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 Niffin. 

All right. Welcome to the fix your gym podcast. Um, this is going to be a really cool episode. We've never had somebody on from outside of the United States. Um, so get to, uh, uh, interview my, my new friend, Ben Hudspeth from Sydney, Australia. Uh, it sounds like you got a ton of experience, you know, in the industry as a, as a field technician, as a, uh, you know, a small business owner or contractor. Um, and then now you're, national service manager for what seems like a fairly large company, and we'll get into more of that, the details of what you got going on today and everything like that. But I'm really looking forward to talking to you. We connected on LinkedIn, so I don't know you, so this will also be a process of me getting to know you a little bit as well. But super excited to interview you a little bit. Thank you for giving me your time and coming on. 

Adam Niffen

Yeah, no, thank you, Adam. Thanks for your time and it's a great thing you're doing here. It's good for the gym industry to have someone, so we can sort of have someone who's got a voice and get some podcasts out there. So it's great. 

Ben Hudspith 

Yeah, and I think we were talking a little bit about this before, but one of the main goals, and I really didn't start the podcast with this intention, but it's turned into that way because I've had a lot of people reach out to me and be like, hey man, we really like what you're doing here. We feel like we don't really have a voice in the industry a little bit. but providing a place where small business owners, entrepreneurs, or even technicians, people who are in the industry to come on, share their experience, and then hopefully that can help other people who may be struggling with certain things or pick up tips and tricks and hints on how to be more successful in what they're doing and stuff like that. Um, which kind of leads me to where, um, my first question with you, which is just about a little bit about how you got started. Um, I know you had mentioned, uh, the family bicycle shop and stuff like that. So if you want to dig into that a little bit, I'm definitely interested in hearing, hearing that. 

Adam Niffen

So, yeah, that's great. Uh, so yeah, just out of school, um, my family had a retail bicycle shop. all from my school life, pretty much my whole life actually. My father ran a retail bicycle shop. And so long story short with that, but just straight out of school, went to the family bike shop. Worked for a couple of years under my father. And then over time, I just took it over. I took over the bicycle shop and ran it for 10 years myself. Um, and then, uh, yeah, so that was great experience retail. I did like three years straight without having a day off except for the public holidays to try and build up the business. So that was the experience there. And just sort of trying to grab those reins and take the, the bikes up in the direction I wanted to take it in and really push hard and got it to a certain point.

How old were you when you, when you started in that?

Oh, if that was like, Well, straight out of school, so probably around about 18, 19, went and worked for the family bike shop and then just progressed from there. And then I'll try and make this a bit of a shorter story because it's a detailed story, but one of the companies, this is how I got started in the gym industry for fitness repairs, is that one of the companies that I brought bicycles from for the retail bike shop also sold home gym equipment. And at that time he was just starting out his company and he was in my shop and I was buying some bikes off him for the upcoming Christmas season, whatnot. And so he came in and saw me and we were working through what we're getting for the season. And some customer calls him and says, I've got a problem with my treadmill. He was based in Melbourne, which is a distance away from Sydney. So it's You normally fly there, like it's a 10 hour drive to get there. And the customer was in Sydney and he ended up saying on the phone, if your treadmill's broken, what you'll need to do is box it back up again in the same box it came in from the courier. And then we'll have a courier pick it up. We'll track it down to Melbourne. They'll look at it, fix it, and then send it back again. And the customer was all up in a puff about that and not wanting to do that. And then after the phone call, I said, Mate, if you want me to go and have a look at it, I'll have a look. And it happened to be only 15 minute drive away from where my bicycle shop was. So that night after work, I went and had a look and it ended up being the usual thing where they put the top console on the treadmill and they pinched the cable on the way in, screw in the bolt in, pinch the cable. So I took all my knowledge to work out how to do that. The closest thing I could relate that to was like with my car stereo in the car, fixing, adding speakers, adding the wires for the speaker in the car, stereo, things like that, and doing a little bit of soldering and whatnot. So with that, I sort of grabbed all the things that he told me he thought it may be. And I happened to take my soldering iron and then I found the loose wire. So I just soldered together. I did the electrical tape, didn't have the heat shrink and got that treadmill going. And then a month or so later, he called me up saying, hey, we've got another one in Sydney. Do you want to go have a look at it? And that snowballed from there. And then so that was like, that started in 2004. So I had the retail shop from 95 to 2004. And then slowly, slowly, I ended up doing one day a week in gym repairs, two days a week in gym repairs. And it got to a point where I was just doing more with the gym. It was my thing I was doing. It wasn't the sort of family thing I was carrying on type of thing. So it was something I wanted to do, something new. I'd realistically been in the gym, in the bicycle industry, 15 years at that stage. So I'd sort of, in a sense, done my time. Um, so long story short, moved on from there and did the gym repairs, did home gym repairs for about six years, connecting up with all the companies like, you know, icon for the Nordic track and pro form stuff. Uh, we've got retail stores here like, uh, rebel sports stores. Back in the day, there was another gym brand called workout world. Uh, we were doing a lot of work for as well, doing all the home installations, had a couple of guys working with me as well. And then after that sort of, you know, six years of learning all that, I stumbled across the commercial side of the repair business as well. And then it slowly morphed into that. And then I ended up just sort of going away from home repairs and into commercial gym repairs. And then, yeah, just building that up and working for all the main manufacturers in Australia and helping them out with warranty work or even installation work and maintenance and whatnot. And it got me through to where I am today. I was a contractor for about 14, 15 years to all the various companies. And then recently, pretty much with COVID actually, COVID changed a bit as it has for everyone.

Yeah.

But for me, it changed it in a way where I ended up moving out of Sydney up to the central coast, just north of the Sydney metro area, about an hour, hour and 15 minutes away north. And with that, it's also It changed my role as well. I got out of the gym, a business. I sold my business to actually my business partner at the time. He bought me out of the business and then I just was staying at home really. And then I got a call from Novofit, from Adam Lewitt from Novofit, just asking what I was doing. He heard that I'd got out of the gym industry through COVID, through the COVID lockdown. So as I think it was like after the second In between the first and second shutdown of COVID, he called me up, asked me what I was doing. At the time, I wasn't doing much at all. And then he said, you want to come work with us? And then, yeah, we struck a deal and started working for NovaFit, which is pretty much where I've been now for just over three years now, three and a half years.

You were a technician for them. You came on as a technician, is that correct?

Yes, correct. Yes. So that's what they were in between technicians that didn't have, uh, someone to cover their, their main brand, which they started out with recently a few years prior, which was pre-call. Um, I had a lot of history with pre-call from my contractor days and they, um, yeah, basically they had a technician that was leaving that was, that was worked with their pre-call brand in Sydney. And they didn't have a guy that sort of new, new pre-call front to back. And they knew that I knew it. And then that's how that happened. I was with them as their senior field technician for the Sydney metro area. And I did that for probably, it was about 11 months with Novafit. And then at that time, We didn't have a national service manager with NovaFit. And then with what I'd done for the company and the things I'd put in place for the other technicians and all the work that I'd done in repairing the pre-call brand of equipment, they put me on as the national service manager. So then from then on for a bit over two years now, I've been the national service manager for them. Very cool.

Very cool. Okay. So I want to back up a little bit and ask a little bit, because so what, with the bicycle shop, so did you sell that as well? Or did that, what did that kind of go hand in hand with the, with the service business? You kind of kept those together.

No, that's great. Yeah. No, good question. It, it, it turned out that at that time, another short story at that time, it was the internet was coming along fairly, fairly rapidly. Like this is like, um, early 2000s and a lot of the international bicycle brand parts suppliers were selling the bicycle parts online for very cheap. Very, very cheap price. There was a couple of companies in the UK and I basically had kids coming into the shop saying like the rear derailleur, which is the mechanism that changes the gears on the back of a bike, And they said, oh, can you get me this brand name of rear derailleur? And I said, yeah, I can get it. It's so much money. So it's $250 or something Australian. And then they said, oh, we can get that from the UK for like $160 delivered. And I was asking $220. So at that stage, that was happening. So I ended up just winding up the business and we ended up just closing it down. We did try to sell it. It was actually more of a family recreational bicycle riding type shop. It wasn't too heavy into the road racing bikes, and it wasn't too heavy into the off-road mountain bike scene. So I was in a family area. I just had a lot of kids and family bikes. And yeah, it just got to the point where we put the word out there. We didn't really advertise it, but it didn't eventuate. We found a buyer. a dad sort of came back into the business a bit there and we stepped in and helped us sort of get it to a point where we could wind it up and then finally close it. But yeah, eventually we ended up closing the business.

Yeah. And so in that, that point you had been doing the fitness repair for a little while. So you just, did you, and you, you were just kind of, uh, basically a contractor. Did you have a company, a fitness repair company that you were, that you opened up?

Yeah, I started up my own business. It was called, uh, FitFix services. was the name of my contractor company. And it was just like a sole trader, we call it here in Australia. So it wasn't a proprietary limited company or LLC company, as what you guys would call it.

Yeah, sole proprietor basically is what we would call it.

So yeah, that was good. It was just set up like that. And I just did the, set my pricing and then just did the work, had like, it's set like a call out fee and then the hourly rate. And then I had like a wholesale price for that for companies I was doing a lot of work with. And then I had the retail price for the call-out fees and the labor charges for customers that would call me directly as well. So it worked out. Just started my own business up and just kept that going.

So other than that dealer that you were working for, how else, you know, how did you kind of progressively start picking up more business? Was it just meeting people as you were out or how did you, how did you grow, um, into that, you know, doing more commercial work and things like that?

Yeah, it was more just thinking about what happens in these commercial gyms. As I kept driving around to home home customers and saying the odd gym in the street or in the shopping center or whatnot, wherever they are, and just wondering how do they get their service done or how do they get repairs done? I remember probably back in the day, it was a couple of gyms I just went into and asked the actual gym owners, how does it work? How do you get your equipment repaired? And then they said the manufacturers or these brand names would do that. So then, yeah, just raced back home and Googled them and looked up a couple of companies and As I say, I worked very close with Precor for a number of years, for quite a few years, for probably eight, 10 years, I was doing a lot of work for Precor when they were as a contractor. In Australia, they had various ways they were distributing Precor. At the start, it was through a company called Avanti Fitness or Workout World, the company I mentioned before. And then they also did it directly back when Precor was owned by Amos Sports. So Amos Sports had their own outlet in Australia where they managed to run prequel through that. And then that was when Amos Sports decided to pull out of Australia for the prequel, a running of prequel, and then NovaFit came along and picked that up from there. But yeah, so that was prequel. And then other brands I've dealt with, I haven't dealt too much with Life Fitness. Life Fitness, I don't know. I haven't been down to get in. I've been knocking on that door for a number of years when I was a contractor and just sort of never got in. Yeah. But other brands like Star Trek and a little bit of Matrix, a little bit of Freemotion, brands like that. But pretty much all the brands, other than Life Fitness, I've done repair work for in the past.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's pretty interesting. Sometimes you gotta knock on that door for a long time, it seems like. Yeah, true. We did with, so I own two companies. My first one I ended up having to shut down. The business partners and different things happened. But, you know, we've been working on trying to get it in with like pre-core. And I started that first company in 2010, and then never did with that company, and then same deal with this company, and finally just, matter of fact, I think I might have the contract in my inbox right now. We literally just got it. And it took a long time, man. It can be somewhat discouraging, but there's, I don't know if it's like this in Australia, but I'm sure it is, but there's territories and stuff like that. If there's already an established provider,

in that area that's doing pre-core work like you may you may be able to get in but you may only be backup or you may not be able to get in at all yep yep exactly the same it's exactly the same here yeah you like you knock it on doors you get that phone call uh it's usually when their main contract is going on holidays you might go away for a week or 10 days and that's okay but once in a while they'll go away for two weeks and then these manufacturers need someone to step in for that time and then you get your opening then and then you just got to prove yourself by going out and getting the job done and you know trying to get the job done first time you know without any hassle that was one of my things I always I thought of doing that I didn't want to contact the company as much or ask too many questions about the job or about how to fix it I just sort of taught myself pretty much through YouTube and whatnot, how to fix the equipment. And then I thought that if I wasn't asking too many questions, I wasn't bothering them about, you know, hounding them for information on the machine or manuals or whatnot. I just looked all that up information myself, um, basically self-taught and then that sort of built me up from there.

Yeah, no, that's, um, Yeah, definitely. I understand that that struggle, man. And, you know, just just starting from, you know, not really knowing I did the same thing, man, just going out knocking on doors and just learning, you know, learning. and getting turned down over and over again. But over time, you get to know how the industry works and make connection, things like that. But overall, like you said, if you can't add value as a technician, if you can't be a good technician, like you said, I didn't bother the manufacturers all the time. I use service manuals and I really learned what I needed to do. That's valuable stuff, man. It took me a long time to understand that, you know what I mean? And so becoming a quality technician and adding value is really how you become successful. And then you catch the attention of other companies like NovaFit, which we'll get into a little bit too about how that transpired. But, you know, you make name as, Hey, I'm a, you know, this guy's a good technician. You know what I mean? We want him to come on and so on and so forth, you know? So I wrote down a question. Um, that I wanted to ask you, um, it's kind of a, you know, just on the spot question to see what's your response. But if somebody, if, if somebody came to you that was starting off in the same position that you were back in 95 or whenever you, you started, um, you know, hitting the streets, what, what piece of advice would you give them knowing what you know now to help them get started?

It would be that they have it a bit easier today with the internet and the connections there you've got, and you can look things up a lot easier. Back in the day, it was harder. So it's something where you just got to get up every day and do the work pretty much, is what I would say. It is that sort of bit of a grind thing where you might need to start up and you do those extra hours. You think, oh, I'll work for myself. It'll be great. I'll work four and a half days a week. Yeah, it's probably not that at the start. So you've got to put the work in at the start. Yeah, do your invoicing and whatnot in the evenings when you're going home or sitting in the driveway in the car and you're typing out your invoicing for the day and whatnot. But yeah, a piece of advice would be just to keep going with it. You just got to get up every day and do the job. And then these days, information's fairly close with the internet. Yes, you can get by in the gym industry with a basic range of tools. You don't need too many specific tools, like sort of high-end car mechanics tools and whatnot. You just need a very basic set of tools, maybe a multimeter, and you're set. You go with those few things, a little bucket of tools, you can go to your first couple of jobs. Yeah, maybe start at the home jobs to build up your confidence. Yeah. Um, you know, the other issue there is with the home jobs is you usually have the customer watching over the top of you while you're there. Um, you know, the whole time while you're doing it, where you try and get them out of the room and say, look, this might take me a while. So just leave me with a bit and I'll, I'll come get you if I need you. I'll let you know when I'm finished.

If they really want to be there, I'll be like, yeah.

No, but it's just, you probably do need to have that little bit of a drive. And you choose to run your own business. So, and to get up and do the work, um, you know, depending on what you set up with now, if you've got a vehicle, that's good enough to use to start with. If you do have a basic set of tools that you do have, um, then that's great. That's really all I need. You got a mobile phone, you've got the GPS on there, you've got your emails, you've got your, you can call customers. Um, so you pretty much set there. So, um, it's, it's, it's more just the dedication to the role is what you'd need to have. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. It is. It's the dedication to the grind. Technology has definitely made things easier. I'm sure back when you started, it was a totally different game. But, uh, but yeah, man, I mean, I started out in a, oh God, I don't know what year it was, but old Nissan Ultima with a bag of tools in the back, man, it just started, you know, and knocking on doors and, you know, and, uh, but yeah, staying dedicated to it. That's, that's, uh, I liked that answer. So, um, so over time though, um, you know, you started, well, COVID changed everything. Like I said, you know, after COVID, now there's a whole lot more opportunity too for people who want to get started to work on, to start with the home equipment, because there's a ton more home equipment out there after COVID. So many people bought treadmills and for their house and home gyms and stuff like that. So, you know, there's a, there's a ton of residential work out there to, to be done. Um, but, but anyway, so what, uh, you know, what, what kind of happened during that process and, um, how did you kind of make that transition to NovaFit?

Yeah, well, I think that's where it helped me with NovaFit having the drive that I ran my business for so long. And I always think that, You've got to think outside the box when you go to a job and you've got to try and fix it. You've got to try your very best, think of every way you can to fix that machine whilst you're there on that day, on that visit. So things like if you can find a part locally, like if you don't have the part in your car, you don't have the bearing or the gas strut or whatnot, or the bolts and the nuts, everything you need or whatnot, then go to your local hardware store and get those fittings that you need. I'd go to a bearing shop and get the bearings. Most hardware stores sell the gas struts if you need a gas strut for a seat or something like that. So my idea was that, not to just order that common part that I would think in my head you could get locally and just order it from the company. I just went down the road to the hardware store and bought that gas strut. I bought those bearings from the bearing shop for little money, for under $20. I went and got the job done. And then I invoiced it out for my time and then added, say, $25, $30 for the part, just a bit of money on top of the part and got the job done. And I go, oh, this guy didn't even ask for the part. He went and got the part, he fitted it, he knew it was a long way away. But that's something I was thinking of to touch base with you actually is the distance that we have to travel in Australia.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. It's how spread out it is out there, yeah.

Yeah, and there's a lot of driving. Like we could, within our metro area, like in a city area, you could easily drive for an hour and 20 minutes, hour and a half, like pretty much what you would call just to get across town. It would be an hour and a half drive to get across Sydney in peak hour traffic. Distance area wise, I tried to actually look it up knowing we're going to have this chat and it's as close as I can look at it. It's sort of like Australia has 25 million people in Australia. And it's about the same population size then as between sort of Florida or Texas, you've got over there. So we got 25 million. So they got like 22 and then 29 million or something like that. But we're the size of America, of North America. So imagine- Australia was that big? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Imagine only servicing the population of say Florida, it says 21, 21 and a half million, but we're 25 million. but over the size of Australia. And 99.9% of us are based around the outside as well. So on the coastline. So it's, yeah, I had jobs where I was, yeah, you could easily travel for two, three, four hours to get to one job. And it's a 45 minute job when you're there, and then two, three hours back home again.

Yeah. It happened a lot. And, uh, Northwest Texas, which is like away from everything. Um, you know, it's out desert and it's similar. Uh, yeah, I kind of understand what you're saying there. Sometimes we drive even like four or five hours to a job, one job, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody wants to be in Dallas and around, you know, the, the, the, you know, heavily populated populated areas and stuff like that.

So, um, but yeah, no, that's like up over 300 million or something like that. I don't know what it's at now. if it's somewhere like 25 million?

Yeah, I think so. You're talking about total population for the US, is that what you said? Yeah. I think 250 to 300 million, something like that. Yeah.

So imagine that's the same, pretty much the same. We're a little bit smaller, same land size as North America there. That's crazy to think about, yeah. Yeah, 25 million people. So it's There's a funny story I had as well is that when I was showing sort of what I did for Novafit and whatnot, when I started out with Novafit as being the field technician and being the main senior, a pre-core technician, we had a club that was out in a regional area. It was like a five-hour drive west of Sydney. And they were just in their warranty period. And we've got that service call time where we've got to try and get out there within 48 hours, 48, 72 hours to fix the equipment while it's under warranty. So it's something we really try and push for at Novafit is to try and service the customers and get there in a timely manner and get the machine fixed up. And my thing was with that was they said to me, But when I started a few times, you might have to go out to this area, which is five hours west. And I said, yeah, okay, that's cool. First couple of times I get the call, yeah, I've got to go out there. So that night I go back home, get a change of clothes, whatnot. And the next day I'll start driving the five hours. I might do the repair job, which is, you know, whatever it is, an hour, an hour and a half repair job. Then I'll stay overnight and then come back. It started happening that often. But I got the call when I was halfway through my run within Sydney in metro area doing my daily service calls there. Halfway through the day, like say 10 a.m. in the morning, the scheduler would call and say, look, we've got another job at Dubbo. Can you go out there? This is the country area in Dubbo, five hours west. And I pretty much just turned my day around. They rescheduled my whole day and I just started driving there and then as soon as they called me out to Dubbo. to still try and fit within that 48 hour, 72 hour timeframe. And I actually got to the point where I, where I had, um, um, you know, had, had a spare change of clothes in the car and I left them in the car cause I knew they'd call me every, whatever it was, six, eight weeks. I'd get a call yet. You're going out West again, let's go. And then I had that change of clothes in the car. So then I can go out there, sleep overnight. get that motel and then do the repair the next day and then drive the five hours back home again. So that was something that I just sort of took upon myself, okay, I'll do it this way. It's easier, it's more convenient for me. I'm a bit flexible with my work home life that I could do that. I could just change my day around halfway for the day and then drive somewhere and stay overnight. Uh, which that was what also probably helped me, the, you know, initiative that you've got to take to, to take a lead role in a lead position.

Yeah. So I was going to say, it's no wonder they wanted to promote you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was good. But yeah, it's just a little, the little stories you have being out on the road and, uh, the traveling, it's good times.

So most of the people in Australia are along the coast, huh? That basically in most of the big cities are along the coast? Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. That's interesting. It's a lot, like the East Coast, like within New South Wales, actually I haven't looked recently, it might be like, I think it's like 6 million or something in New South Wales population. And maybe five or five and a half million of those are in the Sydney area of New South Wales. But I think New South Wales is quite large. I didn't get a comparison of that to a state you'd have over there. But yeah, the coastline, so the east coast of Australia, you've got Sydney, and then you've got Melbourne down south. You've got Canberra in between Sydney and Melbourne, which Canberra is our capital city. And then Brisbane for the north, like the Queensland side. So they're probably the three biggest cities on the east coast, and on the west coast would be Perth. You've got Adelaide down south, Northern Territory up north, which a lot of defense bases are up in the north and Northern Territory way.

But why is that? Is that people, is it, you know, you always hear about Australia and like the bush and how crazy, you know, it is and stuff. Is that, was that wise? Cause the terrain and stuff in Australia or people, what, what is that?

Oh man, it's just like, like there's nothing out there. Yeah. There's just nothing. You drive that far, you drive that far and the, the roads you drive on, there's like no fence. There's just like a, there's the road and then there's dirt and then there's some type of field and you can look as far as you can see and you can see it at the horizon. And there's, you know, in some, in some points, there's not a tree, there's not a mountain, there's nothing. It's just like, you can see the curvature of the earth pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, um, yeah, no, on the coast, there's all, there's a lot of towns you can drive around and do, uh, do yeah. There's towns around as well when you go west, but, uh, It just gets to a point when you go so far sort of inland from the coast, I'd probably say it would only be, yeah, it would be under three hours. If you travel three hours inland, like two and a half, three hours inland, you'd pretty much be in what you'd call sort of quite like heavy rural area, if not like, you know, desert type areas all the way around the Australian coast. Yeah. There's little satellite towns and whatnot, but there's a lot of driving you need to do. Our technicians, we could send them, even these days, we send them overnight runs quite often where they need to go to certain areas. We have a mix of full-time staff and also contracted technicians. So me having the background I've got, it makes it a bit I'm more understanding of the field technician's role because I've been there myself and I've done it. But now that I'm on the backside of that, and I'm the national service manager, I can sort of see the tips and tricks and what's happened, how the technician has gone about the job to get it done, or what they probably haven't done to complete the job and finish it off correctly. I can understand that straight away. And whether that's an employee or whether it's a contractor, I can say, okay, it sounds like he didn't do this, he didn't check that. So we should probably ask him to go back and check this and check that before we end up trying to order that whole console or whatnot or that large expensive component for the machine. We need to double check that the issue is where it is. Yeah. Right.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And we're getting close to time here. I have a ton of other questions for you, but we'll have to bring you back. No, I've got time.

Yeah, go for it if you like. Yeah, this is great, man. What you're doing is great. It's fantastic. I'd love to be a part of it or be someone that sort of comes on from time to time. You can have my views from the, what do they call it, from down under, as you guys call us, the upside down people, whatever you call us. Uh, no, it's a good thing you're doing.

So it's, yeah, you got a ton of experience. Um, so, but, uh, okay. So a little bit, a little bit more though about, um, uh, Nova fit. So Nova fit is there like a, like a dealer basically. Right. They, they just sell equipment for, for different manufacturers or yes.

Yeah. Yep. Sounds like they're pretty large. Yeah, yes, yeah, we've got warehouses in most states, in Melbourne, in Sydney and Perth as well. Um, and so there's many brands we deal with. We're a quite unique business where we deal with a lot of, uh, high end brands. We've got pre-core, we've got all the, the core health and fitness stuff. So we've got the Star Trek, Nautilus, Schwinn, um, all that stuff. We've got, um, Woodway. We've got sports art. We've got a watt bike. We got a power plate, uh, TRX. various other things as well. Other brands we do, we do Zeva equipment as well, like weight plates and whatnot. So a lot of companies we deal with, so we're quite unique that we can offer a gym, a total package. So we can offer them the cardio range, the fitness range, and also the strength as well, strength and conditioning training, whatnot. So whether you're an actual 24-hour gym, or you're a CrossFit gym, or it's a military site where they're trying to get, you know, defense site where they're getting the equipment or various equipment depending on what we're, who we're selling to, that we've got the equipment that will cover what you need, yeah.

So you're the national service manager now. How many techs are you managing and how many contractors, like,

Uh, we have at the moment, we have 12 full-time technicians, and then I haven't really counted, but probably around about 60 odd contractor technicians, uh, Australia wide. So our employee technicians are just in the capital cities. Um, that's something where we're trying to expand on to get more. So we're always on the lookout for the guys who want to, um, you know, come across and work, work, uh, for someone. Uh, which is something with my background, I can explain that to them. And we've had a couple of guys we've been able to find out in, in, in, um, regional areas that were saying, well, if you come and work for us or give us a, an extra decent rate, uh, we can give you a certain amount of work, um, in that area. So that's been good, but yeah, so probably. Yeah, the contractors, they would just call when they have an issue with a machine or like we have schedulers that would schedule the work and they cover each state or whatnot. So when a job comes in, they'll just schedule it to that technician or they'll know the area where the technician works in. And if that falls within that contracted tech or our employee base area, then we would send that job to that person and then you know I'll get the basic in my role then is to receive the phone calls and emails from the from employees, from contractors, from customers trying to fix the equipment themselves and just helping with that technical information, the manuals, the wiring diagram, schematics, whatnot or parts diagram and help them out that way.

So one thing, you know, I'm curious about, um, you know, when you're training technicians, um, technicians that you hire, um, is there manufactured, like what's your training program? Like, because I don't know, does pre-core have a training program in Australia or do you have to travel, travel to the States to go to training and stuff?

Yeah. Yeah. No, they do come out to Australia. So all my, it changed a bit with COVID again. Uh, it's been a bit hit and miss in between that. But, um, yeah, basically it was, um, every two years, roughly let's say pre-core Star Trek brands like that would come out and, um, and, and do a training. And then we would either have a certain amount of guys in one state like Sydney, and we do a training there. And then myself on the training would fly to Melbourne. and we'd have our employees and contractors there, and then we'd do training there again. So it's pretty much probably like you'd have it there. Like I, I prefer a lot more hands on training rather than, you know, looking at, at slides and whatnot, or looking at a computer screen and whatnot. Um, you know, most people know how to do that and they can follow a manual or read through. Um, so picture illustrations and, and hands on is what I would prefer. And, um, yeah, it's something that I, I, I can conduct the, um, maintenance training for our employees as well as contractors and we will show them hands-on. We'll have a machine in the warehouse. I'll have it in pieces before they get there and then we'll go through and fault find and I'll physically show them how to use the multimeter and test it and then I'll go back and have them show me that they know how to do it. So are they physically going to do it as well if they're doing a beep test for a wire to check for connectivity whatnot. I want to see that can do that. I want to see that can check the earth. I can check the power flow coming through the machine with a multimeter. So they can find out how far the power's coming through the machine and then where it stops. And then that's usually your fault, whatnot. So yeah, so the hands-on training is what we do at NovaFit. It's something we try and make sure the guys are trained up in their knowledge. So we get the machines fixed.

How long does it take you guys to train? What would you say would be a, you know, a good technician?

Yeah, I would think probably like the workload we have, which is pretty full on. So I would say after six months, they sort of have worked on pretty much all the brands or all the scenarios they would come across within six months. And then after that, the confidence in going out to the, especially with us with NovaFit, all the brands we do have having confidence, like some technicians or contractors have confidence in some brands, but not in others. Yeah. Just because they haven't had the experience. Right. So whether if that area like might have a lot more pre-core in that area, but not too much Star Trek or not too much Woodway or whatnot, um, like the four fronts, we saw, uh, a lot of Woodway four fronts in Australia that we have. So it's quite a unique, uh machine and definitely contractors that we have in regional areas they've like someone's never seen one before and they're being sent out to try and fix it so it's um yeah yeah so it's something that we try and work with them and and give them all the information they can at the start and i always say i'm there on the phone you know let's do that video call call me when you get there, get the covers off the machine, get all your tools there, get ready, then give me a call, and then I'll step you through how to fix it. So that's how we get the job done.

Nice. Yeah, it's a difficult job. Yeah, yeah.

It's a difficult job. Yeah, it's quite unique. It's a unique industry. It's something that a lot of people always think, like you see their eyes roll up and go, oh, Okay, there is someone out there that fixes gym equipment full time. Yeah. It's not a... Yeah, yeah. I thought they fixed themselves. Yes. That's pretty cool.

I love being in the industry. It's just... It's been changing a lot too, and it's always exciting, it seems like. And then working with techs and working with the teams, the service teams and stuff is definitely, I love doing that. That's the big part of it that I really like. It can be difficult, I'm sure that you know what I mean. you know like what what to look for what kind of person is it going to be a good technician you know what i mean and some of the guys you bring on you're like you're like you thought for sure they were going to be a good technician and then yeah you're not that way and then maybe that happens opposite you know so it's kind of it's interesting so yeah yeah you've been through that it's something that i say that when i'm employing i've employed probably uh five or six people since i've been in the last couple of years

with Novafit employed by five or six guys. And it's one thing I say, half of it is knowing the equipment and knowing how to fix a piece of equipment. But the other half of it is like maybe 51% is fixing the equipment, 49% is the communication you have with that customer. being commercial, you know, a commercial customer. So it's the, it's the, you know, don't walk in there with your head down and walk straight to the machine, fix it, and then put your head down and walk straight back out again. Walk in there, say, good day. You know, I'm Ben here from NovaFit. We're here to fix this work order for you. Is there any other issues or concerns you've had with any other piece of equipment? I can have a look while I'm here. Let me know. I'll just go fix this and I'll come back and let you know when I'm finished. I'll let you know my findings. You go over there, you fix the machine. Hopefully you fix it first go or you have the part in your car and you can fit it and get the machine going. Then you go back to them and say, yep, I'll finish now. This is what I found. Here's the part. Show them the part that was faulty or broken and say, this is worn out. Um, and then, you know, explain to them what you've done and, and then just follow up again. Is anything else you need? No. Okay. You know, see you again soon. And then head off. It's, it's that it's the interaction with the customer that we're trying to build as well. It's not just the machines we want to, the technician should be building relationship with the gyms that they cover. Absolutely. Cause more often than not, they'll go back to that gym and, and see that same manager. Yeah, overtime managers change at gyms, whatnot, they turn over staff, but you just always got to build that new relationship. And in a sense, I say that the gym managers are like the coworkers to our technicians. A lot of the time with our tech, in Sydney especially, our techs, there's a couple of techs that I pass near enough to their house on my way home from the warehouse. So I would drop parts off to them, to their vans. So I've got the second key to their van and I would actually, the parts they need for the next day or the next two or three days, I would get the parts from the warehouse on my way home, I'd detour past their house, drop the parts off on their passenger seat in their van so they're ready to go for the next day, which will save them coming into the warehouse and save that you know, 45 minute drive in the wrong direction, the 15, 20 minutes, half an hour talking and, you know, gas bagging in the warehouse and getting parts and whatnot. And then the 45 minutes back into the city to get the work done, you've already lost an hour and a half in your day. Right. So to be able to drop the parts off to the techs and have them in their van, we've got some techs that may not come back to our warehouse, to our depot location. They might not be there for three or four months. Once every three or four months. Whereas, I don't know if other companies, they might send people back to the warehouse two or three times a week. But I see that as downtime and lost productivity. The techs need to be out on the road. We need to get the parts of the techs. So we've even had some jobs where we've actually put the parts in, well, these days you'd serve, before we'd say a taxi, but these days you say an Uber. So we put the part in an Uber from the factory and then the Uber guy would drive the part into the city and drop it off to the tech and he would fix it that same day. Interesting. So that is the type of service level that we want to provide at Novafit is that we look after our customers and we'll go to that expense but in the end it's a saving because it saves a technician uh the scheduler having to reschedule another job to the technician find that technician date where it's going to be in that area to try and make it efficient or maybe give it to another tech he won't know exactly what happened if you give it to a second tech um whereas if we just get it done he'll go to that one site diagnose that confirm that's the issue you know take a part off the machine next to it test it confirm that's the fault you know the lower board or the console or whatnot's failing swap that part back again say yep i need that part Uh, that's like 10 a.m. He would then go to his second or third job. And then we would organize the part in the warehouse, throw it in the Uber. The Uber guy would drive it there, would meet him at his second job site or back at his first job site at say 1 p.m. Get the part off the Uber guy, fit it, and the machine's up and running again.

That's smart.

I love it. Yeah. It's like, it's like the time management. It's, uh, it's something that you've got to, It's a cost to a company, it definitely is a cost, but that's the cost that you have to weigh up against the value of the customer.

Well, yeah. Overall, that is going to pay for itself because you're adding significant value to the customer's experience, getting the machine fixed quicker, and that overall is definitely going to lead to more business. It might be an additional expense up front, but overall, I imagine that helps. That's interesting stuff.

Yeah, it takes time. I don't think it's much more. If you had to put a dollar figure on it, I think it's marginal, the amount of the extra cost it takes to go that extra mile to do it the same day, or to have that tech go and buy that bearing from the bearing shop and not have to put the part back to, you know, we call it action needed, where the technician would put the job back to the scheduler and say they need a bearing. And then sometimes the scheduler might not know exactly what that part is, and they'll just order the part from, say, Core Health in America. It's a bearing for some piece machine, and they'll just order it from Core Health. And I'm saying, How are we ordering a bearing from Core Health when we can go to a bearing shop locally and pick up the bearing that's internationally known? Yeah, you don't need to do that. So they're the things we're trying to do and try and look after our clients and keep the machines running as best we can. And definitely within the warranty period, we push hard to get the job done and strive to try and get it done at first visit. If not shortly after, we're back there the day after, or maybe the next day, depending on the distance traveled, to get the job fixed if we haven't fixed it first go.

Love it, man. That's awesome stuff. We've been talking for about an hour, so I'll probably... probably get going here. But no, I really appreciate you coming on. You got a ton of knowledge and experience that I think is really valuable. Good to get to know you a little bit and connect with you and then hopefully moving forward, man, have you back on every once in a while and talk about how things are going and everything like that. So I really appreciate your time, man.

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for your time. And it's a great thing you're doing here. It's a great thing for the industry. And yeah, I'd be happy to come back on and have a chat more. And yeah, I love what you're doing. It's great.

Yeah, very good. So connect with Ben Hudspeth on LinkedIn. Any other social medias or anything?

Or LinkedIn? Yeah, I've got the Instagram as well, where I've got a... Instagram is... It's JimRepairTipsAndTricks on Instagram. And then on there, I've got a lot of photos of jobs and previous jobs that I've done. And yeah, I've got some good stuff in there. YouTube as well. YouTube, I've got a lot of videos on how to repairs, whatnot. That's just my name, YouTube, forward slash Ben Hudspeth. So if you search for a lot of Woodway pre-core repair work, I've got a couple of like how to be, what you do being a technician. like a sort of a day in a life type of thing on how a technician would repair or maintain a machine or how they perform a preventative maintenance as well. So yeah, people can look that up on YouTube or Instagram or LinkedIn, yeah.

Very cool, man. I'm going to get on there. I'm going to hop on there and follow your stuff too. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, thank you for coming on man don't guys don't forget to follow Ben on and check them out on YouTube and follow and like and share the podcast as much as you possibly can. And we want to keep growing this thing on and adding as much value as we can to listeners to other repair guys other companies, you know. in a lot of different ways. So we have some cool plans in the future for the podcast. And so I'm excited for that. And then, yeah, I look forward to getting to know you more and having you on again here before too long. But thanks again for your time, man. Yeah, that's great.

Thanks, Adam. Thank you.

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