Welcome to Fix Your Gym, a podcast dedicated to bringing you expert knowledge from fitness industry leaders, salespeople, gym owners, tech experts, and other fitness enthusiasts, where you'll learn about the latest industry trends, innovative technologies, new and current products on the market, and health and fitness news from experts across the nation. And now, here's your host, Adam Kniffin. 

All right, here we go. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Fix Your Gym podcast. We have Steve Heitzer on this morning, who is also a fellow podcast host of the Everybody Needs a Spotter podcast. He is head of commercial sales for a company called RMS Fitness. They are a fitness equipment service and sales company. More in particular, you guys deal a lot in the multifamily space. That is my understanding. At least that's kind of where your podcast is focused in on, which is really cool. But yeah, man, thank you for coming on to the show. Super excited to have you. I always love having somebody on that I can just sit and talk shop with for a little while. Those conversations tend to flow naturally. We have a ton to talk about, I'm sure. So thanks for coming on, man. 

Adam, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure to kind of get this set up and be here. And yeah, absolutely. That's sort of what we do. You hit the nail on the head. We have our company, you see our RMS fitness repair, maintain, sell fitness equipment is what we do. But we do kind of have a niche that we operate in as far as the multifamily industry. We found that they have specific needs and specific concerns that kind of set them apart from other places with fitness equipment in them. And because of that, we've decided to really lean into that and try to become the best resource for them that we can be. 

Yeah, that's great. It's not always easy to deal with multifamily, you know, development, you know, the whole process of development, design, construction, and things like that can be a real headache when it comes to, well, there's just a lot of people involved, as you know, you know, and, and so it sounds like you guys have created that niche and provide value in that area. And that's, that's, that's cool that you guys kind of focus in on that, that area and do what you're good at, you know what I mean? It's, it sounds kind of like that's, That's what you do. And then everyone needs a spotter podcast. Fellow podcast hosts, tell me a little bit about that. 

So that podcast came about originally as a pandemic pet project. We were pretty much locked down and didn't have a lot to do. So, you know, the team at RMS was like, what can we do to, you know, keep ourselves busy, be productive. And we started with, if you've looked at the podcast, you'd see season one. And at that time we were trying to do more like health and wellness guidance, but we realized that there was like an abundance of that information out there. And we certainly aren't professionals in that world, right? So we were, what we were doing was taking information basically that people put together and kind of like disseminating that out to other people. I'm giving them the credit and things like that too but season 2 when we kind of came back to the podcast we realize that we really wanted to. kind of hone in our focus as far as who we wanted to talk to, what we wanted to talk about. And we've identified that the need for more information about fitness centers for the multifamily industry is really high. You know, these property managers, they have so many responsibilities as far as, you know, properties have pools and they have business offices and they have, you know, all these different things that property managers are responsible for. And it's hard to be an expert on all of them, let alone, you know, to really be on top of all of them. So, you know, we realized that when it came to managing the fitness amenities, you know, you get an email from a customer, and sometimes you realize that they're trying to get help with something. And they don't even sometimes really know what they're asking for. They can't even describe the machine sometimes. Yeah. So we were like, you know, let's, let's peel it back. We'll take a reapproach with the podcast and we're going to make it more about education, information, tips and tricks on on how people in that industry can really maximize what they have with that fitness amenity. And hopefully, you know, just learn some things along the way that maybe will help them to be a little bit more prepared for the next issue that they face and avoid maybe making mistakes. And that's been kind of the focus we've taken. 

Yeah. And it seems like, you know, the pandemic really I don't know if it put everybody's focus on fitness, but the fitness industry itself just grew a ton. And people started focusing in a little bit more on their health, I think. And you have a lot of new technologies coming out now and things like that. And I think it's really interesting to see that transformation after the pandemic. And as far as multifamily is concerned, Um, I just recently rented a, an apartment in Kansas city. And, um, like the gym is what sold me on that apartment. You know what I mean? Like it, it is like, they have all these other cool amenities, but the gym is what, you know, they had a really cool space. You know, it wasn't just like a couple treadmills. It was like a full gym, you know, squat racks. And, you know, uh, I think they have like a, a five stack, you know, gym in there and stuff like that. Um, so. It's becoming more and more popular, which kind of leads me to my next question, which was, you know, what kind of trends are you seeing in the multifamily space right now? And what are you kind of seeing in that area? 

Yeah, that's that's been in the time that I've been in the industry, which is right about six years now, I actually came from a finance background before and kind of made the switch over into the fitness industry. And in the time that I've been here, I've seen that change where the spaces have gone from more like, OK, let's just put a couple of pieces of cardio and maybe a dumbbell set in there to, OK, like it's almost like an arms race now, especially in these big like metropolitan areas, you know, because a new building is going to get built a year after you get built right across the street and they're going to try to one up you. So it's been going on and on and on now. So these big cities, these gyms, to your point, man, are like, they are meant to really, in many cases, just replace the need to even have another, you know, membership or a gym somewhere else. And they're like full commercial facilities. So the big changes that I've seen and recently, and again, you know, I don't know if it's a pandemic thing, but it seems like that's when it triggered was a big focus from cardio kind of heavy spaces now to Far more strength training. Um, yeah. There's simple things that I've noticed. It's like, you know, five to 50 pound dumbbells used to be the standard offering. Now 75 to 80 is like the bare minimum people want to see that go in there now. And it's like everybody in the gym can press fifties now. It's like people are stronger than they used to be. So, um, properties are trying to find ways to accommodate more of that. You know, can we get a second squat rack and we get a second set of dumbbells? Cause there's so much demand for that. Um, in the spaces. So that's really what the development projects that we work on, like new development, that's where, where we're leaning into heavily strength and functional. And then putting enough cardio in that, obviously you can still be the demand for, for the people that want to go and still get a good run in. 

Yeah, yeah, very cool. Yeah, I'm seeing the same thing with the with the, you know, especially the functional, the functional fitness type stuff. I'm seeing a lot more of that, you know, the different, you know, kind of functional like cages and things like that. And, and different different things. So which, which, uh, brings me to my next question for you. So you guys are a dealer. I was, I was looking a little bit, but who are your main brands that you sell for? And, um, and, and yeah. 

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, our a-line partner, you know, true fitness, we've been partnered up with them since, you know, basically the beginning of sales here at RMS, when we, uh, kind of began that process, they, they gave us an opportunity And we're very grateful to that relationship with them. 

Yeah. They're a great brand. Love true. And they're out of Missouri, which is where we're at. Yeah. Yeah. 

They're awesome. You know, the guys there, shout out to everybody at true Robin Marshall. I work with them closely all the time. And, uh, you know, that, that relationship has been great. You know, we're proud to say that we're the number one true dealer in Maryland and DC at this point. Awesome. and happy to, you know, to wave that flag. We outfitted our employee gym with that here, along with some of our other vendors too. We're also a dealer for Torque Fitness. They kind of built out the primary, you know, bones of our functional fitness for our clients. So again, if we're getting into like functional storage bays, center room, you know, rigs, it's usually going to be a Torque product. We also work with Beaver Fit for outdoor solutions. So we just did a Beaver Fit outdoor install for a multifamily project. in Chevy Chase, Maryland. And then obviously, we sprinkle in all the goodies. We work with the ABS company for fun products like the tire flip. Fitbench is a good partner of ours as well for outfitting functional and auxiliary spaces. I don't know if you know that product. But, you know, we have heard of it. Yeah. And then Echelon. Echelon is our connected fitness partner. So yeah, We call our big three really, TrueTorque and Echelon. That's really where we're going to lead most of our spaces. 

Echelon's really blowing up right now. We're starting to see a lot of Echelon out. 

That Strength Pro product that they just released is going to be a huge hit. Most of my new developers ask me about, can we get a tonal? Can we get one of these? They're asking for products they see in the residential world that they want to bring into their environment. seeing some like commercial iterations of those types of things has been really, really exciting. 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very cool, man. Um, so how long have you been in the industry? 

You yourself, you said it was just five or six years that we spent the first first year or so as a as a technician out on the road. Okay. doing service, doing installs, doing preventative maintenance, all the things. Yeah. And then, you know, a little while after that, because I had a sales background, and I was, you know, kind of in like a management role in my previous life. You know, the owner here at RMS came on and said, Hey, like, you know, you can fix stuff and deliver stuff for me forever if you want. But I do have some other things I'd like you to consider taking on. Yeah, gave me some ideas. And it's been really cool. You know, I had no idea how much I was going to enjoy being a fitness salesperson, and the reason why I say salesperson, and why I didn't expect that, is because I left my other gig and I never wanted to be a sales guy again. I was like, I don't want to do that, I want to be more something tangible, something real with my hands, which is why I got originally kind of enticed by the service side of the business. But now, working to create these real spaces and seeing that finished product of these fitness centers is really rewarding for me, and I've appreciated that a lot. 

It's a really cool industry, man. And it's different. It's not like going out and selling roofs or something like that, you know what I mean? Or whatever the case is. The projects and stuff that we get involved in, the people that you get to deal with, for the most part, I don't know. It's pretty rewarding. and everything like that. And I think it's cool that you were a technician before because that gives you a whole new perspective on how to sell the product and then dealing with your teams as well. You know what I mean? It seems like if you're a technician before and you understand kind of the whole process, the install process and the service afterwards, I'm sure your team that is coming in after you when you sell product kind of respects you a little bit more in terms of that as well. 

Yeah. I mean, certainly having that background, you know, it gives you a little, gives you a little street cred when you have to interact with the service. Yeah. They're not like, Oh, here's this guy coming down from the, from the C-suite or whatever. 

Yeah. There seems to be a disconnect. 

Don't get me wrong. But basically, you know, it kind of gives you a little bit that, that credibility. And, and also when I go out to help the customers for sure, it's, you know, it gives me that other. uh, angle on the space, you know, I'm not just going in there like, Oh, you should buy this. You should buy that. Like I truly, that time I spent with the service work, it, uh, really has informed what I, what I see when I go in the rooms. So I see the things that are soon to come around the bend. I can foresee certain service issues that maybe aren't imminent right now, but are, you know, maybe are going to be a six month, 12 month consideration. And it helps me to not only just talk to the customer about what's going on, but also properly plan. for the future, not waste a bunch of money on things that they're going to have to address in a different way in the future. 

What's been the coolest project that you've been involved in or completed yourself? 

So it's interesting. I've got a couple that recently that have been really cool. You know, this one, I'm going to be making a post on LinkedIn about it very in the next few days. But it's the Crescent down at Chevy Chase in Maryland is opening up. It's a multifamily project, and it's been in development for a long time. But the project, the reason why I say it's one of my favorites and one of the coolest you know, shout out to Rob, the developer, Robin, and he's a cool guy. And he, I've never seen somebody that's so focused on the details of the project, like most of the developers I work with, they're into the details and things. But this guy, he's like on the site every single day. And I mean, he knows, everything about this project he's he's he's physically put his hands on all the finishes in the room and working with him on this project has been really cool because everything was done very very thoughtfully it was planned the space was kind of small so it was planned down to the to the inches really, like the most of the finishes that him and the designer put into the room. So I'm really excited to post the final result to that one. It's got an indoor and an outdoor aspect to it, which is really cool. It's our first outdoor multifamily install, which is cool. But then another project that I'm really proud of, and I can't really pick between the two, I did a student housing project down in Salisbury, Maryland recently, which is kind of down by Ocean City, which is on the coast. And it's a, again, it's a multi, a student housing facility. It's the tallest building in Salisbury, Maryland when they built it. When you drive into Salisbury, which is like this little country town, this building is so massive and it has the name of the building printed on it, the Ross in huge letters. So now anytime I drive down to Ocean City, I can just like point to my kids out the window and be like, dad did the gym. So that's why I like that one. It's kind of like a giant, massive landmark. And the final product of it was really cool too. And I really enjoy going back, I guess, what makes any project be a good project for me is when I can be more than a salesperson. If I can get in and be a consultant, get in and have a real consultative approach on the space early on, that's when I really, really, really enjoy what we're doing. 

Yeah, no, that's really cool. Love it. So there's oftentimes, headaches with new development construction. We just did an install last week where we showed up on site and we don't sell equipment. Um, we, we just service and install, but, uh, you know, we show up on site and, uh, the site's not ready, you know, happened all the time. Um, you know, it's just kind of part of it, but when it happens, it's frustrating, but what, uh, what kind of, you know, challenges, what kind of obstacles do you run into out there? Um, dealing with these types of projects. 

Yeah. The first couple of times we got the team, the service team involved in large installs, man, I think people are really hating my guts because I, I learned a lot along the way about how things go. I, I, I've, I've learned, like, unfortunately, as much as they try to give you really good, accurate information, the GCs and the project managers, they've got a lot going on and you've got to like really, you know, it's like being in a boxing match. You got to protect yourself at all times. Make sure you vet everything out yourself. you know, and really just double check everything because it's the little things, you know, you know, the expression, you know, the devils and the details that that's what gets you on install day. simple things I've had teams show up where the elevators they thought they were going to use were just a hair too small. And they ended up having to take 18 steps instead, you know, and it's, yeah, that can totally change things. And, you know, maybe we didn't send the right team because of that. You know, like if we were going to have that, we had to send a few more guys and maybe the bigger team, um, you know, however that would have gone down. So I've learned, you know, take the effort if you can to get out there. Spend some time on the site before it's completed before your team goes out. It's not always possible to get out there. Um, data and electrical was always special, you know, right. Kinds of outlets, you know, do you have your NEMA, you know, your twenties, your name, you know, 50, do you have the right prongs and outlets, you know, installed are the circuits properly. Um, that was a thing out of Crescent. We just installed, you know, this, the one that I was just talking about. they unfortunately completely overlooked electrical, even though we had talked about it a bunch of times. And yeah, out there, there just wasn't on the week before install, we discovered that we were working backward, right, trying to figure out how to get that in there. And then the wrong outlets were installed. So now we're kind of like, re pivoting again. So that kind of watered down the final, the final result, you know, if that, if you can't get in there and leave that first day, and all the screens aren't turned on, and things aren't bright and active, it kind of minimizes the final the final result for the customer so yeah you know getting out there making sure they have the right types of electrical if you're gonna have a show on units are connected fitness the type of network that you have matters a lot you can't just have any old network you gotta have you can't have a guest network where you're gonna have a splash menu where you have to accept terms and conditions. to it, it won't work. So a lot of properties have those by default, because that's where kind of organically they go, they want to have a guest network, it makes sense. Yeah, but you can't have that. So you know, trying to get out in front of those things ahead of time. Those are the ones that can really tricky. Yeah, that can really get you. 

Yeah, I noticed too on especially, you know, we're moving towards more of this functional fitness type stuff. And, you know, you're getting a lot of these like wall mounts, you know, storage bays, different things like that, or, you know, you know, big like rigs or whatever that need to be, you know, anchored to the floor. And so we're running into a lot of you like, oh, well, we didn't do a floor scan. We don't really know what's in the floor here or whatever the case is to start anchoring stuff down or anchoring stuff to the wall. You know, so, um, that's always, I try to, I try to, you know, kind of explain to my guys a lot. They get, you know, they get frustrated, but it's like, you got to understand there's so many different moving parts to projects like these. And the guys that a lot of times we're dealing with or are dealing with so many different, you know, um, complex issues throughout the project, not just the fitness center, but you know what I mean? So, um, that's like, we don't really know what all they're going through. So, you know, don't get frustrated at cause they don't have everything figured out or whatever the case is, like things are going to, things are going to happen, you know? 

Yeah. The wall, the wall mounting and the floor mounting thing is like always kind of an issue. Um, you know, like our team, the RMS team will, we'll do it. We'll, we'll put things in walls. We'll put things in floors. A lot of the installers, if we have to work with like a third party install outfit for any reason, a lot of them won't even won't touch that at all. So that's a whole other problem is for all the reasons you mentioned, you know, people don't want to go into a wall and hit a water line or hit an electrical. 

Yeah. It can be very dangerous. Especially if you're in a high rise, if you got those like high tension bands that are in the, in the floor and stuff like that. 

So you understand why they, why it's, why it is the way it is, but yeah, that's, those are little things that are, that are really a heartache too. It's like, you go out and you want to hang an echelon reflect on the wall. And then you realize like they didn't put block in the wall. And so now you got to hit a stud. 

The stud's not centered. It's not centered. It's not going to go in this. Yeah. 

Yeah. So, you know, it's just those little things and, but you understand too, it's like, they just built a massive 350 unit building. Like, yeah, they might've forgot to put black on this wall. Like stuff happens. You got to be able to be flexible and make it work. 

For sure. For sure. We were, we did a, um, a, uh, techno gym outrace in, uh, uh, raffles hotel in Boston. And so you get there and like, this is a, I think it was, Oh, I think it was like 40 story building, something like that. It was a big, big building. And we were going up to like the third floor or whatever the case is where the fitness center is. And like, there's one elevator, but you've got hundreds and hundreds of contractors using this one elevator. So you're standing in line for the elevator, you know, for an hour or so at a time, just to, just to get to use elevator one time. You know what I mean? It's like, you didn't build that into your quote. I know. No, absolutely not. 

The other, the other thing that I run into a lot with new development is like the ceiling heights. They, they seem to be something that changes a lot throughout like the project, I don't know why, you know, they'll start out one way, and then they'll like lose an inch or two, and then or they'll hang a low light or something like that. Yeah, about and sometimes, you know, we're then we're on the field that day, like, you know, really thought I was gonna have a ball target here. That's nine feet high. And now it's a, there's a light fixture or something. Yeah, yeah. So they sometimes they make changes. And then, because we're like the fitness people, and we're not, the designer, we're not the architect. I think sometimes the information just doesn't get to us. And I can't take that personally, like you're just hogging the wheel, you know, for the most part for these people. And, uh, you know, it's just, they, they kind of miss it, you know, and then, but again, what makes, what separates you from just being like an order taker is okay. Like we have this problem now we're going to fix it, you know, and never letting that moment get too big for you or let the customer feel like they're stuck in a situation that there's no way out of, you know, That's something I really try to pride myself on is like, I don't ever want my client to feel like they have to choose between two bad options. It's something I really try to avoid. I want them to be feeling like they always have a good choice to make. Doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes it's just like, hey, your seven foot ceiling is a problem and we gotta pivot. But for the most part, I try to be creative and come up with good solutions and something I pride myself on. 

Yeah, having some adaptability and being able to solve unique problems on the fly and deal with companies like ours sometimes can be a pain in the butt if you're a sales company and stock companies where You know, we're always, you know, like, hey, man, we got to get this done. We got to get to the next install. You know what I mean? Like we don't have time for all these problems. You know what I mean? 

But I appreciate you all because I have the way my back is set up, man. Like if I had to go put this stuff in myself, I wouldn't last long. 

Dude, yeah. Hey, I still do it all the time, man. And as much as I try to kind of start to get away from it, it's just always going to be the case, I imagine. I love doing it though. I mean, ultimately. I mean, I still get out and do service tech work. And here's the thing is like, if I'm going to train my guys, if I want good technicians and I want good installers, and I'm the one training them for the most part, Um, like I need to be keeping up with all of the new technologies coming out. I mean, you can be a good technician one year and be a terrible neck next year because there's new products coming out that you know, nothing about, you know? Um, and so keeping up with all that stuff. Uh, yeah. 

At one point, this market in this area was so inundated with one brand that like we all were super good at working on that one brand. We were even doing like Probably like 70 or 80% of that brand's warranty work in the area too. So we were really, really familiar with that equipment and things. And I remember when we started like selling true fitness and having to learn those products and learn things. the initial resistance from the service team is like, you know, it can be can be high, you know, that, you know, they're very familiar with one way. And maybe they, they see things that they like about one product, and they don't, they don't see it on another, you know, type of situation. So the learning curve was like, really steep, to your point, you know, and that changes all the time. It seems like where companies used to make products, and they'd be around for 1020 years, now they're It seems like the product lines change quickly, technology changes quickly. That's something that the owner here has mentioned a lot, and one of the reasons why he goes out a lot onto the field still is that he feels sometimes like if he misses too much time on the road, then he doesn't understand the equipment as well, but he gets back out there and he feels like he needs to be constantly in that process. 

Yeah, for sure. I've seen a lot of acquisitions over the last five years or so, too, of companies. And one of the ones that I liked the most that I feel like worked out probably the best out of all the ones that I've seen was the Octane True Fitness acquisition there. I felt like that was just a... That was a solid move, I felt like. And I'm sure there's always... growing pains or whatever the case is that comes with those types of things. But it seems like they've kept their same service department intact with Octane. Those guys at Octane have been doing... Their service department's great. And everything like that. So I thought that was a pretty cool acquisition there. What was your thoughts on that one? 

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when they acquired Octane, at first, I was kind of like, wow, what are we doing? Like, why? Yeah. Because like, you know, from the business side, I'm like, I'm not looking at the numbers. I'm not looking at the products and things. I'm just like, I sell true. They've got, they've already got a lateral trainer at the time. I was like, the only thing I really have is a rower. Like, what's the point? Um, you know, and then as I began to learn more about the products and kind of understood true is a longer term vision for it and how they're kind of now looking to bring some of those products under similar color skews, consoles and things so that there's more uniformity. I think it was really a perfect acquisition for them. It filled in most of the blanks in terms of like, you know, the true elliptical, the core drive design is kind of unique. And a lot of times presenting that to clients, they're like, it doesn't look like an elliptical that I'm used to seeing. So having access to some of the octane, you know, at that front drive design can be nice if you have a customer who's just wants the familiarity and things. I felt like for a lot of reasons that and the rower, the ADX bike and several other products, they were really great additions to what True was already offering. And I think it's a kind of a match made in heaven. And they pulled it off well, too, to your point, like most companies, when there's an acquisition, it's like, there's a gutting that happens, there's a whole, the culture of the team changes, because they have to embrace the company that picked them up, you know, and kind of thing. I feel like Octane didn't really miss a beat. I know there were some changes with personnel, that's always going to happen. But as far as the product and things and the way that it was serviced and handled, I think that it's been excellent. And not something that you see across the board with a lot of these acquisitions, unfortunately. 

Yeah, not at all. 

It seems like sometimes a brand ends up suffering. 

Yeah, or just completely going away like Cybex. 

Yeah, yeah, I mean, people, people still ask me all the time about stuff, you know, that's a brand that people are just it's in their minds, they know it by by name, and people ask me about it often, you know, some of that stuff has, you know, it's, it's been interesting to see these brands, you know, then life, obviously, they took some of those products and like, took the ones that were most popular and scooted them over to the life umbrella. 

Yeah. Still have. Right. Right. Yeah. 

But it's interesting. There's so much, you know, turbulence. Precore, obviously, is a good example of a company that's gone through an acquisition and seems like it's just been a struggle for them. 

Yeah. It hasn't went well from what I've seen, you know, but. Yeah, the service side. 

I mean, it just seems like the service part of it's been a challenge for them ever since then. Yeah. It's hard to know, too, because COVID was all a factor in that and everybody's locked in. Some companies fare better than others. 

It seems like everybody's service department is, especially if they do residential like Peloton or iFit or whatever the case is, they sold so many products during COVID. And now a couple years later, things are starting to break down or whatever the case is. And service departments are just absolutely overwhelmed. It seems like. 

Yeah. 

We used to do a lot of service for a lot of the We've moved away from residential service. We started off as a residential company. We just had to move away from it for a lot of reasons. A lot of the product and the support for those products just wasn't great. Not at all. It was like the client that had the piece interacting with RMS Fitness, As the person who was hopefully supposed to fix it for them, they just wanted their machine to work. They spent their money on this unit, but it just never felt like to us like the support was really there on the back end and we felt like we were doing a lot of customer service. for products that we weren't really related to. So we just, at the end of the day, made the decision, kind of going back to where we started, just really lean in and focus on what it is that we were doing really well. And the multifamily world is kind of where we've made our stand. 

Yeah, for sure. So you guys don't do residential sales at all? 

Uh, we, we will sell, um, to residential customers. Um, but you know, we, we don't put a lot on our showroom here. We have a commercial showroom. We have some hot end of residential equipment. Um, but we don't, you know, we don't stock all that equipment. So if somebody comes in and they, they know what they want and we can get it, you know, we'll help them. We'll install it and we'll, we'll service anything we sell anyone that we sold equipment to. We don't just tell them to go find somebody else, you know, they're a prior customer of ours. We were continuing to service them, but we just made the decision that we were going to not continue to try to pick up that business too aggressively. 

Yeah. A little bit more. I know we're kind of running out of time here, but I'm curious. A question just popped into my head about like, do you see any struggles when you guys You know, so like our core focus is service, right? And I found that when I try to incorporate sales into that I have in the past, I lose focus on what I'm good at. You know what I mean? And I start, you know, we work with a lot of companies like you guys. So if I'm selling equipment, I could be stepping on your toes or whatever the case is. What kind of challenges have you ran into in terms of merging those two? Obviously, you have separate departments and different things like that you have to run. But yeah, so what are some of those challenges going from a service company to a sales company? And are you moving away from the service and starting to outsource more of that? Or are you guys trying to keep that service as a core part of your business? 

I'll answer the last question first, because I think it's really important. Service isn't going anywhere for, you know, RMS Fitness. I mean, we obviously, we do outsource some things if we have to, if it's for the customer's benefit, in terms of responsiveness, timeliness. And if I know that I can get them a quality, you know, service, I will do so. But yeah, RMS, we maintain about a 14 person service team right now, full time employees that are on the road, you know, all up and down our main corridor of business here. And yeah, it's a huge part of what we do. We're not planning on stopping that anytime soon. But yeah, there's definitely, you know, challenges, right? When we first started selling equipment, and the opportunity was there to replace machines that in the past we would have repaired, you know, just a lot of times the initial response from the technicians was like, if it was an old machine, hey, maybe you should talk to the customer about replacement. So we've pushed back against that instinct, where what we try to do is if we run into a situation where a customer has what we deem to be like high-cost repair, we slow that process down. Rather than shooting that quote out to the client, we stop it. We pull it back in and we schedule a call with the customer and we send them the information in terms of a comparison of what we think they should do, the two ways they could go. It's taken a while to develop that process out. We've broken it down now to where we have a salesperson, quote-unquote, that works within each of our service teams that we have here, so that they can be the consultation point for that, while still making service be the first swing of the bat, second swing of the bat. We only really go to that replacement option if it's truly the best fit for the customer. We really need that be something that we've baked that into our process, Um, so that we don't ever just get sloppy with that, you know, cause yeah, you know, it, the temptation to try to sell equipment is always there. You know, you, you know, the old machine, you're like, eh, they should replace that. Right. But maybe that isn't the best thing. Maybe there is a reason why they shouldn't do that. And we think we owe it to ourselves and the client to like slow that down and make sure that they're really educated on that. And also just not get sloppy with ourselves and, and kind of sacrifice what got us to where we are, which is our service roots. Um, Because we service around like 500 commercial accounts for PM and things like that too. So a lot of opportunities come to us that way, and we want to be respectful of that. So that's kind of the really long answer to the short part of the question you asked. So some of the challenges have just been though getting getting the team to understand the products that we sell, getting the team to understand why we sell equipment. And the answer isn't just to make a bunch of money. Like that's not, you know, I think most if you're a service company and you bring in a sales element, the service guys tend to instantly think like, Oh, they're trying to get, they're trying to get fancy. They're trying to make a ton of money. You know, they're trying to get rich quick, you know, that type thing. Um, but that's really not the answer. The answer was just, We're here, we have a large book of business and customers and we want to serve them fully. So the intention really wasn't ever to get into the new construction and development stuff that came about organically as a result of that. It really was always about better supporting our service business in the beginning. That's just what we do. That's what the repair and the maintain, that's why they're first. It all comes behind that. 

Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. And if you can figure out, you know, areas you can add more value. I mean, that's always, always the, uh, the key, you know, um, more value you can provide the, you know, the better, obviously. So, um, but yeah, man, well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm sure we could sit here and talk, uh, hours and hours on, on all kinds of different things, um, in this trade. So, um, What's one last question. What are you guys new year? Lots of new things in the industry. What what cool things do you have going on for the for the next year ahead? 

Yeah, so I will say one big thing that we've got coming up this year. We're going to be attending our first multifamily trade show. We've done a few trade shows in the past that weren't multifamily oriented, but we're going to the big one. So we're going to be at our apartment allies in Philly. later on this summer. So that's a big deal for us. We're really excited to be there. We're going to be putting all of our best feet forward and trying to show people kind of who we are and what we're doing. The podcast is going to be a big thing this year. We have guests lined up. We have some really big heavy hitters from the multifamily industry that have already kind of committed to being guests on the podcast. We film ours, record ours live here in the studio. So we're still kind of working on the logistics of like bringing in guests and things like that. But, you know, we're just trying to make sure we get it all right before we roll it out. So I would just say we've got really, really exciting new developments coming to bear. We've some really project highlights I can think of. We've got a couple of things down in the Biscayne area of Miami that are coming up in the next few weeks that are going to be some really, really like real high-end class A final products. We've got a really, really big one coming up in Jersey in a few months that are going to be like real feathers in our cap. I would tell people if you've been watching RMS, keep an eye out for those projects. The podcast is really something we're putting a big focus into for the rest of this year and you should expect some really cool faces and presences there if you're following that. 

Awesome. I'll definitely be following it. Very cool. Yeah, absolutely. And we can find that on all major podcast platforms, right? I know I found it on Apple Podcasts, here on Spotify, everything like that. 

Apple Music, Spotify, it's all on all the good things there. It's going to be on YouTube starting, I think, next week. We're going to have them up there. Awesome. If you're just doing it that way for some reason, it'll be on there. Yeah. You know, I appreciate anybody that gives us a listen. 

Everyone needs a spotter podcast and then, um, rmsfitness.com. 

Yeah. Yeah. We just updated the website. So check us out www.rmsfitness.com. Uh, you can see some new stuff on there. It's pretty cool. Uh, and it'll be getting updated incrementally over the next, I would say two months. I'm trying to keep up with all the cool websites out there these days. 

Yeah, man, there's a lot, a lot of that going on. So. and keeping up with all the cool content creation and all of that. Seems like you guys are creative in that area. So very cool. Be exciting to watch you guys. Very good to connect with you and get to know you a little bit, man. I appreciate you coming on. 

Yeah, absolutely, Adam. Thanks for having me, man. And I'm sure we'll have a chance to catch up on some more talk here in the near future. 

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, man. All right, take care. 

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