Trust The Marketing Process to 3X Your Fitness Business Featuring Kylie Reh

You've been working, you've been hustling, you've been getting up in the morning, you've been late, you've been putting the hours in, you've got a creation, you're doing everything right.

Yes.

But it just, it just couldn't move past that. Welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. And in today's episode, I've got a really special guest for anybody who is a studio owner, this is going to be a really relative one for you. If anybody who's a working parent, this is going to be a great episode for you. If anybody has been struggling in their business for a long duration of time, waiting for something amazing to happen, i.e., grow your business or triple your business, this is going to be an episode for you. Welcome to the Marketing Muscle-Up Podcast Show. In today's episode, I have an amazing fitness professional, someone who I've been able to personally work with over the last probably 3 years, 2 years, 3 years. And I want to introduce you to Kylie Rae. She's from Recreate Women's Fitness. That's Recreate Women's Fitness in Wollongong, which is about an hour from Sydney CBD, something like that. And she is just on a growth path trajectory, moving from strength to strength. Welcome to the show, Kylie.

Thanks, Rich. Thanks for having me and excited to share my story today.

I'm really excited. Really, really excited because you've had a journey and I might just let you explain the journey, but You know, when we first met 2 and a half years ago, is that fair to say?

Yeah.

About 2 and a half years ago, probably 3, right? I reckon at least 3. I remember you, I remember it very clearly. You came, I think it was into one of our, we had a half-day workshop, a free half-day workshop. It's called the New Age Online Marketing. You came along with a friend, her name was Tracy, And, um, you know, you said to me, Richard, I've been watching you from the sidelines. I've been watching KOM from the sidelines. And I, I just, you know, I was just sitting there on the fence for so long, uh, probably financially. I'm gonna ask you that question. Fearful, uh, not sure what direction. And you, you had a studio, it's called Recreate Women's Fitness in Wollongong, been there for 8 years, 9 years. Yeah. And you're in this plateau stage for many of those years. And I think a lot of people can resonate with that. I think you're at 80, 90, 100 members, something like that. And you just couldn't pop it past that. You just couldn't push the lever past that. But you've been working, you've been hustling, you've been getting up in the morning, you've been late, you've been putting the hours in, you've got a creation, you're doing everything right.

Yes.

But it just couldn't move past that. So I'm really excited to talk to you because I think a lot of people in the same situation As you. So take me back a little bit, your background. I mean, I know you've been in the game for 32 years in the fitness industry. Well done, by the way.

Yes, yes. 32 years. It's a long time. So a little bit into my background, probably like most people listening to the show today, I've always been into sport, loved sport, always been a passion of mine. I actually started teaching a fitness program when I was in 6th class to my peers called Health Hustlers. Muscles. So I really already was already involved in that sort of teaching of fitness and being involved in fitness. Um, at the age of about 15 years, I got an opportunity to go to a local fitness club down here in Wollongong, and I fell in love with fitness— aerobics, G-string leotards, you know, leg warmers, the whole lot. I really, really fell in love with it, and that started my journey in the industry. So yeah, that's how I started.

Right. With the leotards and just getting in there. Love it. Love it. Now, so you were working in gyms and facilities?

Yes.

When did you decide to open your own door, Kylie?

Look, it was about probably about 15 years ago. I was working for a local large female franchise and decided that I wanted to be outdoors and decided to open up my own outdoor business. Um, here in Wollongong, and Wollongong is a beautiful place. But the one thing I did notice with training outdoors is even though I grew and it was really popular at the time,

yeah,

women don't always want to train outdoors, to be honest. If you— I wanted to grow my business, I needed to be indoors because not every woman loves being outdoors training amongst the environment and where everyone's on show. So yeah, having that, having that, um, thinking about that, that was what I needed to do and where I needed to go.

And so you got a space, kind of a warehouse space, you opened up. How did the first few years go for you in

that? Wow. Okay. Well, I was really super pumped to open the studio, but I must be honest, The first year was okay. And then after that, it went, took a massive dive. Not knowing how to run a business, big rookie error. No idea how to run a business, no idea how to run staff, not really being financial, not having any business plan, didn't know how to market. All I knew is that I loved what I did. Yeah. I understood how amazing fitness was for any person. And I was so passionate about it. So I knew that was good, but that was all that was good within the business. And yeah, it was pretty daunting actually to open a business and have no idea.

And so for anybody listening too, I remember when I got my first studio, I just thought marketing was an A-frame sign out the front, a sign at the front. And I called it hope marketing. I don't know. I call it hope marketing now, but I had no idea at the time. We think that's the way. And so take me through where you got to that point in the first, let's say, 7, 8 years. What were your numbers like? What were your members? What'd that look like?

Look, lucky for me, I had a really good referral base. So I think that made me survive the way I did. I can't really say it's survival because I must admit I was in major debt, whether it's financial debt, tax debt, superannuation, overstaffed. referrals got, got me the members in and kept me, and it was never afloat. I can tell you now, I had no money. And I've spoken to Richard about this before. I was actually taking money from my own piggy bank at home. Um, it was getting that embarrassing. But I truly did believe, Rich, that I had an amazing product and that what I was doing was right. And I just needed to know how to get it out there, get the message across, and— If I could do that, then I know I would succeed. And that's where I was at 7, 8 years ago, believing that I had a good product and I could get there, but I just needed that direction and help to get it out there.

And to kind of maybe take a long story and put it short, because I've got a lot of questions for you. You decided to come into our program, Comm Ninjas. And I remember our very first strategy session. I think it was over Zoom at the time. That was before COVID And what was that? And it was almost like you— I just felt in you that you really wanted to grow. And I've been through that. You know, me and Joey have definitely been through those dark stages where you're overstaffed, you've got a great product, but more people didn't know about it. And that's kind of why I really love working with yourself and people on that same journey where it's just they've got a great product, We just need to get it out there. And I guess your story is that you started with us at about, I think it was 90 members. Is that correct, Kylie? Something around that?

I was sitting around, I think, yeah, floating anywhere between 90 and 120.

Yep.

Yeah.

So the 90, 120, the famous 100. And then in the first 8 months, you went to 200 members, doubled the members. And I was so excited for you. to do that. And you've been through our SCALE program and now you're at over 300 members, something like 330, you know, this week. Huge, huge growth. Take me through that process when you went from 90 to 120 to 200. What did you have to do and how did it make you feel knowing that you got off this barrier that you're on for so long?

Um, look, I think the best advice that I got from someone was to learn to let go and to put your faith in people, in experts in their field. And what I did well was motivate and get women enthused about exercise and, and getting a result and just feeling good about themselves. So I had to learn to let go and trust in the process of learning to market and grow my business through marketing. I would look around and I noticed a little bit that was a lot young gyms coming up, and there was all this Instagram and all these things happening that I didn't and wasn't aware of, of how much it had an impact in a business to grow a business. So for me, coming to Com, it was a big deal financially. I didn't have it, but I had to trust that process and had to invest in this and to allow me to grow. Look, the journey in the last couple of years has been amazing for me as a, as a woman, as a mum, um, be able to step back, grow the business, and now be where I should have been probably years before, if that makes sense. Yeah, I've put people in place. I've got Com helping me with marketing. I've got more staff now than ever before, but everyone's doing a job, whereas I didn't do that before. I tried to do everything. And it's only because of the education and the marketing that I've been doing with Com, it's allowed me to grow.

Yeah. And when you're in that stage of not getting other people, do you think it's because it's a trust factor or do you think it's just purely a cash flow problem? Or do you think it's like, I'm just too indecisive to figure out, I'll just do it myself, or it's a bad routine? Where do you think most people are at?

Probably cash flow, I think, is Yeah, look, I don't know where the younger generation sit because I'm a little bit older, so I had no idea about Instagram or Facebook or anything like that. Younger generation, they're all over it, so I'm not sure how they feel business-wise. I think sometimes they think that they can do everything as well, but I can tell you now, once I've invested in getting more professionals in my business involved in their areas, my business has flourished. So if you're sort of sitting on a fence thinking, no, I can do my own marketing, well, marketing is a full-time job, I can tell you now. So if you're trying to teach and be this person and train your staff and do everything else, you're not going to be able to do all the marketing that needs to be done as well. So you need to be pulling on the experts to help you to get that. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Totally. And I want to dig a little bit before we get into the other stories, because as you mentioned, you're a mom of 3, is that correct?

Mm-hmm.

And for anybody who's a mom or a father or a parent or a carer out there, Running a business and also running a family, that's 2 different jobs as well. So I want to touch on that for a second. But before I do, I think a lot of people are interested about, okay, Kylie, how'd you go from 100 to 300? What was the 1 or 2 items that you had to do to change some of the fundamental things early on in that piece? Was it branding? Was it social media? What exactly was it, Kylie?

Well, look, first of off it was branding. I didn't really realize the effect of my brand and how I— how it— my— just my logo and the color of my logo, how that didn't have any appeal to women. Because one, I love blue, so my logo was Recreate Fitness and it was blue. So I'm in a prime position where I am here in Wollongong, but people would drive past and if you looked at the sign, you'd see Recreate Fitness blue. You would have no idea that I was a niche market of women in there training women. You would think, oh yeah, there's, there's a fitness facility maybe in there. You wouldn't know that. And it was because it came to comms straight away. So my brand was totally wrong. So I didn't even have the word women in there. So that was a really important thing. So now it's Recreate Women's Fitness and it's majority pink. And I get that now. You flick through an Instagram or something, as soon as you see pink and fitness, you go, oh, women. Whereas before I was blue. So even just those little things, I know to some people they might already know this, but to a lot of people, you might just do what I did. I love blue. I'm gonna go with that. And You know, that made a difference. You know, social media, I think the biggest thing for me is I already had a really good referral base.

Yep.

In my club. I just needed my people to tell you or tell the people out there what I had. It didn't need to come from me. They already know, like, and trust me. People looked at me and thought, I know that girl, she's been in the industry for a while. But it's the members, my Real Women, Real Stories show that really kicked it off for me, which is again something that KOM helped me with. Yeah, that really grew the business as well, getting members to talk for me.

And I'll just share with the audience, like there's, you know, even go back to the logo. I do remember having that conversation with you. I think it was one of the first sessions, you know, you were in our office and one of our seminars. And I said, oh, because sometimes when we, when I tell somebody that something's wrong in their business, like a logo or something they're really, what I feel someone's really attached to, I've got to kind of break it down the right way because if I do it the wrong way, people are very against and say, oh, I'm not changing my logo. I've got the car signage and it's on my flyers and my business cards and I've got the hoodies and the jerseys and all that kind of stuff. So we go, no. And as you know, Con, we are huge on brand. Otherwise you get lost in the marketplace.

Totally.

And when I said that to you, I said, oh, Kylie, I think it might be a logo. Hoping that you would stick around because when you tell something like that straight up, a lot of people do reject it. But you, on the other hand, before walking out the door, I think you already had a design ready and the colors changed already. And then 2 weeks down, it's on the front of your studio. Speed is something that you're very good at, Kylie. Where does speed come from? Is it just because I need to move it now because I got to get clients in or is it because, hey, I trust the process, I'm going to do it? Where does that come from?

That's a uniqueness that you have. Yeah, I can be a little impulsive at times, but I trust the process. That's really important to me. If I'm going to invest into something, then you've got to trust what they're saying to you. You've got to trust the guidance that you've been given. Like, that is, yeah, just really important. And that's why I moved fast, because I realized that if I'm going to grow the business, this is the first point. And I really got it. I looked at my logo and went, wow, I get this. Especially if I'm scrolling through a screen, no one's going to see and resonate female pink. You know, even though I hate pink, it's not my color, I get why it's done.

Yeah. Amazing. And then, yeah, you went ahead with the show. We sort of said, hey, go, go. We called the herovideo.com and you went out and you said, yeah, I can go get— I mean, most people say, I don't want to get on video. I don't want to do it. But then you said, okay, I trust the process. By the next day, I think you had your show already up online and you had a whole bunch of women lined up. And

yeah,

a true testament to speed, the game of speed.

Yeah, maybe that's why I've been fortunate to be successful, because I have— like I said, I knew what I had was amazing and I just had to get it out there. And I didn't need to come from me, and it needs to come from your, your followers. It needs to come from the people that are in your community. And, um, that's what helps sell, you know, recreate women's fitness.

The world's best kept secret. I think we all have a bit of the world's best kept secret in our business.

Um, Yeah.

Kylie, let's change the topic a little bit. I want to talk about family and I want to talk about, you know, when you get into business, there's a lot of people who say, why am I getting into business? Well, I want more time off. I want to be at home with the kids. I want to work less and earn more. All those kind of things, right? And there's a, you know, for some people it's the fast cars, for some people they're holiday houses, and for fitness professionals who work very hard, We're up early, we're at home late. I want to talk about your why and what family means for you. And I guess, yeah, the struggles between running a business and also running a family. 3— 2 boys, 1 girl, is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How does that work, Kylie?

Well, I'll tell you what, it didn't. When I first started— We'll stop just there. Didn't work. When I first opened the business, it wasn't—I didn't have a business aspiration. I just there was an opportunity—a fitness business, local women's franchise closed—and I was teaching outside, and I had a group of women, and I did think I needed space indoors. And the opportunity came at the wrong time. My daughter was one, my son was two and a half, my stepson was you know twelve. But it was the right time for I thought to open because something had closed, and women were looking for a space to train. So I got a space. and I opened it up. So the only reason I did it was because I loved what I did. It wasn't— I didn't have aspirations of making heaps of money or I didn't even think about spending more time at home. It was just I love what I did. I wanted to open more of a space and have people train with me. That was it. That's how it started. But as for my family time, at first it was terrible. I really sacrificed my family for my business. And it was pretty hard. It was really hard. And because I didn't know how to run the business, I didn't know how to market, all those sort of rookie errors made in the first few years. But I can honestly say, Rich, that I've never had to put my kids in after-school care or I've never had to miss out on going to one of their things at school by running a business. So there was, there's a lot of, there was, you know, a lot of pros and cons, you had to weigh it up. So yeah.

And now, now in the business, 330 members, you have, I mean, you have options and not everybody has options if you don't focus on the growth and leadership and getting a team in and letting go and things like that. Tell me about your schedule now in regards to how much time you spend in the studio, how much time you spend at home.

Yeah. Okay. My schedule now is really, really good. I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I'm at home. Friday, I'm at home, Saturday, Sunday at home. Thursday, I work on the business. Friday's a bit more my own development day. And Saturday and Sunday are all about me. So I really, really have a great working schedule and great working life. If I want to have time off during the week, I can. I've actually had 7 weeks off already this year and it's only the 31st of March.

7 weeks off already.

Yeah. Ask my staff. They know.

Yeah. And And I love these stories because these are the stories that sometimes we raise all these different people up, but I just love people that are the celebrities in our internal business. You're seeing you as the growth. And I think that's huge. 7 weeks off over Christmas and so forth. That's great because you can spend time with your family and do the things you want to do. And that's kind of like that whole dream, right? Why are you going into business in the first place?

That's exactly right. Like, people do— members do ask me, why aren't you here at night? Like, why don't you work anymore? I go, girls, I've done this. I've done all the hard yards. You know, I've got these young staff, you know, enjoy them. And, and, you know, they— and they get it. They, they get it. I said, I want to be at home. I didn't make a lot of sacrifice at times for my, you know, working over my children. And now I'm not in that position. I can be at home. I can be a mum. I can go to their sports all the time. And it's fantastic. It's fantastic.

I really love that you tell your clients, hey, I've made the sacrifices, I've got some amazing team members for you, and you're okay with that. I think that's a really valid point because there's a lot of guilt sometimes when you're the fitness professional, you're the owner, you've got to be there, you know.

Yeah.

Was that a hard thing to switch over?

Look, it had— it was, it was, but, um, it was at the, at the start, but now it's not. Now I love it. Now I love it. Like, I really encourage my staff to grow and continue to grow as individuals and as trainers and develop. And if you can do that with your staff, it really helps, um, grow your business. It really helps you get time to step, step back and, and, you know, yeah, just enjoy life. And that's where I'm at.

Let's talk about staffing for a second. Um, short, short-staffed staff at the moment in the fitness industry. What are your thoughts on staff? How do you get a good staff member? How do you keep a good staff member?

Oh, I think everyone knows this really. Good staff come from internal. It comes from your community. Every staff member in here is from my community. Every single one of them. They've been with me for years. They know my values, my mission, my vision. They understand the community. They really have a passion for what I do. And all my staff, in this facility right now are past members.

Wow, that's amazing. Um, so find, find the, find the team in the staff. I love that.

Yeah.

And you touched on, you know, growing the team members. What do you do to continue growing? Do you do training yourself once a month, once a week? Do you bring other people in? Do you get them to go on courses? How do they continue to grow in the industry?

Yeah, well, um, you know, through performance appraisals, when we chat with them, I want to see what direction they want to go would like to go into. We get external coaches to come in and train. At the moment, we're doing strength and conditioning training with a national strength and conditioning coach, and he's with us for the next 10 weeks. Then we're working on more the mum-safe side with Jen Dugard and the team there as well. So it's really, really important to get them in and grow them. And get external coaches, I think, is really good. Yeah, we have our team meetings, but To grow them in the direction that they want to go. It's great to have external people come in, I think, instead of you relying on you to do all of it. Because I don't know everything. I'm still learning constantly.

And you are a big educator, aren't you? You always are learning. And I love that about you. You don't stop learning, do you?

Look, there's so much to learn, Richard. I love it. I get caught up in so many different things though, as you know. I think, oh, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. But Yeah, I think women's health is really massive at the moment. Perimenopause, menopause, you know, body images, image for teens is really big.

Yeah.

And we work with all those ladies, that massive avatar and niche in our facility. So as a business, it's really important for us to be like market leaders within the Illawarra, in the industry, you know, with all these clients that we deal with. So that's why we constantly, and I'm constantly learning and educating myself as well as the staff to, you know, resonate and work well and be known as the market leaders in the Illawarra for women's health.

Love it. And a shout out to you. I mean, as you know, um, you know, you've been in our program for the last 3 years, Ninjas, and now, um, Scale Mastery. Um, you've, you know, you've passed that $500K mark and now you're going beyond to hitting the big million soon. And now you still keep turning up, Kylie, and you keep moving forward and you always are turning up to majority of the sessions and you're getting in there and you're learning. Now, some people decide, okay, I've got that 200 members, I've got that 300 members, I don't need to learn anymore. But I— see it from my side is that always the ones that are growing are the ones that are turning up. But then you go out, you go away and you work your magic and then you sort of, we see through the results. What is it, you know, I guess what can you talk to those people that are in those, I guess they've lost the growth mindset. How do you get back into the growth mindset? How do you get back into the zone of learning and saying, I've learned this and I can keep growing to 400, to 500? Is there something Is there something there for you?

I think as I've grown, it's grown my confidence as a business owner and even as an individual. I think I doubted myself for a long period of time. And then because I've grown and understood what I have is amazing, I'm hungry for more. I want to continue to grow. I don't want to sit back. If you sit back and you say, oh, well, I know it all and I've done it all, then you are not going to grow and you'll sit quickly, especially in this industry, die. This is a fast turnover industry. There's a lot of new stuff coming through all the time. And it's really important for me as a business owner to stay in the top of the game. And that is the only way that I will continue to survive in this industry and continue to grow the business and be where I want to be. So I definitely wouldn't sit back and think that I know it all. I really, really, and when it comes to marketing, I don't know anything. I'm hopeless. But when it comes to marketing, marketing's changing all the time, like Facebook ads and everything changes constantly. There's something new that's coming. I'm not going to know how to adjust or pivot this business if I wasn't working with marketing professionals to help me through this, through the challenges.

So good.

Yeah.

Okay. I want to talk about the future. And you probably get this question asked a lot to you. And this is a question that everybody asks everybody who's doing decent and doing well. And the question is this, when are you going to franchise? Or are you opening up a second studio? Or can I license you out? Do you get those questions a lot, Kylie?

I do. I do a lot. Yes. And look, I know if I franchised or even if I open another a studio, I would be really, really successful. I have no doubts at all. I really, really don't, Richard. But I'm happy and I'm not sitting back and getting complacent. I'm still growing. We've talked about this. I'm building a mezzanine. I just had the engineers and the builders in today talking about maybe I'm going too small, maybe I need it to be a bit bigger. I'm honing in on what's really important within the club and developing the staff, but I'm also loving life. Like I said, I've had 7 weeks off this year and I've been with family. I've been on holidays. I've— well, I don't want to— I still want to work hard and I still want to grow and I still want to make the, you know, the big league, but I don't need to do that to franchise, to, you know, I don't want to— I want to work hard, but I don't want to do too much. If that makes— does it make sense?

Totally.

I know that I'm successful. Success to me is Spending more time with family, going on holiday when you want to go on holiday. We're building a new house. Like, you know, I'm very fortunate to be in that position, but I don't need to franchise. I don't feel I need another club.

Love it. Understanding what the real meaning of success is. I think that's such an amazing piece of advice right there from someone who's been there, done that, and probably gone down many of those alleys and tried them and seen what other people are doing. So I think it's a really good tip there. And I think that's going to really resonate with anybody who's at that level and say, hey, do I need a franchise to be successful? I think, yeah, focus on the profit, the profit revenues, the extra revenue streams that you're missing out on. Is there money being left on the table currently? You do see these people that franchise and say, I've got all these new locations and that kind of stuff, but you've also got to—

It's hard work.

Yeah, it is hard work. You've got to see the other side of the coin as well. The other side of the coin, I don't know if they're going to take 7 weeks holidays. I'm not sure if they're doing that. I'm not sure if they're being at home every night with the kids and that kind of stuff. So think about what you guys are doing and what your plan is and what the level of success means to you.

Absolutely.

Very, very interesting. So I'm looking forward to seeing the growth in the studio next time I'm down there and the new levels and things like that. But I've Loved, loved your journey. Uh, it excites me every time because it's— it really comes down because this is what people are going through. They're going through the pains and, and the trials. And there's one thing I want to leave here is that, um, I keep saying it, it takes 7 to 10 years.

Oh, totally.

It's pretty much always right. 7 to 10 years.

Yeah.

Doing the same thing in the same place, the same market before you pop.

Yeah. And just refining it all the time. Learning, growing, learning, growing, believing and making it better every time. It's, it's, it's not an overnight thing. It's, it's definitely a challenge. I could have done things way better and maybe got it a bit earlier, but no, I didn't. But yeah. It's true. You've got to put in the hard yards. You've got to be patient and trust. And if you believe and you're passionate about what you have and you've got the right people, the right team in the right areas, it'll be successful.

Love it. Well, thank you so much, Kylie. Thank you for lifting the lid a little bit on your business. And I think that's a huge piece of what's going to resonate with a lot of people to continue going through the tough times because there is light at the end of the tunnel.

There is light, definitely light, Rich.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Um, and if you want to follow Kylie's journey, check out her Instagram. It's pretty cool. Recreate Fitness, Kylie?

Recreate Fitness it is. Yeah.

Recreate Fitness. You'll see Kylie there. Um, and, um, yeah, check out— she's doing some amazing things. Thanks everybody for tuning in to this episode of the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. That was Kylie Rae from Recreate Women's Fitness Center. She's also in our program, Com Marketing Ninjas, and at the moment she's in the Com Mastery Scale program. So for those, if you do want to, you know, if you are sitting on the fence on the sidelines and you're listening, you're listening, you're listening to these podcasts and you think something's still not right, I'd just recommend reach out To us, go to website and you can find out a little bit more what we do and, and get off the fence. Hey Kylie, get off the fence.

Get off the fence. Just do it. Just do it. Thanks guys.

We'll see you next time on the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. Bye for now.