisees that you look after and run and maintain. So I wanna know, I guess, first of all, why you got into fitness in the first place for. Let's talk about that, 'cause I'm really interested to know, I guess, you know, managing 22 people. Yeah, right. How that— I'm really interested to know more about that. So how'd you get into the role anyway, fitness and the whole job?

Okay, well, I suppose, Richard, my background, I was in the military as a physical training instructor. in the Air Force. I did that for about 10 years. Loved that, worked in the gyms, you know, did all the adventure training, did all the team building, leaderships, trained the pilots and the apprentices and the recruits. So had a great time in the Air Force. Hard training? Well, initially, you know, initially I suppose training them to become military people rather than civilians. So, and then there was lots of games to be had, you know, with the recruits and the young pilots. You know, I remember throwing my As you do. Have a joke with them to make sure that they're tied on. But, um, everything was under control. You know, we went down at Margaret River surfing in an 8-man raft one time. That's never been done before. We were up there in the big waves and just crashed and burned. But yeah, they were the good times. Yeah. Um, so that was my background.

How long did you do that for? How long in that business?

About 10 years. 10 years.

10 years. A lot of history. And you started when you were a young chap or what?

I started when I was 20, 20-ish. 20? Yeah, 20. So, uh, I only got out at the start of 2000 out of the military. Thought I'd start the millennium off with something different. Before I got out, I thought I'd better get some sort of tertiary qualification under my belt with the military, so they were happy to pay for me to do a sport management graduate diploma. So I did that, and then was in such a good study mode then that I continued on and did an MBA. And during that time, I picked up on the concept of Step for Life over here in WA.

Right. So you really put your whole I guess everything again, study MBA, and then Semper Life. And so now you've got 22, I mean you started—

23 actually.

23, sorry, 23. When we get the video going, is it 24 or 25? We'll just say 23. 23. 23, okay. So the thing I'm interested in is that you'd gone into Semper Life for what, a year, weren't you? Just as a franchisee, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, mate, yeah. I started my own franchise in January 2006.

Right.

And run that for a year, and I had every intention of running that for a long time. Yeah. You know, like I said, it was a good fit. Having the theoretic study academic side behind me, but really wasn't using that when I was working in the local council in between the military and running Step for Life. And my passion was training people anyway, so it was a really good fit. Yeah, so I ran that for a year and then got advised to apply for the master franchise role over here in Western Australia.

And obviously master franchise in the whole of WA is very limited, being one.

Yes.

So you sort of got to make some decisions pretty fast, I'm assuming.

Yeah, we did and we still do, you know, and it's a great career, it's a great job for me. It's obviously a family business, so my wife works alongside me as well, but it's just given me an opportunity to use the skills that I've got. And now a lot of the time I'm managing franchisees, which is great, you know, still people skills are required, which I'm a people person anyway, but got the chance to put the management side of things into play as well and grow the business.

And managing 23 different locations? That must bring challenges.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because we're dealing— because I'm dealing with people again. It's no different from a manager in an office job dealing with, you know, people in the office. You're dealing with people. So yes, you got to hear all their personal issues and circumstances, and as well as they want to make sure their business grows as well, which is in my best interest.

Of course.

So yeah, all those challenges come into play, and I enjoy it. You know, it keeps me alive, it gives me challenges in my business and career. So that's exactly where I wanna be.

So we're in Perth and beautiful weather again, once again.

Magnificent, yes.

And, you know, a year ago or something, we were in Melbourne and I filmed a lot of the Slims of Life, filming a personal trainer. And we went there on a winter morning and I had my beanie on and it was really freezing. I was thinking, this is where it started. I mean, does the weather, it must impact your, I mean— We are so lucky.

We are absolutely lucky. A number of years ago, I went to a national 7Life conference. Right. And I heard the Victorians and a guy from the ACT at that stage talking about layering on and layering off. And I'd never heard of the concept.

Layering on, laying off.

Layering on, laying off.

I

said, what are you guys talking about? Because I'm from Queensland originally. And they explained that when they do warm-ups, people have to layer their clothes off before they get in the main section. And then at the end of session, put the layers back on again. I thought, oh, I suppose we layer on and off in WA in winter. If you want to call it winter, we take our jumper off and then we get into it. Everyone's in their shorts anyway. But we're blessed with our weather, you know, and environment over here. 30-degree blue skies, no rain.

So that's going to be a big benefit for Stem to Life. Obviously, if you don't know Stem to Life, it's all outdoor training, group outdoor training. And the sun shines and that's the business, isn't it?

It is, it is, yeah. You know, we've got winter retention programs, but over here we don't even talk about winter, you know, not at in the west. Over on the east coast, you know, Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland, they've last year— they haven't had a good year with the rain. Yeah. Which probably to a degree has held back the businesses over there. Hasn't stopped people from training in the outdoors, but, you know, people love to train in the outdoors. From my knowledge, I've never heard of anyone dying from getting a little bit wet with rain. So we'll train them in the outdoors, but we've got strategies when it's thunderstorms and cyclones. But we don't have to put those strategies into play as much over here in the West.

Well, that helps a lot. Tell me about like when you recruit for— I mean, you know, I'm looking at businesses that have had, you know, they're wanting to go down the franchise route or even licensing route or getting subcontractors aboard, for example. What do you look for in getting a new, you know, person that is a big investment for them? It's their life, it's their business now. What's the perfect person? If somebody's trying to recruit that person, who do you look for? What have they done in the past?

Okay, I suppose from my point of view as a new franchise owner in WA or across Australia, first and foremost, we're looking for passionate people.

Passion.

Passion. You can't beat passion. We can't train you in passion.

Love, passion, passion.

Exactly. You know, if you're passionate and, you know, you'll go places. Our system is robust enough and good enough to teach you everything else.

Right.

But you've got to have passion and communication skills, you know, to start with. Once you're there, like I said, we can teach you everything else. But I suppose my ideal franchise candidate would be someone from a business background who has some street smarts about them, who's been there and done that. Not so much in the fitness industry, it doesn't matter. People who have lived a life and can understand a business concept. Yeah. Because that's what we do. You know, we're not just on the park doing bicep curls with a squat and then Seeing the client 2 days later and doing it again. We're running a business. So what you see on the park is the front end of a very robust and systemized business.

So the trainers that are coming to Semperplyte, the ones that you have, the 23, are they— how many have come from fitness and how many have come off the street wanting to do a new career, please?

Yep, yep. The majority of them have come through the fitness industry, I must admit. And most of my franchise inquiries The majority, vast majority, are from the fitness industry. There's no doubt about that. What I'm saying is, in WA especially, probably my best franchisees come from a business background with no fitness industry experience. Interesting. Because we can teach them that. Yes. So yeah, you know, so I'm happy obviously to get people from everywhere because people from the fitness industry are very passionate anyway, very passionate people. But we can teach them that business concept. But people from a business background understand the concept first, and they're passionate anyway, or else they wouldn't have inquired.

And then they get their knowledge and the skills.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. Very good, very good. So I guess going forward for you, what's the plan? Is it always just getting more locations, more locations, or is there something, something grander and bigger?

Well, in WA, yes. I suppose I'm on a 2-year plan myself. I'm at 23 franchises at the moment. By this time next year, February next year, I want to have 37, and I'm pretty confident I'll do that. And that, I suppose I'm assisted or helped with that because with more franchises on the ground comes more brand exposure, more people are seeing our brand everywhere, and more word of mouth is spreading.

So take me back to when you had 2 Was that really tough compared to now?

It was very tough, yeah, absolutely it was tough. Between the winners? Yeah, I think when I started we had 3 WA franchises including myself. A year later when I was the master franchisor, we had 5. You know, it was hard because the brand wasn't there. We didn't have— we needed money to make money.

And it's not really— I mean, you're in Perth, you've got East Coast. Does it— does it make a big difference in regards to maybe somebody heard of it over there but they have no idea over in Perth?

Um, yeah, when we started, yes, yes, because it was all new over here. Okay. Absolutely. I suppose we're lucky in WA because, and I'll touch wood if I can find something, that the competition isn't that serious and it's not so structured over here for outdoor training. There is a million and one trainers in the park who operate, but generally they haven't got systems Or marketing concepts behind them. They're good trainers, a lot of them are great trainers, but they're either doing it on the side, they're doing it for— I shouldn't say cash, I don't know, but it might be for their business.

Nobody, no personal trainer does anything for cash in this industry.

But we're looking, it's a full-time gig for us. It's a new— you're running a franchise. So that's why I'm lucky now, we're on a bit of a growth spurt in WA, so I'm riding a good wave at the moment. The franchisees are all very happy because we get an enormous amount of leads.

Where do you do your marketing? How does that come?

Marketing? Yeah, we're— this year we're concentrating on major shopping centres because we've got a special WA promotion team who will do that from within on behalf of all the other franchisees. So we're going to the big Westfields and the, you know, the Carousells or the Whitfords that the franchisee can't afford themselves to do and haven't got I don't have the time to do. So I'm sending the best in the business down there to do that on behalf of everyone. We've tried radio, we've tried TV, everything works, I've got no doubt. We're getting more online now, so it's just a matter of I just need to try things and see how things go.

Excellent, excellent. Well, I look forward to the growth of the WA side of Stable to Life. I've got heaps of— I see all the Stable to Life So it's good. And I know, you mean a year ago, you've grown a lot in a year, haven't you? Is that right?

In the last year, probably in the last 2 years, yeah, yeah, we've had good growth. But this year is just going to boom. You know, I've got 4 new franchises already signed up for our next initial intake in August, and it's only February now. So I've still got 6 months to work on that. So I'm very, very happy where we're sitting.

So what is your biggest failure in business that you've lost the most amount of money on? That things haven't gone right, you've pulled your hair out, something's happened. What's the worst thing and the one piece of advice you could offer for somebody else?

Look, to be honest, Richard, I didn't run a business before I got into Second Life. I haven't had any failures, which is good. My franchise was very, very successful before I So, you know, I signed that and sold that in 2010. The Master franchise is going very, very well. I suppose no failures, but my biggest struggle or challenge right now is—

I love this because I say failures and he corrected me saying challenges, which is— that's what it's all about. It's about challenges and overcoming that challenge.

Yeah, well, I suppose I should say that because I always say to franchisees, see the cup half full rather than half empty. So positive mindset, but yeah, the challenge now is to cater for the growth, you know. So I'm looking for a full-time staff member, basically my right-hand person, to help me grow the business. In the office? In the office.

All right, so there's a job wanted in the office?

Absolutely, yeah. And that job is centered around supporting the existing franchisees, you know. Even though I'd love to do it, I just can't be everywhere all the time, and it's a way of me growing my business as well, you know. So I've got to let go of the reins a bit to grow.

Excellent. Thank you for your time. And where can everybody find you? Like, they go email or website? Where do you hang out? Facebook? What do you do?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, uh, Step of Life Western Australia. Uh, email wa@stepoflife.com.

Excellent.

Uh, and yeah, like I said, the website www.stepoflife.com.

All right, thanks for your time. Appreciate that. And, uh, Look forward to seeing everybody in the next episode of Getting Raw. Thank you. Thank you.