S4 Ep 10: Why Complacency Will Kill Your Fitness Business

Typically, like this time last, last year, I was actually really struggling. This was before I had the studio, before I had all these sorts of things lined up. And but it's also before I realized you reap what you sow in business, but it's just not week to week. It's, it's, it's quarter to quarter or half year to half year. That's what I started to realize in business. And since I followed that, I haven't failed. Hey guys, and welcome to the Hustle and Muscle podcast. My name's Riz. To the left of me, or to the right of me, is Rich, and you're going to listen to all things hustling and muscling. So all things fitness and all things business. Uh, Richard, how we usually break it down, we talk about what's been hot in our businesses, respectfully, uh, in the week. Richard obviously has ComMarketing, which is a coaching business and a marketing coaching business. I have my own personal training studio thanks to Richard and following his plans and systems. So Rich, talk to me a little bit about— it's been hot this week and we'll shoot the shit from there.

Yeah. So, you know, I think overall I've spoken to a lot. I've probably spoken to around maybe 40 individual conversations the last 2 weeks. And, you know, when having individual conversations, people really open up and say, hey, this is, this is where our problems are, this is what's happening. And Overall, there's definitely change. There's no denying this. There's a lot of changes happening. When I say change, probably not as flowy that it used to be. You know what I mean? Totally. Something hasn't worked once, members are down, pausing, cancellations, election, public holidays. You've got people that are having to isolate because of COVID This COVID's going to go on for another year at least. So there's all these things in the mix and it seems like it's a storm in May. And when I speak to this person, next person, it's like, hey, yeah, this is happening to this person, it's happened to that person. So it's nice to know, okay, it is happening, it is happening. Let's not deny it's happening. There's a lot of people that are pushing and thriving and still getting great results, Riz, like yourself, like other clients. Yes. But If you don't, you know, in some seasons push, what may have just been like just floating along is that we can't float sometimes. In business, we can't always float. We can't always have the holiday. We can't always be pushing. There's different seasons for different things. We always talk about this. And so I'm feeling a lot of this at the moment. I don't know if you feel that in people you

talk to. Look, mate, I'm not worried. Yeah, look, I'm in two minds. I've got clients that are coming in and making great progress, and I've actually had the least amount of cancellations I've had in the last 2 months.

Nice, nice.

So my retention rate is the best it's ever been, uh, which is over the— given the last 2 months, which is fascinating for me because, um, typically like this time last, last year, I was actually really struggling. Uh, this was before I had the studio, before I had all these sorts of things lined up. And, uh, but it's also before I realized you reap what you sow in business, but it's just not week to week, it's, it's, it's quarter to quarter or, or half year to half year. That's what I started to realize in business. And I was— since I followed that, I haven't failed. Now, if I want to go well in quarter 2 of 2023, I've got to drill quarter 1 of 2023. If I want to go well in quarter 4, I've got to drill quarter 3. And those are the things that are— and that means putting more money on marketing, without doubt. That means having quality ad campaigns. That means constantly generating leads every week regardless of conversion, because they might convert down the line if I have a good email campaign, a good sticky content campaign like you've taught me.

So

it might not be the win at the front, but it'll be a win down the line. And the more I rack up those, the better off I'm going to be. And so I think a lot of people don't understand you reap what you sow. And if you are sowing so much in quarter 1, you're gonna reap in quarter 2. And a lot of people just don't understand that. And I think people aren't critical enough of their own, what's actually happening in their business and how they're approaching it. And they don't look at themselves as the problem. They look at the environment as the problem. I've never done that. I've fallen on the bandwagon. I've gone, oh, it's winter before, but that's never got me the clients that I needed.

Yeah, it's a good point. Like, we can look at the environment, but But essentially, I actually, I love this concept, but then it sort of forces us to look inside our business that way.

Yes.

So if you are going, hey, let's wait for next month or let's wait to that, in a way, we've woken up as a business owner and go, hey, something's not the same as it was. Let's automatically blame here, here. But eventually, We then got to go, okay, how can we improve?

Yes.

And if that's all it does, that's great.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, I just think, I just think people need to be a lot more diagnostic about their business, a lot more finger on the pulse, and a lot more honest. And if you blame the external things, okay, let's, let's say, Rich, I wanted to lose 10 kilograms of body fat.

Yep.

But okay, Easter's coming up, and I go, ah, it's getting cold. and it's a couple long weekends, it's going to set me back. I've already set myself up for failure or not getting the best results I can. Whereas if I go, what do I need to do to keep putting out shit so people are interested and care about what I do? They add the problem. I am the problem and I am the solution. Whereas if we go, the problem is out there, I don't know about the solution, I don't know what it is. Well, you're fucked. Because you're not going to be looking for the solution. You're just going to be looking at the problem. Election, end of financial year, and it's like, no, no, no, no. In business, you have to be proactive. Personal training wasn't even a job 40 years ago.

That is true. That is serious.

That is like, that's that's only what I'm 30, 30 next week. That's three quarters of my life. Personal training has been an industry. That's it. That's not a long time. If maybe you're looking at a sparky, if you're a sparky and/or a builder and that shit's been around for centuries, fair enough. But like, this is— it's changing.

I call it a need and a want, you know, a need and a want industry. And, um, as much as we, we think that fitness and wellness is a need, um, depending who you're— depending on who you're talking to. So for example, this week, Riz, I spoke to, um, a very good client of ours and She has a lot of females in her business, a lot of moms. And she was telling me that moms are the first people that basically put themselves— well, we all know they put themselves first. And so if things are adjusting in the household, like they want to tighten the belt, for example, financially, they'll be the first people that cancel and so forth. Yeah. But even though she tells me that, the next sentence, it's like, well, we're doing this and this and we're expanding here and we're doing this and proactive, proactive, proactive, proactive, proactive. Yeah. So, you know, I remember when I was a personal trainer, I first started personal training, Riz, would've been 1998. Sounds a bit old now, doesn't it? And the biggest problem that I had, exactly what you said, is like people would ask, what is personal training? Is personal training just for the rich and famous? That was the problem then. Now, what's our problem? Oh, there's competition. You want no personal trainers or you want competition? You know, I was one of the youngest personal trainers when I, um, did my, my certificate.

17, right?

Yeah. And you know, I lied about my age for a good part of 4 years, I believe, Riz.

Yeah, smart.

I lied about my age because I thought that my problem would be that I'm too young to train and nobody will take me seriously and pay me, right? And so there's always problems at some level of what you do. So I don't think they go away, but I think what we're seeing, we're seeing that we had a good run for a long time, a long time, business life, good run. Yeah. You said last week gratitude.

Yep. Absolutely.

So much gratitude. And so, you know, yeah, we go down the road and have a coffee for $4.50, $5. Like, you know, that's probably more than most people in the world get paid per hour. And so we're here having a good life essentially in Australia and New Zealand. We're the high— compared to the rest of the world, we're a very— we're a population that—

Very affluent. Yeah.

Very affluent. And so when something slightly adjusts, the weather, competition, a change in politics, interest rates. We, I don't think we automatically blame, but if we listen to the surroundings like the news and so forth, they will tell you that's to blame. But as a business owner, there's one thing that we have and it's ourself. It's us, us, us, us, us, and ourself. Yes, you have your team, your staff, all those kinds of things. Yes. But it's up to you if you rely on your team. It's up to you if you promote your business. It's up to you if you put a leader in. It's up to you if you become a leader. And so this is where I think a big part of what, you know, has to be recognized. And we said it before, you know, are we actually setting ourselves up for failure? Is this something that we're going into business now and saying, well, if something's slightly off, we're not in a position to win anymore.

Yeah, and that's what I don't like. I think, and my, my vision since I was a kid, man, since I under— I go, if someone can win, I can win. Someone's winning right now, and I guarantee you, and, and I'm doing well in business right now as well, I guarantee you there's a handful more, if not even more than me, just doing well in business. But everybody— I was watching this, fuck, I was watching this, um, little, little reel on, on Instagram, had Kanye West, and he was saying, as a kid you're taught don't jump on the coffee table. Don't jump on the coffee table. You know, don't do this. Don't do that. And until you're 40, you've got— you're surrounded by coffee tables you can't jump on top of, and you can't do this, and you can't do that. And you believe, and you pay into the fact that the world works like this. You're born into this simulation of that's how it is. I've never— I've just never had that conception in my head that that's what it is. If some dude tells me that's what it is, that's not how it is. It's not unless it's calories in, calories out. That's how it is. But outside of that, man, it's like, it's— I know someone's broken through. So can I— I either can sit in the simulation and go, that's how it is, or I can take it upon myself and go, no, I'm going to be a maverick. I'm going to be someone that takes control today, and I'm going to be someone that gets it done. And that might not look— you might fail, you might succeed. But it's better than sitting there and sitting in the simulation, sitting around your coffee tables that you've built up around you that you can't jump over, and you've assumed your position already. You're in that simulation, simulated, uh, destination already. And I just, I just, I've never bought into it, and it's done me well so far. So that's where my sort of thinking goes.

Well, yeah, the world needs more mavericks. And, um, I went to a lot of conferences last— haven't been on for a while, but, uh, we went to a conference called Awesomeness Fest, a lot of Mavericks, you know, getting there. And when you go to conferences and events and you see, you know, and they have the speakers and the guest speakers and that, you look at those and go, oh, I want to be that person. Well, that person was a Maverick. That person did things to become that.

Yes.

And, you know, I look at, you know, independent business owners, franchise business owners, and either way, there's no right or wrong. It's about you have to readjust the business according to how you think You're going to grow it. And yeah, you're right. You can't believe everything out there.

No, because because I mean, look, it's it's like you said, setting yourself up for failure, right? For me, I realized that I'm in a very I'm in a very fortunate position to have clients and to figure out some way of communicating with my potential market that I want to train them and that my services are going to benefit them in a very fortunate way. But I've also been like, don't take this shit for granted because the one time I slipped.

We remember that. We remembered.

Yeah. Oh, yuck. Oh, don't want to go back there. So I've even got that point where I've slipped and I've, and I've gone, I take it for granted. I think if you take it for granted, you're fucked. If you start looking for problems, if you start looking for potential problems in the future and you're always trimming the hedge that is your business, I think you'll be okay. But I think it's the people that sit on their laurels and go, oh, and this is how it is. And they do set themselves up for failure in their actions because they're not looking for potential problems or they're not looking to— sorry, maybe not that. It's maybe like looking to grow. They're not always looking to expand or develop their systems. They think what I've got is good enough. No, it's not the case. Not the case. Everything always needs to be tweaked and changed and behind the scenes it needs to be so you can deliver a better product every single day. People don't understand that.

And if you're listening to this and you're new to business, I think That's, I call it being green a little bit. And everybody goes through it, green, new to business. And you got to do that. I got my first run in a business at 17. I put a flyer on the mirror about all the changes that we were doing to our studio one day. And I was there till 10 o'clock typing this little newsletter up and I was going to stick on the mirrors. Next day, Studio opens at 5 o'clock. I wasn't in at 5 o'clock. And, you know, I came in about 8 o'clock and there was graffiti over this, over my little newsletter that I designed on an A4 piece of paper. And it said, go back to school. And I go, that's a bit rude. That was from my clients. I made all these spelling mistakes and that would've taken the mickey out of me because they knew I was young. And that was my first experience in Being a little bit green. Like, you know, if you want to promote how, you know, what you're doing, maybe do a spell checker kind of thing because not everybody's just like you and doesn't mind. So every time, there's always situations early in your business that you need a little kick to go, ah, okay, could have done it another way.

This is how it is. Yeah.

And if you haven't experienced a fail point, I mean, that's a very small fail point.

Of course.

You know, I remember one day when I had a directory called relocating.com.au, it was a moving directory, Riz, and that was— life was really good and business was just rolling in. This directory was making about half a million dollars a year. Literally, when they say, you know, when they say you don't have to do much work, this was one of those. 30 minutes a week, that was it, if that. And one day I got a call from one of the clients that we never get calls from, and they said, hey, I want to cancel. Within that 24-hour period, I pretty much got calls coming in hot. 90% of my clients canceled within that week. I also lost 90% of my revenue in a week, and I didn't have any other marketing streams other than SEO. What happened the algorithms changed in how people ranked a directory. And I wasn't putting any money anywhere else and I was complacent. And what happened then, it kicked my ass to Mexico and back. And I realized that this is not running a business. This is a good thing in the time. And there's always good opportunities in your business that come and they're easy because you deserve them because you've set up a structure. And you can add a product in and guess what? You have an audience that wants to buy

it.

And business doesn't always have to be hard, by the way. It should be easy. It should be flowing. But that's when you've actually done something. It's when you've actually put some work in, then it should be easy and then it should be flowing. You know what I mean?

I had the same thing with a physique. It's like when you get to a certain level and you break the barrier and you get to the physique, the part where your physique is where it's at, it's actually relatively easy to maintain on a food thing. It's just most people don't want to— most people don't want to keep putting in work. They think it's a one-and-done project. And it's like, no, if you want to stay in good shape, you have to work past the momentum to inertia. Then you get there, and then it's actually quite easy maintaining a low body fat physique.

Yes.

But most people don't want to fucking do that either.

They don't want to do that work. I mean, when I was training with you, Riz, I messaged you a couple times and said, oh, we did— we did some hard training for 6, 7, 8 months, and then So the reason I haven't trained this week without— I said, am I going to lose everything? You go, nah, you're going to, you know, it's going to mainly stay, you know, not going to be as physique, but it'll mainly stay. And it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, you know, you get to that next point, right?

But that's it. Like, you were easily pressing, I think, the 40s, 45s close to— you're pressing some heavy, moving some heavy weight. And it's like, well, you didn't start there, you started at 20s. But then even, even with 1 or 2 sessions a week, you still could hold on to the 40s, 42s. So people don't understand that. Once you've gotten there, it's fairly okay to maintain it, but you have to get there. With business, same thing.

You got to get there and you got to know that, hey, there's going to be situations where it is going to require you to work. But I think the biggest problem here I'm seeing, Reece, is that a lot of people new to business that haven't been probably, that haven't had that downturn ever, Yep. This is the first downturn they're

getting. Ah, yeah.

And they're going, what the hell just happened? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. They're riding the COVID wave and they're riding all the business. Everything's growing. It's all good. Everyone loves fitness.

The government's giving us money. Yeah. It's flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing. As soon as those taps stop, it's reality. And it's just reality in the season. It's a season. It's a period. I mean, it's going to happen. It's happened to many generations before. But you got to understand that it's not always going to be this way and it's not always going to last and you got to get through it and you got to find the way, you're going to find the gap and you got to— and the gap is the opportunity, by the way. The gap is the opportunity. If you find the gap, the opportunity's there.

Well, for me, it was the gaps, but it's also generating some predictability in your business. So for me, it's like, okay, writing, learning how to write good Facebook ads that deliver every time, or most times, 80% of the time, right? That's good enough for me. That's some predictability in my business that I put in $100, $200 and I get a lead. That's what you need in your business. But most people aren't willing to work to the point where they can get predictability. They need— they're like still, still throwing shit and going, oh, my Instagram posting, my this, I mean this and this. I'm like, bro, Daily Instagram posts are a baseline for me. That is a baseline. That is like, that's a non-negotiable. And that's like, and email marketing, non-negotiable. All these things are on top of that shit. Then I'm going to do ads. I'm going to go 10 times above and beyond because I know that that downturn will come if I don't. And I think that most people don't. It's like they, like you said, they're green. They're like, ah, I'm good, I'm good until it's not good. And then you're fucked if you're not proactive. I think that's where you've got to be tenacious. You've got to be proactive. You've got to always be searching for how to better your business in every aspect because then you'll be fine and then you'll keep growing. But if you don't, you're going to be one of those people that go, um.

And I'm actually loving the season at the moment. I'll be honest. We've got a whole bunch of new clients that are coming through and these clients, they're coming through and wanting to learn marketing and they've got very successful businesses. And I said, why do you want to come in? And I said, well, We know that a franchise comes in and they've got cash that they're putting into marketing. We know that there's someone young going to come in that they have Instagram and they understand that. And we've been here for 10 years. We're making some good revenue, but we don't want to get left behind. And that to me is 100% respect because that tells me to say, hey, they're in it and they're going to keep going and they're going to keep going. Good operator. So you don't want to— I think we don't want to look for things that are problems, like you said. We want to look for opportunities. And so if you see, hey, there's a coaching Friday and that person can say, hey, they can help you with that, jump onto that if you think that's an opportunity. If you say, hey, there's an expansion there that we can actually do and that's going to bring another kind of business into my current business and I think I can add in 50% revenue, great, go after that. And so it's expanding in the times. And when, you know, when let's say you have a bad month, it's very hard to feel expanding because it's like, oh, I'm worried about here. At the end of the day, that's the experience that you know that you'll need to either get, borrow, steal, mentor, talk to somebody knowing that this is a period. And yes, if you're not careful, you'll get burnt quickly and you've got to be proactive. You say proactive. And I like the example. Like I remember, we had a conversation about emails and You're naturally great at Instagram stories, one of the best. And you made a few tweaks there and made a bit more acquisition. But then I said, oh yeah, let's throw in the sticky content, the emails. And you were on and off. And then all of a sudden, I would say my inbox, I actually scanned your emails. My inbox, like every 2 days, there is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I'm looking around.

And now we don't talk about emails now, do we? We talk about other things. What's the next progression? This is a non-negotiable. And so it's building up these non-negotiables, non-negotiables added to your marketing funnel, add it to your business funnel, add it to your sales funnel, and then bring on the next thing. But if you can't complete, if you can't complete the basics and can't be consistent at sending an email out every 2 days, every week, if you can't be consistent at Instagram, if you haven't worked out a formula or a system or a team for that, you can't pass go and you can't collect $200.

Agreed. Agreed.

And this is the issue.

But that's the thing, mate. When somebody puts their details in my business, I want them to be flooded with free shit to the point where they go, fuck, this guy's too good. Fuck, I want a personal trainer. Fuck, I'm ready to go. This guy's got the community. He does one-on-ones. He does one-on-sixes. Fucking hell, he's got one value option and one high price option for me. So he's really looking after me. Yes. You know, fuck

it.

You want people to feel that from the, from the jump. And I think they do. Once you, you have the email marketing, you have all those things, they might take a year to convert. That's okay. You can get your short-term wins and long-term wins.

Oh, Riz, I've got some— I've got, you know, it's, it's amazing. I am getting people, uh, that are coming through as clients and we're talking about 10 years conversion. We're talking about they've seen me speak 10 years ago. They've been on an email list for 10 years. You know what I mean? Like we're talking about longevity, long game kind of stuff. And I love the short game. Like someone sees a Google ad or they see you there and they're boom. But I also love the long game.

The long game's the best.

It just shows you that all the funnels work. You know which one's fast, slow, medium, and know how you have to react to that.

Absolutely.

I just love it.

And the long-term ones usually are the free ones, you know, they're just the ones that just take your work, a bit of graft. But the short-term ones always usually paid for me. You're never gonna organically— it's too much competition to grow organically, man. You know what I mean?

And you gotta be patient for that game. You gotta be real patient for that. Real patient.

And I'm not a patient person, brother. That's it.

That's why I don't mind that. I don't mind the 10-year— I don't mind the 10-year game, but the short game Straightaway is a great game because you need it. It's a need. People need it straight away

and you

need both of those. And I think this is a good point, Riz, is that you can't— like, I was stuck on SEO game and I didn't do Google Ads 10 years ago and I lost my business. And you've got to be understanding that all parts, you have to be all parts on now.

Yep.

You can't, you can't, you don't have the option to be one part on and You know what? I've just done this this way for so long. You don't have that option anymore. All parts need to be on at all times. Otherwise, as soon as one goes, boom, it's all over. Different game, Riz.

It is, mate. It is. And look, I think we were talking about it before, mate, about business. And I just wanted to touch briefly on the setting up for failure stuff. And I think for yourself as well, You said multiple times that when you've got your comm office, you rented out other rooms, you lived lean. So you paid— essentially, you paid back your rent through renting out of the rooms.

Lean, lean,

lean. Excellent. And I think what a lot of businesses struggle to do and what they don't do correct, whether they're starting at the ground level or they're at a really high level, is maintaining their leanness. And that doesn't mean being a tight-ass, that just means managing your overheads. You know, should I, should I spend an extra $300 on marketing when it's not actually providing me any results? No, save $300 there, okay? Because you compound that, that's $15 grand a year. Well, $15 grand a year on maybe $3 grand on a videographer and then $12 grand, maybe even $5 grand on, you know, $10 a day Instagram ads or whatever, um, that'll pay that off, you know what I mean? And you'll still be $5 G's, uh, in the green. And so if you do that 5 times in the year for different things, mate, you'd be so much better off. And I just think, I think I see so many businesses start up, they go so big so fast, but just with their marketing, but they don't have the boots to fill it. They don't have the feet on the ground. There's nobody in the business. They try to appear like this larger-than-life thing to get people in, but you haven't sustained it. You haven't— your overheads, your rent's $1,500 a week, so you're $6,000 in and you're only making $8,000 a month. So you have to live on $500 a week for running an entire business. It's crazy.

And I think that there's a really good point. If you go into business and you go in with overheads and your main overheads, what are they? They're staff, they're rent. Staff and rent, main biggest ever overheads, right? Usually staff, then rent, depending how, if you've got staff or not.

Big you are.

Yep. And those things, Yes, you can make adjustments, but everything else, these are small adjustments. If you go in, say, I'm going to hire the best operations manager for my place because that's what I need in 2 years, and you're going to be in $100,000 straight off the bat, well, that's a bad decision, I would say.

Yep.

At that point, because then you have investors and so forth. If you decide to go, okay, brand new business, never run a business before, I'm going to go and get a really expensive rental place. I reckon that's a bad decision. And so we want to, as you do quite well, stick things to the wall, see if they stick or fall. If they stick, have a little premises, go outside, run a boot camp and say, you know what? I've got some clients here. Let me open up a studio.

Yeah, exactly.

instead of opening up the studio and then figuring it out.

Yeah, which is, which is just a dumpster fire because you've got little time and a whole lot of money to make up for, you know what I mean? It's like you're never going to solve a 1-year problem in 1 week. It's just not going to happen. It's just not how human— it's not how human nature is. People need to hear about your product, they need to digest it, they need to process it, then decide it's maybe that they like. Then they have to like it and then they have to buy it. Yeah, so many stages until they want to invest, especially in fitness, man. Fitness is such a fucking hard one because you're pushing people to do shit they don't want to do on their own.

100%.

Food's easy. Like, food is— if it's a cafe, fuck, you cook good food, people talk about it, and you promote it all right. And yeah, sure, hospitality game's tough, but it's like, you've got— everybody has to eat, you know what I mean? Your market is your population.

People need to eat, shit, and sleep.

Yes, but you've got personal trainers.

Your needs industries.

Exactly. So you're always going to have some baseline level if you're smart and a good operator. But I think a lot of people— I don't think people— a lot of people I like that at all. I think people think that personal training, oh, you should need, you should want it. Nah, this is a game you've got to bite, scratch, and claw for every client for.

It is. And it's a very good point. And you'll see, you may know people that are plumbers or carpenters or electricians or builders and, or rather cafes or coffee shops and you say, oh, they're crushing it. Well, they are in a different industry, one. Two, it's a need industry at the moment. Okay, uh, supply and demand. And we've got to understand that that industry is also— is that something that you want to get into? Is it something you want to do? Yeah, if so, sure, go ahead and do it. Um, but it's just, it has its problems like any other industry as well.

Yeah.

Um, you have more laboring over there, you have more staff you have to employ, different hours, all these kind of things. And so you do have to understand, if you are coming in the fitness industry, well, you do have to understand there's there's pros and cons to this industry as well, like any other industry.

Yeah.

And I think that's a good way to look at it. But I think it comes down to numbers, Riz. It comes down to knowing the numbers earlier on, later. And all these conversations we're having, like you're saying, paying expensive for a general manager or a team, I've done that, Riz. I've done all these stuff-ups here. I spent a long time putting a lot of money into team members that we weren't at that level, but We're paying big dollars for, you know? And so everything that I think we're saying on this podcast comes with love because we've been through this scenario. And it's like, these are the scenarios that I keep seeing time and time, common problems, common problems. If we can solve these common problems, I believe honestly we can have a more successful business and a better body and more clarity in what we're trying to do.

Absolutely.

And so we do have to stay lean in this point. Um, and if you're not—

It just always helps. It just always helps too. Let's say, let's say I'm— I think, I think my overheads, everything's— it's about a grand a year, a grand a week or something like that for everything, right? Rent and this and maybe a bit more, give or take, right?

Yeah.

But like, all I need to do then is make about a grand and I'm good. It's pretty lean to have your own spot, right? And I'm being super transparent with it because I just don't really have any horse in the race to, to keep those things secret because I never benefited. I never benefited from people holding that information from me when I was coming up as a personal trainer. And it's like, sure, I'm making $1,000, let's say a $750 to $1,000 a week sacrifice in order to pump up my dreams. I could have done this on a gym floor and paid $250 a week rent. Sure, a big sacrifice, but it's not that much in the scheme of things to leverage me to get ahead.

Yeah. But Riz, but you did that. This is the thing. You did that. You did the time. You did the time. And as you grow as a person, you know, you grow and like something at 20 and go, oh yeah, I'll work in a gym for— I'll wear their t-shirt. And then when you get to 30, you go, you know what? I've got my way and I don't want to wear their t-shirt. Yeah. And it's small things that you have to adjust. And that's okay. It's okay to spend the $1,000 when you could have spent the $250 because you back yourself and you understand that, hey, I know I can make more money here because I have the experience. Well, 10 years ago I didn't. And I think it's okay to change as a person.

Yes.

It's okay to change as a person. But I really think it's a very dangerous mood when, you know, I'll give you an example. Just up the road here, town next to me, it's called Nambour. And I cannot believe the amount. And this, just to give you a bit of context here, I'm in a place called Wombi. It's got a population of 2,500, 3,000 people, right?

Yep.

Next door to it, probably a similar population. And it's definitely not a population that would hold that many fitness centers. Now I'm talking about a big Snap opened up there and then all of a sudden, boom, boom, every single operator is opening up there. Every franchise, that's what they do. Franchises come and they all open up there and there's independents that open up there. Mark my words, Riz, just because people are doing it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Yes.

It's not going to end well. I can guarantee you that in 12 months' time.

Yeah.

It's not going to end well, but because someone's told to do it, like we were saying, they'll do it. As a business operator, you've got to look, you've got to be a little bit smarter.

Yes.

And you've got to smell the air and figure out, is this it? Do I trust my gut or not? If you don't trust that gut, don't go.

Yeah. That's the thing, man. I think You're right. When I was 20 and if I was given a studio, not the right time for me. I would have turned it into anything. If you said, here's a whole studio, boom, go, I would have been like, nah, I've got too much other shit I need to focus out until I can— now, perfect storm. Because the time has come. I had my eyes on the prize and it was just— I just trusted the process and it come good. I, I just don't think— I think a lot of people want to go too big too fast and it's like, no, you got to do it in steps. And then you can be okay. If you have a 30-year plan, like my business, I've got a 30-year plan, if not more. I want it to be where it's at in 30 years. So when I'm time, I'm 60, fuck, man, fit, healthy, ready to go, and good for retirement, you know, or whatever it might be, you know. I don't really want to retire, but I at least want to be set up to a point where if I wanted to retire, something happened to me or the missus, I could retire. That's my goal for me. But 30 years to build one business? Fuck off. That's a piss take, right? Anyone could be like, oh yeah, of course you could build a business in 30 years. It's a long time, but it's not. And so for me, I go, well, fuck, if I start at $1,000 now, oh fuck, I gotta be sure I could pay that over 30 years, you know?

Yeah.

That's my head. I go, can I do this? Can I do this? And I can. And so you level up. I'm sure in 30 years I'll be paying fucking stupid amounts of rent, but you know, you've gotta build yourselves up to there. Don't just fucking plonk, build it and they will come. I don't know if that's a good approach for some people.

Building that company. I think this is the approach to summarize this, guys. We talked about numbers. We talked about, you know, are you really setting yourself up for failure? You know, we talked about length in things in industry. And I think a really good way that's helped me personally, a lot of our clients, is a book I might recommend you guys now to read now. And if you haven't seen it, it's called Profit First. And it's a book that basically even if you do it once off and decide, you know what, I'm not going to do it forever, you need to do it once off. It is going to literally tell you how much you're spending, how much you're paying yourself, where your overheads are at. And that honestly really helped me quite a lot when I just didn't know where everything was at. So it's going to show you, it's like The Barefoot Investor, but written by a guy called Mike Michalski. I'm going to try and get him on this podcast actually. Yeah. And yeah, it's a really good book to bring common sense into play here. And then you can make the best decision up to where at the moment, because I do also think, and you make a good point, Riz, is that we do have to be self-aware where we're at. And if you think—

And self-critical.

Self-critical. Self-critical. It is important because we are very critical on ourselves as business owners, but it is important to know that It's not about beating yourself up. I don't think that's the word we're trying to get to.

No, no, but criticism is not about it. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's analyzing, critical thinking, right? Analyzing what the facts are, what the reality of the situation is, given everything that you know and everything that you are. And I think that's—

That's it. I think so. And guys, if you need help with that, there's so many ways to get help. Um, you know, if you've been listening to me, I've, I've, you know, You can go to our website, commarketing.com.au, book in for a— we call it the marketing muscle-up, and we'll take you through a process to see where you are in your business and if you need help with that. And Riz, you can follow Riz on Instagram. Go to his studio. Riz Fitness, right?

Yep. Absolutely. Riz Fitness on everything, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

And there's so many— if this is the first time listening, there's so many other podcasts. We've— it's about 120, 130 episodes me and Riz do every single Friday. And you can listen to the back catalog of those as well. So it's up to you to be self-critical, make the step, pull the trigger, and get it done.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys. I think that's us, right, Rich?

I think so. Beautiful, man. We've got to do the work now and pull the trigger, team.

That's right, man. Get squeezing.

All right, guys. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends. That may help them. That actually may change their life.

Absolutely.

Change the direction. I know when I've given a podcast, it literally changed my life and my direction. So this might be a directional change for somebody that you know that needs a bit of help. So do that. And that's really going to help— 2 things going to help us to grow this podcast, it's going to help your friend to grow their business as well. Listen, until next week, have an amazing week, rip in, and be grateful every day. This is a great world we're in. See you guys.

See you in the next one.