In this interview, Andrew Simmons, founder of Vision Personal Training, reflects on the biggest financial and strategic failures his business has endured and outlines the evolution of the company’s model and future direction. He cites wasted spending on IT infrastructure, poor web development choices, and ineffective franchising advertising as major monetary losses. Simmons admits that early attempts to sell the "Vision" concept to prospective franchisees were misguided, preferring instead organic growth driven by personal referrals and the Grow‑and‑Go program, which has now produced about 350 staff and potential owners. He acknowledges an over‑emphasis on technical exercise science—teaching functional anatomy and movement analysis—at the expense of the emotional and behavioral coaching aspects that now dominate Vision’s training philosophy. Looking ahead, Simmons plans to shift the business toward online client education and empowerment, consolidating existing studios across Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria while resisting rapid, global expansion. He stresses the importance of adhering to proven systems, fostering passionate owners who support trainer development, and embracing delayed gratification as a core mindset for success.
Chapters
This is getting raw and I really want to know, maybe we don't talk about, I want to know your biggest failures. What have you lost the most amount of money on? What have you just blown money like no tomorrow? What have you failed miserably at?
Mate, IT, absolutely. IT. I've wasted, bad choices in providers, bad choices in web developers. You know, I've just lost thousands of dollars in that. I'd even have to say in advertising as well. You know, when I say probably the more so, not so much client advertising. I mean, most of our business comes from referral anyway.
Sure, yeah.
But it's more so franchising advertising.
Yeah. You
know, most of our studio growths come from what we call our Grow and Go program. So people come in, we grow them as trainers, then they develop through network and go. But I've wasted so much money on advertising in magazines and—
For clients and consumers or—
No, no, for franchisers to actually attract franchise owners. Interesting. You know, sort of gone down the path of, you know, probably a big failure is actually trying to sell vision. You know, for so many years, like, you'd probably ask people— Sell what vision? Well, sell vision in terms of sell it to someone to buy a franchise.
Sure, yeah.
You know, it's not so much, you know, I can't just, you know, I can't say this is who I am and what I do are the same thing, you know, so this is just, you know, this vision's me. Trying to sell the dream for someone to buy a franchise, you know, I find if you have to sell it to somebody, that's wrong, you know. And so probably through the GFC period, You know, when we weren't opening studios fast, we just couldn't get money out of banks and that, then we were trying to sell it to people. And I think that was a mistake, you know, whereas the way Vision really grew was that people have always come to me and said, hey Simmo, I want to open a studio.
Just naturally?
Naturally, it's been organic growth.
How many staff do you have at Vision across?
How many staff, mate? Fuck, 350.
So you've got 350 potential owners?
Yeah.
So, IT, advertising. Anything else?
Mistakes, failures.
One more.
Mate, one more, definitely focus on the technical side of PT rather than focusing on the business side of PT.
So you focused on that way too much?
Oh, way too much, mate. I focused on making sure trainers knew the functional anatomy terms, movement terms, muscle analysis, all that sort of stuff way too much. Rather than actually focusing on probably the emotional side. We focus heavily now on the emotional side of human behaviour. You know, so, you know, I was not focusing on that. It was almost like, you know, my exercise science degree taught me to be almost like an assassin. So you want to get results? Well, that's right. You know, you want to get results? Let's weight train hard.
You
know, so as to kill people in exercise rather than actually understand them.
Yeah, so it's all about more of a wellness program.
Yeah, absolutely.
And lifestyle program, not just here's the exercise, it's the whole kit and caboodle. If people were looking at opening their own studio, right? Opening a Vision, they're going to look at cost and they probably try and get it on a budget on their own and they go, I can save some dollars. Yeah. Why do trainers then make the switch to go to you, do you think? Do you think it's the systems? Do you think it's the success straight away they can have? The time that the 5 years you lost money and worked really late? What are they looking for?
I think it's a combination. I think sometimes what happens is a lot of people don't see that though. Like some of our Sometimes people get into a franchise and go, oh, how good is this? It's just going to basically run itself. Yeah. Whereas in any small business, whether it's a franchise or your own— I speak to franchisors a lot in other industries, and they will say that sometimes people forget that this is still a small business, and you've got to work a small business hard. So I think sometimes we've probably even gone down the road of saying, okay, you can have a business that can operate without you. And sure, it can operate without you. But it takes a lot of development of people to get it to that sort of stage. So I think people tend to sort of miss out. Even when you read books that says, oh, this entrepreneur struggled for 5 years, and then they move on to the next point. Hang on, let's just think about that. This guy busted his butt for 5 years before he actually got there. People want to easily dismiss all the hard stuff.
And that's what's really interesting. Yes, we're at the stage now, we're at, you know, I think every trainer's dream. You've got a great team here, a really close-knit of your staff team in head office here. You've got downstairs, I go past every highway, there's a Vision plastered everywhere. You can't miss the thing.
If there's any message out there for trainers, it's just to believe in that concept called delayed gratification. You know, it's not going to happen straight away.
It's Generation Y, it's like that one now.
Yeah, Generation Why Not.
Last question. Where is Vision going in the next sort of 5 years? What are we going to see about it? Where's your— where's Andrew's vision going to go?
Mate, I think a lot of it's going to go into the online space. I definitely think that from a marketing perspective, that's where we need to go. And from a client service point of view, like providing all the information for clients, giving them access at home, that's really important. Because I mean, a client's results really come from what they do when they're not here. So we need to make sure that clients are empowered. to do this stuff when they're not here. I think a lot of it's going to come back to just the education away from just the exercise. I think too many people focus way too much on exercise to be able to get results. Yeah. Still, obviously it's important that people do the regular exercise sessions. I'm not going to take that away at all. But actually understanding what drives people. I've seen over the years a number of my key mentors have now moved more into coaching, looking at the psychology of human behavior. And that's where it's really at. I believe, because it's not, you know, clients getting results is not rocket science. You just got to understand why people don't do it, you know, and actually then work out what motivates them to do it.
And then you think having those methods is going to be the next level for the next 5 years, what we need in the consumer market?
Yeah, definitely.
Excellent.
I mean, our goal is definitely to be national. I mean, we want to—
You're in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, is that correct?
That's it, yeah. But just to establish ourselves more in Victoria. Establish ourselves more in Queensland. Now we had all these, you know, probably one of the biggest mistakes was actually having these green—
We've got another mistake.
Yeah, another mistake. Big one. Listening to other people too much and actually not focusing on what they want for you rather than what you want for you. You know, so I had this, you know, someone convinced me that we should have, like, go global and all this sort of stuff and have these massive growth plans. Where at the end of the day, it's always been about that slow growth. It took me 5 and a half years to get to 6 for a reason. Because I wanted to make sure that all these guys got results. So really, for me, it's more about consolidation and ensuring our existing studios are really successful. And really pulling up— I've made mistakes of actually probably being a little bit too liberal and free with our guys, rather than going, no, there's a system here for a reason. You've got to make sure that people are following the system because that's what gets results. So that's what it's more about for me. In the future, really, it's just consolidation so that we get that growing. If I don't have owners who want to help their trainers grow, then that's not good. Really, it's all about—
You've got to have passionate people.
Yeah, absolutely. Passionate people want to help trainers have a long-term career. If they're in it just for themselves, then that to me is not acceptable. So really, it's going back to that core value.
Excellent. I literally could be here all day talking to the great man, but we're going to have to leave it there. Maybe we'll do a part 2 or 3 later down the track.
