Easily BOOST PROFITABILITY With a Proper Supplement Arm

Hey everyone, thanks for being here with us today. I have the one, the only Jason Ruhl, owner of Driven Nutrition. Um, he, he and I were chatting the other day and he was telling me about this new stuff he's teaching gym owners on how they can have a profitable business. And then he said something that just was magic to my ears. He talked about setting up a separate bank account and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so Profit First. I love it. If you're not familiar with Profit First, we, we recommend to manage your cash, you set up a bunch of different bank accounts with a specific purpose so that you're giving that money purpose before you decide to use it on other things. So, um, we'll, we'll let Jason kind of educate us. And of course, I'll probably pop in with questions because I may not understand all this. And super excited. So Jason, take it away.

Oh man, thanks for the introduction. So I'm guessing you'll not only be able to understand it, but you'll probably be able to build on it because my, my level of what you guys teach is, is very basic compared to what you guys do. So yeah, let's, let's jump right into it. So this, this idea really comes around from the standpoint of retail running your gym really isn't that much different than fitness and how you teach your members how to be habitual about the goal you're trying to get them to achieve. Which in your case, as a gym owner, you're trying to get them to be healthier, fitter, show up for class every day. So trying to implement small little habits that they can implement into their lifestyle is a way to ensure success. So if anybody hasn't ever read Tiny Habits, it's beautiful. Atomic Habits is great, but that's big. Like, even though atomic molecules are very small, like Tiny Habits, for me, it was much more digestible. So I enjoyed that a little bit more. So Building a habit is really about like, okay, what are things that you can do to ensure your success day after day after day? And one of the mistakes that I constantly see affiliates make is they go from the start standpoint, start and stop standpoint of retail. They'll come in really hot, they'll bring in inventory, they'll sell through it, and then they'll replace that inventory. But after about 3 months, the excitement wears off, the ether wears down, and then lo and behold, you've got 2 or 3 bottles of banana and strawberry that nobody but Sally in your gym wants to buy. So what happened to the rest of those sales? Well, you sold them, but your inventory is gone. So now you've got a pain point, right? So now you're looking at your shelves and you're looking at your statements from the last couple months. And if you've done, whether it's a couple hundred dollars a month in retail or a couple thousand dollars a month in retail, it's painful because now where does that money come from? Because you need to, you know, if you get it, if you don't have it on your shelves, you can't sell it unless you've got things really dialed in for dropshipping, which, which we do that also. But from the standpoint of the convenience of, hey, I need some protein after I work out.

Cool.

It's right over there on our shelves. So if you ever let that retail monster get ahead of you to where your inventory's died down, you have to take that out of operating funds. And that's painful. It's kind of like getting out of shape and showing up for class. You know, you're going to deal with that shitty soreness. You're going to feel horrible. But in business, it could mean the difference between paying your employees because you just bought Assault Bikes and a couple rowers with the profit that you built in. from those last couple of months of retail. So, one way to alleviate that stress ahead of time is just set up a separate account. And it's as simple as setting up literally a separate checking account, just calling it retail, nesting it directly underneath your main checking in your bank. Most of them are free. If they aren't, find a new bank. I don't, I don't like bankers very much. So, no offense to bankers on this, but bankers are good at running banks. They're not good at running businesses, in my opinion. So, if you find a banker that doesn't let you have a free account nested under your primary one, Go find a different bank. My 2 cents of unsolicited advice there. So now, now that I pissed off every banker on the call. So the reason that that's so important is, let's say you have a retail account and you run your report monthly, weekly, or biweekly, whatever floats your boat, whatever you have the bandwidth to do. Just add that block of time. It takes 5 minutes, 10 minutes. Go to your POS and say, okay, what was my retail sales? And this works for driven products. FitAid, Kill Cliff Apparel. So if you're working with Matt from Forever Fierce, right? So where's your profit? Where did it go? And if you can't track that, you're not going to really maintain that level of profit long term. Then you're going to hit that slough window 3 months down the road and you're like, oh crap, I got banana and strawberry. So by having that nested account underneath and then biweekly, weekly, or monthly running that report in ZenPlanner or whatever it is you use and say, okay, what was my retail sales?

$2,300.

Cool. Take that $2,300, move it from your primary checking account over to retail.

So you're suggesting the complete profit or just the cost of the supplements?

All of it.

Okay.

I believe, I believe having, having a secondary line item for all things retail, both incoming and outgoing, is vital because really at the end of the month is what did I make on profit. You should be able to look at that one statement Or what should I— what did I make on retail? You should be able to look at one statement and know that.

Yeah.

Now granted, there's gonna be some months where your inventory goes up and your inventory goes down, so that's gonna bleed. But balanced out over 12 months, you should be able to buy that out and say, oh cool, I made $2,000 a month in retail. And while the reporting I think is important, to me it's just that habit of not falling into the cycle of making it painful when it's time to restock the products. that your members have been buying from you, but you've just fallen off a cliff and haven't done a good job keeping it in stock. Knowing that you're gonna fall off that cliff ahead of time, implementing an idea as simple as whatever my retail sales were, transfer it out of my primary checking over into my retail checking. Now what that means is, of course, I'm sure you're probably about to ask this, whenever you buy supplements, Kill Cliff clothing, that type of thing, it comes out of retail.

Yeah, so there's 2 things I wanna hit on, 'cause you said habitual, but you've actually said it in both contexts, so I wanna flush this out a little bit. There's the habit on the gym owner side, and then there's the habit that we're trying to help our members create. So, on the gym owner side, I can tell you from experience working with hundreds of gym owners, the common mistake that I see— there's a couple with inventory. One, they buy way too much and didn't realize there's not a— their members don't want that specific item. Because if you buy inventory of anything, apparel, supplements, That's cash that is now not as liquid as actual having the dollars amount. And if people don't want to buy it, you're gonna have to do some discounted sales to get the cash back. The other mistake I see them make is, it's always, I'll spend the money first, then I'll sell it. Yay, I sell it. And now I have to figure out how to afford the next batch of income. So what— with what you're suggesting is genius. Because, I mean, theoretically, even someone starting off from ground zero, they'd only have to invest once. Now with that money that they've invested, they're going to put all of the proceeds into this retail account. They can then buy a bigger batch, and hopefully there's a need for that. And then now that money just cycles, so your retail business cash stays isolated from being used up in Potentially tempting expenses on the other side.

Right. And the thing is, if you've got an extra $2,000 or $3,000 magically, I mean, any of the gyms that work with us know they're running at a 50% plus profit margin. So they know they're doubling their money every time they order. So you think that, like, you get ahead, like, oh hey, I'm in such good shape now, I can take the summer off and I can eat a bunch of pizza, drink some beers. And then you fall off that cliff and you're like, oh, now I got to make up for it. Retail is the same way, right? So, and I find it fascinating, you use the term of cash and the liquidity part of it. I look at it from the standpoint of— and you said it there at the end— of an investment. Anything that you're buying in your gym is an investment. If not, I believe it's an expense. Supplements shouldn't be an expense. I don't look at it as cash. I look at it as an investment. If you have $1,000 worth of product sitting on your shelves, it should equal a $2,000 investment.

Yeah.

If you look at it and you say, oh, it's only a $1,200 investment in terms of what you can return back, it's not worth the $1,000 you put into it. It's really that simple. And having that mechanism in place to where you're bringing product in, you're paying out. And I go as far as telling people, like your point, somebody just getting started, when I'm onboarding somebody now, I tell them, go set that bank account up and borrow money from yourself. Take money out of it. And so if your first order is $200 or $2,000, borrow that from your operating funds and then make sure to pay it back. And what the thing I encourage For getting started is you recycle those orders about 2 to 3 times. And then that way you have a steady amount of stock sitting on your shelves that was paid for by the profit from the members that, that bought the products from you.

Uh, this is great.

So I'm reminded, cause you also talked about your margins there.

If you're not familiar with Driven Nutrition, you need to be because I, um, there was a point I was trying to do a bunch of research to figure out who out there is making a ton of money selling supplements in their gym. And there's this guy I came across, he's being interviewed in a podcast, and he was, um, saying he was making $10,000 a month on supplement sales. I was like, man, that's great. But then he didn't necessarily directly say this, but I was listening for these numbers. His margins were like 20%. So he's slaving away and killing himself to make $2,000 of actual income. Because what that means, a 20% margin on 10 grand is You have $10,000 of revenue, but it cost you, or you invested $8,000 into it and only got a $2,000 return. What Jason is saying with a 50% margin is to make the same $2,000 this guy was making, you'd only need to sell $4,000 worth of supplements because your takeaway is half of that. You guys, those margins are crazy. Plus, not to mention, so I've been a Driven fan for years. I take the stuff. It tastes great. Um, I love the way it makes me perform. So again, if you guys aren't familiar, shame on you, and you can repent by reaching out to Driven Nutrition. Um, the other thing I wanted to ask you, Jason, so the habitual side on the members, you mentioned, uh, there's this influx, typically like a 3 months of passion and then it dies down. What are some techniques you teach gym owners to help the members create that habit of continuing to use it after it runs out, the reorder process?

The big one is mindset of realizing that talking about supplements can be done in a way to benefit members and express what you take. So the simplest term is, this is what I take, this is why I take it. And a lot of times when I'm onboarding new affiliates, they'll be like, well, I'm not comfortable posting about supplements because I don't want my members to think that I'm pushing these products on them. That's cool, I get it. Like, I don't push products on anybody. This is just an idea. I'm not pushing Driven. This idea works for any supplement company that you're working with. So implement this in terms of retail. So I share the information, and an affiliate, I believe, a coach should share the information of this is what I take and this is why I take it. And if they come back at me one more time and say, well, like, I'm just not comfortable doing that, okay, cool. So when's the last time you posted about Reebok Nanos or Metcons? Well, I just got a new pair last week. Yeah, I saw that on your Instagram page. So are you selling the product? Are you making any profit from it? Is it benefiting your business? Does it actually make someone a better athlete or healthier? Does it improve their macros? No, no, no. I mean, the list goes on and on. So the reason that it's so important for you as an owner and as a coach to share, this is what I take, this is why I take it, is because you want to be Included in that conversation, in the member's mind when they start thinking, hey, Dr. Oz just talked about the damn Berry of the Month and about how I can lose 3,000 pounds and get to 2% body fat. But you know what? I remember John talking about this product he takes called Disrupt. It helps with energy and helps him feel better throughout the workout. Before I buy this Berry of the Month from Dr. Oz, I should at least talk to John about it. So it's not a matter of push, push, push. It's a matter of understanding People like us do things like this. And that's a phrase I stole from Seth Godin's book, This Is Marketing. I think he says it about 10,000 times in that book, but it's so true. People like us do things like this. These are the clothes we wear, right? So, these are the workout pants we wear. These are the shoes we wear, Metcons or Nanos. I'm guessing 70% to 80% of your membership base are wearing those shoes. It's solely because people like us do things like this. So, if you've got 6, 7, or 20 coaches in your gym and they're all taking different supplements, And they're all talking about different supplements, or they create a vacuum by not talking about supplements to begin with. They're creating a vacuum to where your members don't even think of you guys in terms of supplements.

Yeah, this is interesting. Um, I'm just thinking through conversations I've had with past GMs about it. The reality is this, like, if you're offering personal training to your gym members, you're probably doing that in a way where either the coach has observed something that will, um, help that member be better, or they're looking at a scenario where they're setting goals or having goal-setting meetings. Hey, in order to accomplish this goal, I think we can do some personal training. Supplements is the exact same thing. If you're comfortable offering personal training services because you know it's going to help the member, you need to understand supplements are going to help your members. I mean, there's a reason the market exists. There's a reason Taking a pre-workout helps people become fit and hit their goals faster. There's a reason the post-workout stuff helps people recover better with less muscle soreness. I mean, I know you guys have a ton of different products. There's the sleep one where it helps you sleep better and also helps with muscle recovery. I mean, yeah, I love what you said about mindset. If someone's not making a lot of income right now on nutrition, Or supplement sales. Maybe they just— I don't know, is it a matter of them not believing in the product themselves or feeling they're being pushy with sales? Because I know no one wants to be salesy. I mean, most gym owners I've met don't want to be salesy.

Right, right. I think it comes down to they're scared of what they don't know. And the picture I always paint for gyms is, look, what do you tell a member When they say, hey, I want to start CrossFit, but I want to get into shape. So, so the idea like, hey, I need to learn everything that protein does or everything branched-chain amino acids does, or the, or the cycle of creatinine from creatine monohydrate and what that does in terms of the body and ATP production and storage and explosive movement. Like, really, your members don't know about that and they're going to be intimidated by it. They just want to have a genuine conversation with John, who they know, love, and trust of Hey, John, what do you take? Why do you take it? Right. And it doesn't, it has nothing to do with science. It comes down to, well, I like the way it tastes like PostWOD. After you work out, the first thing you need to replace is your glycogen levels. That's done with sugars. And you also need to get protein because that's going to help your body repair the tears that you create when you're working out. So I just find I recover better. My energy's level, like I'm old as dirt. I actually, I think I have more gray hair than you at this point, John. Yeah. Oh man. So, Finding things like that to share, that laugh. What I've just talked about really didn't focus on science. It just focused on, this is what I take, this is why I take it. To answer your question directly is a lot of gym owners and coaches, they are concerned that they don't know everything about the product, and they're afraid they're going to feel dumb or look stupid or lead somebody in the wrong direction.

Yeah.

They just let that mindset Lock them in and keep them from moving forward. Whereas, you know, when I owned GNCs, my first store I bought, I had a decent understanding of supplements because I was a student athlete, but I didn't know near what I know right now. So what I did when somebody would walk up and they had said, like, bee pollen extract, some weird-ass product, I'd be like, why do you take that? And I would listen, and then I would go— I would write it down. And then I'd go look it up to vet it. And that's how I learned so much about the supplement industry, but also being able to learn what to look for in terms of accurate information and misinformation. So, it comes with experience, just like fitness comes with showing up for class. You know, learning about supplements comes as you immerse yourself into that journey. You don't have to know everything you don't know right now to get started.

Well, it's what I'm thinking of too, is we've spent a lot of time over the last year diving into Don Miller's StoryBrand. concept, which is, you know, telling narrative through story, and it connects better with people. But the reality is, is confusion is always answered with a no. And so even if you understood all the complete science behind it, and you tried to talk to your members about— which I don't even understand it, so I can't even repeat the words you just told me about all the stuff that you know about it— Like, you're gonna lose them anyway. So The fact that you know that it makes you feel less sore or it allows you to push harder during the workout, that's enough. That's what your members wanna hear. That's the benefit they wanna hear. It's the same with when you're doing a workout and they start, the coaches start listing off all these different muscles, the secondary muscles and whatever, with their really long scientific names.

Right.

Okay, but will this like give me a better chance of a 6-pack? Is this gonna make my biceps look a little bit bigger? You know, or is it going to help me do a muscle-up better? Um, that's what your gym members really want to hear. They don't necessarily need the science behind it anyway. So yeah, to your point, don't, don't be intimidated by maybe not understanding the full science of it. Like if you're getting a benefit from it and you know what they're going to benefit from, what's the harm in telling them, hey, I think this could help you. I'm not interested.

No problem.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Cool. At the very least, you're inserting yourself in the member's mind. that you're a potential resource for that information. Not that you're the resource, but I tell people all the time, supplements and sex education are 2 places that people shouldn't learn about on the internet, right?

Yeah.

So if you don't talk to your kids about sex, they're gonna learn about it somewhere someday, most likely from the internet on that. Now with supplements, it's no different. If you don't talk to your members about supplements at the very basic level of, hey guys, this is what I take, this is why I take it, they're gonna go learn about it. And the misinformation that you were so worried about sharing with them were the information that you knew could have been shared with them to keep them from buying a pre-workout that has 800 milligrams of caffeine or something stupid like that. Or like, I'm seeing a lot of women, and especially in the CrossFit space, take testosterone boosters. And these are women in their 20s and 30s. Like, like, no, you should not do that. Um, that's not a good move long-term. Um, So inserting yourself in the conversation, being involved in the members' minds of, okay, John at least, John at least was talking about it. And that doesn't even get into the point, man, of like your members want you to be successful. They would rather buy it from your gym than bodybuilding.com or dr.oz's berryofthemonth.com. So if you're making it an intentional part of your business, and also sharing with them, this is what I take, this is why I take it. You may not have the product for them, but they may come to you and say, hey, I saw this information, what do you think about this? And that's just like me and bee pollen. Like, I'll go out and study it. You'll do the same thing. Hey, you know what, John, I took a look at it, it doesn't look like a bad product, I'd go ahead and try it, let me know what you think. You'll learn another product that may benefit your members or misinformation that won't. So at least start moving that forward because, you know, I still— I onboard affiliates that have been at it for 10, 11 years, that they've never sold supplements before.

Wow.

Yeah. I mean, they can't count in the last 4 months the number of times they've had members walk through the doors with bags full of supplements, and they just scratch their head like, why in the shit are you taking that? Well, the reason they're taking it is because they don't know that you're a resource for that information. They never see you talk about it. Instead, they see you talk about Metcons and Nanos. So do something that will benefit their health as well as your business.

Yeah.

And what I— so again, if you guys aren't familiar, you need to check this out. Um, I'll ask you to tell us your contact info here in a second. But what I love too is, again, I've had multiple GMs in our gym over the years. Um, and I've also been familiar with other supplement companies. Um, most supplement companies, in fact, all of them that I'm aware of, have the product and they'll sell it to you. What I love is you even have your own Facebook page, Building Retail in Your Box. You can correct me on the title here in a second. You are a support for them. So everything that you just said, like if you had a member come up to you and you're part of the Facebook group, you could just pop in your question onto the Facebook page and you get support of here's all this, here's the reason behind this specific supplement. So you can take that information and talk to your member. You also share tons of resources on how to sell more supplements in your box. And again, this isn't about bilking your members. They are getting this stuff somewhere else anyways. You're just trying to get a bigger portion of what they're already spending. And again, helping them with their fitness, which we know supplements work with that.

Right.

So anyways, yeah, give us, give us your contact info so people can reach out to you.

I'm the, I'm the world's worst shameless self-promoter. That's a, that's a tongue twister. Uh, so if anybody's interested in becoming a Driven affiliate, they can go to driven— speech impediment— drivennutrition.net. And up top there's a link that says affiliate area. And if you click become a Driven affiliate, there's like a form where you fill it out, takes about 30 seconds. And then that actually takes you into the portal where we start the onboarding process. The first step is booking a call with me. Before we diagnose, what have you been doing? What is it? What are your goals? And then we kind of establish a process moving forward of, okay, here's how to attack it. And when it comes down to it, there's really one of two ways. You do a sampling day or you do a beginning order based off of your gym size and then really what your ethos is. And then as you order, you go through the steps of how do I talk to my members about it? How do I talk to my coaches about it? How do I make this an intentional part of my business instead of just just products I set on a shelf and say, well, yeah, we got protein over there if anybody needs it. That doesn't work.

If—

and let me, let me just say this for anybody that's going to fill that form out, because I say this on my calls— if that's your approach towards it, don't work with us, right? So it takes an intentional effort, because in 2 to 3 months, you'll just say, well, that Driven Nutrition program didn't work.

It's like a member coming in saying CrossFit didn't work or the gym didn't work. Well, you didn't actually physically come in, or if you did come in, you left early, or, you know, it's— yeah.

Right, right. And that's why we have a little bit of that vetting process to, to vet. Number one, are we a good fit?

Is—

does our values match with yours? Um, and also just give the expectation so then that way, uh, you're not disappointed when you're working with us to where, like, you're overpromised or underpromised. I want to make sure that those expectations are met. each time. So yeah, and then we have a Facebook group. I believe Tyler probably shared this live into that. It's Building Retail in Your Box. You don't have to be a Driven affiliate to do that. I try to make it to where our teaching— we try to make it to where that's not necessarily a customer support, but it kind of ends up being that way. But I try to bring just basic knowledge about retail as well as advanced knowledge that can work with whether it's our brand or any other brand.

That's great.

Really appreciate you being on. Last thing I'll say, gym owners, I understand because I've lived it. When I bought into the gym that I am an owner of now, the only thing we were doing was group training. And I know from a financial standpoint, you need multiple streams of revenue to make the micro gym model work. So psychologically, the idea of adding something new if you're not currently doing it, can feel like a mountain, but the reality is with what Driven Nutrition teaches you, and there's even forms I remember you sent out, like there's an easy process to follow. Just take it one step at a time, but it will be way less work than you're probably feeling like it might be right now. And to Jason's point, you want to be intentional about it. You want to be intentional about any revenue stream that you're offering. Because that's just how things grow. You have to put intent to it. And then once you have the process down, then it's easy to maintain, just like your process for your group training. You know, when you started off your gym, there was a mountain you had to get over, or probably just a little hill that maybe felt like a mountain. And now you're in the process of it. It's the same with a supplement business. So again, Jason, thank you for your time. Um, guys, if you have any questions, you know, feel free to reach out to either of us. And, uh, I'll just— I, I'll always say this: profitability is a choice. Choose to be profitable. Okay, thanks guys. See ya.

Amen.