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.

Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome to the Fix Your Gym podcast. I really appreciate you guys tuning in. I wanted to do a little something different today. I'm basically I wanted to just get into... I've had a few people here lately ask me some questions about maybe some things that would help them in their business or different strategies and things like that that we've used in our business. And I need to pump out an episode this week and I've never really done one just by myself. So I just wanted to get on here and talk a little bit about what I've done, some things that we've done in our business that have been helpful and effective, and some things that we are starting to implement that are drastically changing the direction and the shape of our business. And so, First things first, before I get started, I really want to give a shout out and a special thanks to our new sponsor, FieldTech Fitness Solutions and the FieldTech app. Ruben is a great guy and really has a desire to innovate and to create products and services that can be helpful to fitness equipment service businesses, installation and service businesses and sales. you know, his field tech app is a great way to streamline your operations. And I think it just made sense, since the majority of our, of our listeners are in the, you know, and that's kind of our focus is in the service service side of the industry. You know, so it made sense to bring him on and, and, um, promote products and services, not just because it makes money for us or anything like that, but genuinely because it helps you guys in your business. You know, so if you have a service or install company, get with Ruben, just have a conversation with him, see if there's ways that he can, he can help you, you know, streamline your operations. And, uh, and for sure, if you're still out there using paperwork order systems and things like that, definitely give Ruben a call because, um, what he's offering will, um, pay for itself significantly. Um, So, and you know, that's, that's another thing. I mean, that'll kind of get right into, to my topic of, you know, I was in this business for a long time and we just, I don't know, man, I wasn't organized. I I was so overwhelmed and spread so thin. And the reason why was because I wasn't implementing these systems. The reason why I was overwhelmed in my business was because I had no systems and processes, no standard operating procedures whatsoever, no guide in the form of core values or anything like that of how to hire employees and how to create a company culture. I didn't have any of these things in place in my business and so therefore, I felt lost all the time. It's just like a dirty house. You walk into a dirty house and it's just not a good feeling. After a while, you don't even want to be there. It's not easy already in our business because the type of business that it is being a service-based business in a price-driven industry, it's already difficult enough. Nobody is out there really making millions of dollars. This is not... It's hard work a lot of the time. And profits may be high, but cash flow is low generally. And so... Yeah, it's difficult. You don't want to be pissing away all the hard-earned money you have just because you don't have the right systems and things like that in place. So you keep bringing in money, and you're getting more customers, and you're making more sales, and you're getting more money, and that money is just going right back into your business. and you don't ever see a dollar of it. And you just want to keep growing and growing. By the end of that, you're worn out and you fizzle out and somebody else new comes in and the cycle starts all over. So we price ourselves out of business. We wear ourselves out because we don't have systems in place. We have good intentions, and I'm speaking this from experience. My first business went out of business, Metro Fitness Repair, after three or four years. And yeah, this is the reason. These are the reasons. So we work our butts off and we have good intentions for what we're doing, but we just don't have the skills or the training really to be successful. Yeah, the first thing for me that made a huge difference in my business was implementing a system like Rubin's. And if I would have known Rubin's system was out there, I would be using it right now. And we're definitely in talks of how to transfer over to that system. But we use a system called RazorSync. It's for HVAC systems and stuff like that. It works, you know what I mean? But having a system that's you know, built and tailored for the fitness equipment service industry, um, would be ideal. And that's what, that's what his, his offers. So, um, but nevertheless, regardless of whatever your, whatever you're doing, whatever you choose to do, um, whatever fits your business best, um, you know, organization, um, is key, you know, so, um, The other thing that I think has probably made the most, well, a couple things. Back when I owned my first business, Metro Fitness Repair, I came from the printing industry. I ran printing presses and I worked a graveyard shift and I was 20 years old, 19, 20 years old. Um, I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so I always kind of had that spirit, um, in me, uh, business owners and, and, uh, you know, my mom owned a bridal magazine growing up and sold it for decent chunk of money. My dad owned a bindery and, you know, so I would go in as a kid at five years old and, you know, uh, run around the shop, bossing people around and wreck the forklift and fall asleep in a corner somewhere. But, um, you know, and then, uh, the technology boom hit and the printing industry obviously started declining and they were a casualty of that and a casualty of some of the other things I'm going to get into right now where they had made some mistakes that I could see and try to learn from as well to avoid that same trap that I don't know the percentage, but a very large percentage of business owners don't make it because of these specific things. And the first thing is my health. Back when I ran Metro Fitness Repair, and I'm sure a lot of you guys can relate with this, is that you're out traveling all the time, you're working a lot of hours, you're on the road, it's hard to be healthy. It's hard to take care of yourself. And what happened was after a while, it started weighing on my new marriage, it started weighing on my health, and kind of the breaking point was, We were installing like 90 pieces of cardio for these gyms in Kansas City. I was lifting some treadmills out of boxes and boom, there goes my back. I herniated two discs in my back. And yeah, so that was the beginning of the end, but it was already ending. I was not a disciplined person. Like I said, I was 21, 22, maybe 23 at that point, something like that. I had very few skills. I was good at I was mechanically inclined. I've always been mechanically inclined. And I had drive. I started that business going out doing door-to-door sales, cold calls. I never really had any specific sales training at that time, a little bit, a couple day class or something like that, or studying on my own. But I just had the drive. And so I just got out there and hit the streets and I built a business. And those are probably the two, just a little bit of grit. A little bit of stupidity, or a lot of stupidity, and some mechanical skills and whatever the case is, and I was able to make it work. But yeah, I didn't take care of myself. And ultimately I didn't take care of my family. Um, I didn't take care of my personal responsibilities. I didn't take care of my relationship with God. Um, and, uh, which is, you know, rooted this time, uh, in our family and in our daily lives. Um, you know, so, um, yeah, that, so that, that's, it, it came crashing down. and came crashing down. So this time around, I took some time off and I traveled and I took my motorcycle across the country and I just started reading books. Reading books and studying Grant Cardone and all kinds of different people, whether you like them or not. I just started studying people who had successful businesses. and what their strategies were, just observation. And started kind of mapping out my plans for rebuilding. So it was probably four or five years of study. Where did I go wrong in my business? Where did I go wrong in my family? Where did I go wrong? Um, my personal life, my fitness and all of these like, okay, well, if I'm going to go at this again, um, I need to, I need to, to work on these problems, you know? And, um, and yeah, so, so we went at it again and this time, you know, putting a focus on health, putting a focus on making sure that I make time in the mornings for prayer, for meditation, for, you know, I love the sauna, man. I, if If you haven't tried the sauna, I highly suggest it. It is a great place to just go sweat out all the toxins. And also I use it for meditation where I'm sweating out or getting rid of all the toxic, whether it's just negative thoughts or whether it's just, you know, I don't know, we're taking a lot of crap in this society, a lot of crap information. So whether it's through Facebook, flipping through Facebook, wherever the case is, not only am I building up toxins inside of my body, but I'm building up toxins inside of my mind. And so I came up with ways and I obviously didn't invent the wheel on that. I just watched what other people were doing who were successful. And the sauna was one of them. And I started doing that. I started running. I ran my first half marathon, I think, three years ago. And did another one. Did a full marathon last year. And just really got into that and just found something outside of work that's still related to my business that I loved. I love doing. I still love doing. Focusing on my health, man. And so I made it. I developed some core values for our business over the last year that I started implementing for our employees as well. And our first core value is health. It's just the most important thing. It's the most important thing, not just for me as the leader of the team, but for our employees too. And that's what I've lost almost all of my employees over the period of 15 years. It's been quite a few. It's some form of health, whether mental or physical health issue. And so, I mean, I'm just kind of a hard ass these days too, man. You're not going to make it in the business with us if you're not working out. It's just the way that it is. That's just something that I feel like everybody in today's society, like, what are you doing if you're not exercising? Why? It's not a hard thing to do. What is the point of building a business if you're not taking care of yourself? What kind of future are you planning for? A future of five years? Because what if you die? What are you talking about? Build a business and you're not taking care of yourself. It makes no sense at all. And so, yeah, and then helping my employees get on the right path in that area. It's not necessarily really rigorous, but we make it fun. We make it where we get together and we do runs and we do challenges and I compensate them if they do well in the challenges and things like that and build a company culture of health, of support, of encouragement. Now sometimes encouragement can be come in the form of, Hey, you're fucking up. It's like, you know, and we will, uh, we'll help each other with that. And, uh, you know, so, um, So yeah, implementing the core values, the first one being health. And then our core values are our health, which come in the form of mind, body, family, health, as well, and financial health, and then health within your community. And so we help our guys, you know, accomplish financial goals. One of our lead technicians just bought his first house, you know what I mean? And just helping him, making sure that they're setting goals and they're accomplishing those goals, not just in work, outside of work. If you want to become an entrepreneur, That's great. Come on to our business. I'll teach you all the things I know. I'll teach you how to run the business and hopefully you'll see the benefit of that and maybe we'll run a business together. Maybe you want to go off and do your own thing, but I doubt it by the end of it because you'll see the value in what we're doing and we'll most likely just do something together if that's really what you want to do. Whatever you guys want to do as employees of our business, you put in the work, you put in the time. I will do everything I can to help you also get to where you want to go in life. A lot of companies say they genuinely care for their employees and they're full of shit. They just implement systems to make themselves look good and they're not actually doing anything beneficial. you know, so for insurance purposes or whatever the case is. So being genuine in what you're doing, being genuine with yourself, being honest with yourself is key. So we don't need any more shitty people running businesses. That's just, that's just, that's the, that's why we have the problems we have in our country. Or at least part of the equation, a big part of the equation, you know, so. Becoming a better person, man. I was a shitty person, to be honest with you. In my first business, the way that I ran it, the way that I took care of myself, all of that. Progress, our core values are health, family, which family as a, the first core value included family as like your health at home with your family. Um, our second core value is just family. And that's us as a family. Um, as far as our company culture, calling each other on our, on our shit, encouraging each other, keeping each other accountable, um, making sure we stay tight. Obviously we're with each other. 80% of our lives is work. Um, so it's very important to, to enjoy where you work. You don't enjoy where you work. Uh, you know, your employees aren't going to, aren't going to last, you know, you're going to be bringing in technicians every, every couple of months and so on and so forth. And even when you create a company culture, um, that is, you know, is, is good and productive. It still sometimes work out, works out that way, but. I've found that, um, the select few that do stick around, stick around longer and, uh, they work a lot harder. Because they know, they can understand, the ones who do stick around, they start to understand what it is that you're doing. And they want to be a part of it. So, that's key. Our third core value is loyalty. This is loyalty to our customers, to our manufacturers, to the dealers we work with. We don't go out stepping on people's toes. We don't steal your customers. If we're out there working for you, we don't bite the hand that feeds us. We understand there's a lot of, we work for a lot of different people. So we're wise in that sense that we just, we understand how the game is played and we are not in it to steal or anything like that. You know what I mean? If you're our customer, we work for you. If you're a manufacturer, if you're a dealer or something like that, we got your back while we're out there. Now, our next core value is excellence. Excellence is the guiding factor of our training program. We've been on this core value. We go through the core values at our weekly meetings, our team meetings, and study them and focus on them. But this one we've been on for a while because this is the one that really develops us on our skills and our trade. building in-depth training programs, online and in person, and improving those over time. We're still fairly new. So all of these things are fairly new in our business, but they're there, and then we build them and tune them over time. and improve them over time. And speaking of that, our last core value is progress, improvement. As long as we're improving, and this applies to employees that we bring on too, you can come on, I hire felons, I hire people coming out of jail, addicts and things like that, people who are struggling in life who maybe need a hand up, but they have to be genuinely wanting to do better, and we can measure that and we can tell very quickly. Um, you know, so we have this core value in place to guide us through that process, which is progress. If you're not making progress, everybody's going to see it. Um, but that is a requirement for, for, um, us as a business as leader. Um, I'm improving as well. Um, and if I'm not, we're in big trouble. Um, so. Yeah, so core values is something that is so valuable. And it's the framework for everything that you do, for your operations. So think about that. Think about core values you have in your own life. What guides you? Yeah. Those are the things that I felt like I needed to get in place first before I really even tried doing anything else in my business, before I expanded. What's the point of me expanding my business and making sales if I'm not doing these things? If I'm not taking care of myself and if I'm not taking care of my employees, if I don't have this kind of foundation built, yeah, it's not gonna last. That's been my experience. If you don't have these things in place, I would highly suggest thinking about how to go about implementing them. What else? Those are a couple keys, man. I just feel like a lot of us are missing. I know. And I say that because I know that's what I was missing. And I see and I know a lot of people in the industry, and they overlook these very, very simple things, man. You can't let your home life get neglected. You can't let your self get neglected. You can't let your relationship with God or higher power of some form or another And I say that because if you don't have a relationship with some sort of higher power and realize that you're not the higher power in your business, in life, we have too many businesses out there like that. People think that they're gods, you know what I mean? And they're corrupt. And we don't need any more of that shit, man. You're not God. You may be very creative and innovative and doing good things. ultimately, what is it leading to? Where is it leading us? We got to have some better leaders. We got to have some better leaders. We got to have some better innovators in the country and the world. Because in my opinion, what we've been doing thus far has resulted in some pretty big problems. I don't get into a whole lot of political stuff or anything like that. One big thing I had to realize is that I am not the higher power. And if I can tap into a higher power in my life and draw strength and knowledge and wisdom from that source and apply it to my business, oh, I get a competitive advantage to say the least. And so do you though, you know, whatever is, whatever is right for you and your business may not always be right for everybody. So just my experience, just the way that I do things, I found a lot of success in the form of peace, growth, and stability, and a good team around me, a good solid group of people who are all their family. Those are the keys right now that I think are most important that I want to drop. There's a lot of other things that I want to get into and different episodes. Here too, real quick, I created a Facebook group. It's called the Fix Your Gym Community. Please go on and join it. This is going to be a place where we are going to get together, ask each other questions. It's a free group. Just kind of a more private area where we can ask questions, where we're not worried about if customers are seeing them on LinkedIn and stuff like that, but a little bit more private of a place where we can get together and talk about our businesses and stuff. Yeah, I want to start doing some of these. I want to do some sales trainings. I have quite a bit of experience in different areas with sales, digital marketing, how to do marketing on social media, how to build brands, how to build personal brands, and stuff like that, where I want to start providing some more value in those areas and just giving out some information. I really appreciate you guys listening. Once again, thank you, Ruben, for your sponsorship. FieldTech Fitness Solutions and the FieldTech app. If you haven't already, connect with Ruben. FieldTechFitnessSolutions.com, I believe. Let me make sure I get that right. Field... Let me make sure I get his website right. FieldTechFitness.com. Sorry. Got a big old picture of Ruben on the front page. Give him a shout. Get connected with him. Good dude. A ton of experience in the industry. Way more experience than I have in the industry. So, I'm glad to have him part of the network, part of the program here. And he's more than willing to help. So, yeah. Thank you guys for tuning in. I hope this was somewhat valuable for you and everything like that. Hopefully we can do this more, have some more guests coming up, lined up. If you want to be a guest on the show, definitely hit me up. I'm definitely willing to have conversations with just about anybody in our industry or even outside of the industry. If you have some sort of valuable experience you want to share with us and everything like that, even you want to just come on and shoot the shit, we have the time, we have the platform. I'm definitely willing to sit and listen and talk to just about anybody, man. So I appreciate you guys.

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