April 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Mark Fisher's journey began as a self-proclaimed "skinny guy" in high school. Determined to improve his physique, he began working out, a passion that followed him into adulthood. Throughout his twenties, Mark carved out a career as a professional actor in New York City. Although he found moderate success on stage, it was the "fitness bug" that truly captured his heart, leading him to explore opportunities beyond acting and nurturing a deeper passion for the HALO sector.
Mark also shares how his eclectic approach and the mantra of "ridiculous human, serious fitness" have not only inspired a diverse clientele, but also sparked an entirely new niche in the space. Whether you're a fitness enthusiast, entrepreneur, or seasoned veteran . . . this episode promises insightful revelations and actionable takeaways. Mark created something absolutely unique in the space that continues to thrive.
On building an inclusive community he states, "If you ate lunch alone in a bathroom stall in middle school, you'll likely understand what's going on here." This underscores their commitment to providing a safe and welcoming environment for those who have often felt marginalized or uncomfortable in traditional gym settings, especially catering to queer-identifying individuals and those from the Broadway community.
Key themes discussed
- Mark Fisher's fitness journey.
- Unique branding of Mark Fisher Fitness.
- Importance of marketing and niching.
- Challenges of scaling and exiting a gym business.
- Consulting and helping other gym owners.
- Personal reflections on business decisions.
- Selling and transitioning Mark Fisher Fitness.
A few key takeaways:
1. Unique Brand Approach: Mark Fisher Fitness carved out a niche by targeting the Broadway community in New York City. By using a unique (and some might say) 'eccentric' (and super clever!) branding approach, like calling their members "ninjas" and referring to their gym as “the enchanted ninja clubhouse of glory and dreams,” they managed to create an incredibly welcoming atmosphere for those who typically may have felt uncomfortable in more traditional gym settings.
2. Importance of Marketing and Community: The success of MFF was partly due to the extensive network he built in the Broadway community. He emphasized the importance of leveraging personal connections and using creative marketing strategies to expand the brand's reach.
3. Adaptability in Business Models: As a consultant, Mark now helps gym owners tailor their models by starting with proven playbooks and adapting these strategies to fit specific markets and circumstances. This includes a heavy focus on marketing and understanding the target audience.
4. Acquisition Mindset: Mark gave a bit of color around the sale of MFF. He emphasizes the importance of aligning business operations with personal and professional goals, ensuring the business can continue to thrive under new ownership while he focuses on other interests and his consulting business.
5. Industry Insight and Growth: Mark's experience highlights the shift in independent gym ownership, especially concerning scaling operations successfully. He points out that while scaling a complex/unique brand like MFF can be challenging, simpler models may present different opportunities for growth and return on investment.
Resources:
- Mark Fisher: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-fisher-57b42440
- Business for Unicorns: https://businessforunicorns.com
- Mark Fisher Fitness: .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}Mark as PlayedTranscript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing a
(01:07):
longtime listener and one of the movers and shakers
in our field of Halo, Mark Fisher. Mark
Fisher Fitness, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you so
much. Very, very happy to be here. Awesome. So you're a unicorn
guy. Yeah. Why don't you start off giving us the true story of Mark Fisher
fitness in the, accidental,
(01:29):
unintended consequence Yes. Of venue
light. The sort of tale. The sort of tale. Yeah. So so,
yeah, I let's see. My background, I kinda got
into the space as the, you know, skinny guy that
started working out in high school, hoping girls are gonna talk to me.
Went on to get a bachelor of fine arts in the musical theater,
(01:51):
and that definitely proved my odds, to make out with girls, but also
allowed me to have another incentive to start working out to take my
physique seriously. I spent my twenties pursuing a career as a
professional actor in New York City. I did okay with that, but I
really caught the fitness bug. And what started as this hobby, this
respite from the uncertain uncertain world of show business
(02:14):
became this thing that I was really, really passionate about. I really, really got into.
So throughout my twenties, I developed something of a niche following in the
Broadway community. And then, you know, right around time I turned 30
years old, I had just done a, a national commercial for Allstate.
So I got a chunk of money. So for people not familiar, if you do
national commercials, you know, it that's actually passive income. Right? So so I
(02:35):
have this money come in, and I decided myself, I'm like, alright. I
think I'm a I think I'm a TV film actor now. So I tell my
agents, I'm like, alright. I'm not going to do regional theater anymore. I'm gonna stick
in the city. And while I was here, you know, I had these latent
entrepreneur aspirations that I think were bubbling up at this time, and I was
studying the the nascent origins of the online fitness space.
(02:56):
I was following sort of the first wave. You couldn't really call them, like, influencers,
but, you know, this era and the late two thousands for people that are, like,
you know, strength and conditioning nerds, you had the advent of a website called T
Nation that introduced the works of, like, Mike Boyle and Charles Poliquin and
Dan John, all these, like, legends of the field. And I wanted to
make something that was reflective of the work of my
(03:18):
mentors, but I wanted to make it for my friends. And my friends are Broadway
people. So I've always been something of a, you know, eccentric, I
guess you could say, and a reverent guy. So we created this
interesting brand that was largely derived from me speaking out of tongues and
my business partner codifying it. So for people not familiar, Marc
Fisher Fitness doesn't call our members clients, so we call them ninjas.
(03:40):
And, we don't use the term gym because a lot of our members are not
gym people. They don't like gyms. So we call it the enchanted ninja clubhouse of
glory and dreams. And, our mascot is the unicorn. And, you know,
the final thing I'll say before we open up to follow-up questions here is the
tagline is ridiculous human serious fitness. So to be very clear,
a lot of that can have the veneer of lightness, but my background's,
(04:02):
like, pretty intensive rigor strength and conditioning. What I really wanted to make was
the meat and potatoes of best practices that would encapsulate what I
believe to be the best way to take care of a body through training, nutrition,
even behavior change psychology. I just wanted to deliver in a way that was a
little bit more interesting for my pals. And, yeah, it's been been quite quite the
wild run. That turned out there was definitely a market for people that wanted the
(04:24):
fitness to be good, but maybe didn't feel comfortable in some of the traditional spaces
and places that were available to them. So that's kinda how we got here. And
and as you kinda came up with these, you know,
Broadway ask or almost like, you know,
movie script related, you know Yep.
Colloquialisms. Let's say. Is that the right answer or might be? Yeah. I think
(04:46):
that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did that kinda, like like, bring down
some of the barriers to say, like, look. This might be hard and this might
take a lot of work, but, like, we're gonna have fun doing this together and
don't take yourself. We don't take ourselves as seriously as you maybe,
you know Yep. Think we should. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it. Right? And I'll
I'll, you know, for the benefit of listeners that might be listening with a kid
(05:07):
in the car, I'll spare you the some of the specific metaphors we've used internally,
but fair to say, some of them are pretty blue. Right? We really kind of
push the limits of, maybe what was acceptable, but exactly
for that rationale. Right? And I think we got away with it because there was
an aggressive nurturing, like, an aggressive almost wholesomeness
to it. And the whole point was precisely that. Right? Like, you can't feel
(05:28):
awkward and insecure about yourself if we're too busy, like, having
fun and being silly and playing. Right? And, again, it's it's a little bit of
an art because it it has always been very important as to be a coaching
centric facility. Right? Like, we're like nerds. Right? You're imposing loads on
someone's body. Things like, you know, biomechanics matter, joint position
matters. But, ultimately, if people are not coming in, if they're not compliant, if they
(05:50):
don't like the experience, we're not getting what we want out of this.
And we, I think, really benefit from day one having just, like, a very crystal
clear avatar and a very specific kind of person that we thought would, you know,
want the good results, but, you know, might benefit from a little bit of a
comedic lubrication, shall we say. Comedic lubrication. I like
that. So so what are some of the early wins that you had related
(06:11):
to to how you positioned it? And, you know, you had
your niche following already Yeah. In the industry that you're in.
Yeah. How how did you expand that, and and how did that is
that something that's a playbook, or is that something that happens, like, was is that,
like, special sauce? Yeah. I think there's pieces of it that are
playbook, but not quite to that, you know,
(06:33):
like a Lollapalooza style, like wham bam, like, holy crap. Right? Because
the thing about this is right? So most of my work, I I should mention
briefly these days, is coaching consulting on the business of gyms. Right? And,
specifically, I work with personal trainers and strength coaches that open up
gyms and are dismayed to understand they need to understand marketing, they need
to understand workers' comp, they need to understand performance check ins, etcetera, etcetera.
(06:55):
Right? So one of the first things I will do with people, which is still
a good move, you know, there might be listeners that are relatively sophisticated, but just
haven't thought to do this is part of the game of marketing is people have
to know you before they're gonna hire you. And in most situations, they need to
kinda have some like and trust before they move forward. Right? You do you don't
go right direct to offer, though. You know, put that aside. You probably can with
certain page strategies these days. So the first move, I think, is to
(07:18):
sort of develop what is your database of the people you already have relationship with.
And for the love of God, at least let them know that you've opened up
a gym, that you have this opportunity. You know, fitness is interesting too because
virtually everybody, at least in theory, benefits from a fitness product. I'm not
suggesting you're gonna hard sell your grandma. I am suggesting that if you have a
business that people in your life would benefit from potentially working with
(07:38):
you and would get value from, you should probably at least let them know on
some regular basis that exists. And in Mark Fisher Fitness, we did that,
but the thing that is distinct is number one, I had been professional actor
spending my, you know, twenties. I was a friendly guy, right, hanging out in the
bars in Hell's Kitchen. And, you know, I did I did a lot of shows,
and I didn't do long range shows, but I went from show to show. So
between myself and my cofounders, we literally knew by name
(08:02):
probably 3,000 I'm not exaggerating. Probably, like, 3,000 people we actually
knew. Right? And both of us basically now this is maybe not the best, like,
you know, can spam, maybe not the most, you know, friendly, for
what you should do for email marketing in 2024. But we
basically just started talking to all our friends, basically dumped in our entire contact
database. So that I think was useful because even at that time, I was
(08:24):
hammering email marketing. Right? I was, like, several times a week. I was trying to
get value. I was establishing a brand. I was thinking from their perspective. Okay.
What are their questions? What are their problems? And how do I help them
and put on paper or digital paper things that will be useful to
them? I think the other thing that was uniquely valuable about Marc Fisher Fitness,
it's harder to replicate is in general, people talk a lot
(08:46):
about niching. And for I'll say this for a lot of my clients, I don't
reject that claim. But in practice, you know, depending on your market, you're only gonna
niche down so far. Right? If you're, like, you know, say, like, a a town.
Right? You open up a gym and you're doing small group personal training, whatever. Right?
You're not gonna be like, I'm looking for, you know, men the ages of 37
to 39 that are former professional athletes that have two kids or may you know?
(09:08):
But at Mark Fisher Fitness, because the Broadway community had the distinction of number
one, consisting of, you know, probably 10,000 people.
And number two, a a very specific geography because, you know,
all the Broadway theaters are in a very specific area. That
that was a a useful strategy. It's, I think, kinda hard to pull from. And
I'll say, I think we've leveraged the hell out of it. Right? We utterly crushed
(09:29):
it, but it's hard to imagine, another specific situation
where you have a community both that large, that insular, and then
really anchored in a very specific, geography.
This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this
company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards
(09:51):
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
members without having to do zero down and one month
free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What
you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that
people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards
(10:13):
vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.
They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be
able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your
club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and
outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them
to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded
(10:35):
properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.
You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This
is real.
Did you morph into, you know, doing Broadway
workouts for people that aspire to actually work on
Broadway? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. It's it's sort of evolved
(10:57):
over the past few years. Right? Because we still work with definitely people in the
Broadway community. In the beginning, it was kinda all Broadway all the time,
and it was a mix of people, I think, that were aspiring
to become Broadway Performers. We you know, at one point, I had written down. At
one point, it was like I mean, at one point, we literally had, like, 20
plus Tony winners that were, like, part of our membership base. Right? And we're in
(11:19):
New York City. We're very large by the standards of this sort of independent brick
and mortar gym, but, you know, we're not like 10,000 people. Right? So you had
a combination of established industry players. You also had a lot of behind the scenes
people, and that was also a big piece for us for a long time too.
Now over the past several years, I I think that has evolved. I think
we still work with members of Broadway community, but I think it's zoomed out
(11:40):
a little bit more broadly to, you know, people in the Hell's Kitchen
area that don't feel comfortable in gym spaces. As you might imagine, it leads
pretty heavily, queer identifying particularly for the men. So, again, we still
work with a lot of Broadway people, but I would say it's opened up over
the past several years to a with with love, we sometimes say the Isle Of
Misfit toys. Right? If you if you ate lunch alone in a bathroom
(12:01):
stall in middle school, you'll you'll likely understand what's going on here.
Right. Right. And and then the the follow-up question to that is, as
you're helping more and more companies, you know, from a
consulting standpoint, how much of that is, like, creating a new
playbook every time or basically, like, hey. Look. And we've got a book that that
we wrote. It's like, here's your playbook. Yeah. You know, you could modify off of
(12:23):
that, but there are certain things that we've learned
that, like, there's no way to to to go to to shortcut.
Yeah. No. I I think that's yeah. That that's precisely right. And when I think
about, like, how somebody gets better and and
I might suggest this is probably principle for any field, but certainly in the world
of, you know, independent brick and mortar gym owners. Right? So, again, so for context,
(12:45):
you know, we're looking at, you know, the relatively smaller businesses. Right? We're looking
anywhere from, let's say, 200 k to maybe maybe 2,000,000 per unit.
We're looking for one to five locations per owner depending who we're working with. And
we've recently started working more with franchises. Right? Because I'll also
mention briefly, I don't know if you know this, Pete. I also am a franchisee,
and I I'm a co owner of, an alloy personal training unit in New
(13:07):
Jersey, which is an emerging, small group personal training brand, Rickmay.
Yep. Yep. So so as far as what, you know, we think is best
for people, it's like you don't wanna make it up totally, and you probably don't
wanna totally copy paste. Right? So when we work with people, we do have a
library of very specific playbooks broken down by business function.
And, you know, a lot of the game is helping the owner think through, okay,
(13:29):
sequentially, what is the rate limiting factor? What is the constraint? Because
you do have to make some decisions. You can't do everything all at once, and
we find having as copy pastable done for you playbooks as you
can to be a valuable starting point. And then in practice, people are gonna have
to vary, both, you know, in some cases based on the
market, in some cases based on the model, and in some cases based on the
(13:50):
level of sophistication of the owner. Right? I mean, we don't need to go fully
down the weeds here. But as an example, right, depending on the owner's relative
skill at something like sales, that may or may not lend itself to various
different front end offers and and sales funnels. When
when you take on a new client, and I've had this experience, so I
wanna see if it's similar to yours. I'll
(14:12):
go in and somebody's kinda like at the at the end of their rope or
the Yeah. You know, it's like they got a month of runway left. It's like,
did you ever think about calling me like three months ago, four months ago? Maybe
when I had a little more time, you know, to turn this shit. So how
do you do you take on every assignment? Obviously, you got a lot of
empathy for your rescuer like I am and you wanna help everybody.
(14:33):
But Yeah. You have to help everybody. Like, you know,
like, someone called me up and be like, hey. I need to sell my studio.
Like, when? And they're like, you know, I need to sell by, like, December 1
or I'm in default. I'm like Right. You know, we got a holiday. Like, I'm
on the road right now. I'm hanging out with my buddy for his birthday. Yeah.
Just turned 53. Ranger fan, obviously.
(14:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's
Right. Yeah. It's tough because, you know, we wanna help them all, but, I mean,
the way we think about it and, again, I we we do have some
leeway based on the individual. But in general, if you're
looking for someone doing an ongoing coaching, if they wanna hire us some workers for
a year on retainer, where most situations, we're gonna be looking for at least a
(15:15):
15 k, revenue per month minimum. Right? Minimum.
If somebody is, you know, wants more help with
just marketing and they wanna engage us for a twelve week marketing sprint, that's
gonna be a little bit less of a commitment. And if you have 30 clients
in your own space, then, you know, we think there's enough juice there
that we can potentially help you. But, like, here's the real talk, Pete. Right? Here's
(15:37):
here's, like, here's the ugly talk. Here's what no one wants to say about. Right?
Yeah. Let's do it, man. You might suck. Turns you up. You might be bad.
Do you know what I mean? Like, so you might have, like, so and to
be very clear, if you're listening to this, you know, and I'm triggering the hell
out of you, though I don't know how many people with, you know, eight clients
are listening to listening to Halo, but maybe you are. Maybe you're a real, like,
killer up and comer. In practice to my mind, if you've got again, that's a
(15:57):
crude algorithm, but if you're 30 clients, like, okay. There's kind of the thing
happening here. Further, you know, if some of the plays are
things like, if you don't wanna do paid ads. Right? Okay. Well, what do we
got? Alright. Well, let's talk to referrals. Well, filling out seven clients, that's
that's a volume game. Okay. Well, let's talk to former clients. Oh, I don't have
any former clients. Okay. Okay. Right. So, so I
(16:18):
like to see people get, like, a certain proof of concept. And, again, I I
don't mean to say that that's, like, a % guaranteed. Further, my
if I'm looking to help somebody to your point, like, I wanna help you, but
I got a lot of free stuff. Right? I've killed myself. There's, like, free books.
There's there's there's podcast. There's YouTubes, and I'm very happy to send
people some content. And if they're able to run
(16:38):
with it, you know, hopefully, they can get at least to the starting
gate, which for me is at least 30 clients. And then from there, hopefully, we
can work with you. Now, again, you know, as we both well know, that doesn't
speak to profit margin. That doesn't speak to coachability. That doesn't speak to
all sorts of other things that are important. So, you know Yep. I'm I'm sure
you're the same. Right? You do your best to, like, suss it out to, you
(16:59):
know, set expectations in a very direct way, and then, you you know, you figure
it out together. And, you know, the longer I've been in the game
yeah. I think, yeah, I think, what I say with great
respect, I think sometimes, like, firing crimes is, like, underrated. If you know this is
just not the right fit, it's not in everybody's best interest. And I think there's
ways to do that that are professional and respectful in everyone's best
interest. So so before we get to the, to to
(17:22):
to, an overview of the announcement that you're gonna make that'll be after the
podcast launch Yeah. Just, relates to your business. Give me, like,
three situations where you went into a consulting
assignment, and you had an moment. And that
moment resulted in what? Did it result in
somebody adding workout recovery because they had extra
(17:44):
space? Did they take out towel service and put in a service that
optimized revenue? Did they completely overhaul all
their personal trainers because they found out that these weren't the right
fit? Or did we did you scrap, like, their
marketing plan because they were going after a completely wrong demographic and forgot who they
were? Something like along those lines. Yeah. What are some examples? I I
(18:07):
mean, like, you know, a lot of my work, you know, is focused
on the marketing piece. And, certainly, you know, there we have plenty of,
like, very specific testimony as far as results. I mean, thinking about things that are,
you know, maybe useful for listeners that I have learned by work with people. It's
like, oh, oh, oh, and and, again, some people listening is gonna be obvious. Right?
The first one is, you know, particularly, again, if you're an independent gym owner,
(18:28):
you gotta talk to strangers. That that's just the game. You you have to talk
to strangers. One thing that Sure. And this has been very important for us, particularly
because my gym in New Jersey, very different brand than Marc Fisher Fitness. It's a
franchise model. It's not personally branded. Why did you do that? Why why why would
you pay a franchise fee? Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me circle back that in
one second, Pete. But, yeah, that's a great question. I always have because people are
often like, what? You evolved to unicorn guy? So,
(18:52):
you know, in that particular brand, you know, we had to get it going. And
certainly, you can you you can indeed do probably paid ads. Right? In 2024,
everybody everybody some people are upset because it's
not as cheap as it was. And in a lot of markets, like, listen, I'm
in Midtown Manhattan, even North New Jersey. It's like petting a deer.
Right? It's like like it's it's pretty burnt out. Like, people you have the the
(19:12):
amount of follow-up needs to happen. Your show rates are not gonna be what they
are. Some of you listening might be lucky. If you're in a smaller market, you
can still have markets where it doesn't look like that. So you do have to
have a page strategy, but the page strategy cannot replace press and flash. It
can't replace talking to other local business partners. It can't replace, you
know, Orange Theory. Listen, they built a lot of their brands going in the parking
(19:32):
lots in front of Target and just talking to strangers and offering them free workouts.
Right? And that play, I think still works even more sophisticated
markets. You can't really replace that. Now it's gonna cost you time,
in ways that you might prefer to, and I would I suspect, you you
know, probably a lot of people you work with probably prefer just be appropriately capitalized
to spend when you need to spend on a grand opening because, you know, it's
(19:54):
hard to climb up that hill if you don't get where you wanna go after
opening. So, to sidebar for a second as far as the
thinking behind the franchise. Yeah. I mean, listen. I've known Rick for a lot of
years. We've we've spoken together a lot of events. Mark
Fisher Fitness, I love so much. I've learned so
much from it. It's done amazing stuff I'm so proud of, and it I just
(20:14):
knew it wasn't gonna scale. Right? There's a lot of operational complexity in that
business. A lot of things I didn't I didn't know. Right? I did a lot
of things right intuitively, but I didn't make a simple business. Right? It made
a really cool, confusing business. You know? Also, it made a
lot of money. Yeah. It's it made a lot of money over the years, but,
you know, it's not really designed to scale. And even the brand, you know, it
I I don't think it took a takes a business genius to say you're probably
(20:37):
not gonna have, like, the, you know, the the unicorn ninja glittery rainbow
whatever gym in in Nebraska. So, you know, to my mind, I was
thinking about, you know, what kind of the next opportunity might be.
I I've done you know, this is maybe getting a little bit of weeds, but
I've done other kinds of investing. For me, I was just more interested in something
where I could put my my thumb on the scale and maybe get a better
return because I'm going into something where I can affect the return, and I'm coming
(21:00):
in batteries included. It also was a situation where I happen to have an operating
partner on the ground that was willing to be the on the ground guy and
do most of it. So it allowed me kind of a favorable position to essentially
function as an equity adviser while I have somebody to do the stuff, and I
consult and I can advise. And then, of course, also, you know, I just
like learning. Right? You know? And I knew that for me also knowing
(21:21):
Rick, I like the model. I even welcomed and this is why it's not a
good fit for everybody. Right? Because, again, I know I'm like a unicorn guy. But,
first of all, I'm an operator heart, number one. Right? So I don't mind, like,
run the play. And number two, I didn't mind binding myself with some
limitations on adding some of the complexity built in the MFF,
particularly if I'm looking to do it at scale and really through other people,
(21:42):
and build a model that, you know, it's we're not talking McDonald's in the
fitness industry. Right? But the advantage of a good franchise model is you don't need
geniuses to run the system. Now listen. I have some amazing people I work with
there, and you're always gonna be better off with awesome people. But I think
they've built a mouse trap that made a lot of sense to me, and I
thought I would learn things. And, I thought it would ultimately be a good investment,
(22:04):
and I believe that's true. Well, I like to throw batteries
included, by the way. I don't think anyone's used that before. Okay. Like Yeah.
Sure. I stole from somebody, but yeah.
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose. Higher Dose
(22:24):
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(22:46):
get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end
up saturating your market. Having your members walk out of the club and
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(23:08):
wholesale code, and we look forward to helping
you augment your products and services to meet the demands of
your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy,
and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.
Yes. It's you you got a successful consulting firm. You've also got,
(23:30):
you know, a successful location. So as you thought about
potential exit strategies or so somebody knocked on your door and
said, hey. I wanna buy you. Yeah. What are some of the things that went
through your head, you know, financially? What are some of the things that went through
your head emotionally? And and and where are you at right now?
Yeah. So Maybe you could dispose of maybe knees or no knees. Yeah. Yeah.
(23:52):
So, I think we've we've said this explicitly. But yeah. So this isn't
at the time of this recording, this will be very popular by the times go
live, but I'm in the process of finishing, signing
a seller purchase agreement for Mark Fisher Fitness. So, yeah, it's
interesting because this type of gym, particularly a gym, you know,
named Mark Fisher Fitness is like, hashtag key man risk.
(24:13):
So, you know, it is great advice to think about the exit going in.
Candidly, I didn't. Like, I was an actor that I, like, accidentally opened up
this weird, like, unicorn gym for my friends, and it did really well.
And, listen, I don't wanna undersell myself. Like, I think I I took to this
well, and I'd like I'm real I consider myself a real student of the game
of business. But, you know, in practice, in the beginning,
(24:35):
we would joke, not joke, the exit strategy. We were just gonna, like, light it
on fire whenever we're just gonna burn it down when we're done. Right? Yeah. We'll
just be oh, now it's done. We saw walk out naked, and we're like, that
was a chapter. Right? And, you know, that that's an okay way to
go. Right? But the problem is if you like the the
the community, if you like the mission, if you like what this business is and
how it functions in the world, you know, it's all cute to say, like, I'm
(24:58):
just gonna burn it down, but you want to have a nice home. Right? And
but, of course, selling an independent gym is not without
challenges. Right? And it's an interesting moment in my corner of the industry, right, because
you're seeing the the rise, the aging actually, of these independent
gym owners that, you know, kind of where the first generation like me
to maybe have, like, a little bit more business awareness. We opened up our gyms,
(25:19):
at least in the small group. I don't mean to suggest that people weren't doing
good stuff before my generation, but this sort of smaller coaching
centric independent model, And some of them, you know, had done
pretty well over the years, and your what you want from your life begins to
change. Right? And I got to the place where, like, I'm thinking of I think
a little bit more like an investor. I don't mind getting my hands in the
operation, but I like to think more about the models. And I
(25:43):
love MFF, but the consulting business has been starting to really
grow at a really nice clip. It's the work that I'm on fire about. And,
you know, it's interesting. I I attempted candidly to run the
business without an operation role the past couple years, and it was just it was
just hard and things that, you know, like, I, you know, know on some level,
if you don't have somebody there, it's really driving the vision of the
(26:05):
business. It's it's hard to do, and you have to,
you know, it's a particular type of person could do that. And listen, my team
is amazing. Right? I'm not taking away anything from them. I think they've done a
great job of running it in my absence, but just got to the place from
the one hand for me. I was like, alright. Listen. I have this other opportunity
that I'm on fire about. I have a a two and a half year old
daughter. Right? And I have a very brief window with her. It's very important for
(26:28):
me to optimize my life in a way I can spend time with her. And
then three, I really want this business to be loved and cared for with passion,
with somebody's on fire every day to get up and solve the problems
that that business needs to be solved. And we got
lucky and that, like, you know, this was the, yeah,
I mean, a little bit like one of those crazy karmic things. We had a
(26:49):
someone that had been a trainer for four years, who had been a coaching client
for five years, who had opened and grown a pretty cool business in
Gowanus that was, you know, not, you know, not
somewhat related to MFF's brand in a lot of ways. And it just so happened
he was starting to think about, okay. I'm ready to start to search for another
location. I really wanna understand what it would take to scale this just as my
(27:10):
business partner and I were starting to think about, okay, what might be an off
ramp here that, would allow us to trust that
this business is going to have an opportunity to flourish with someone getting their arms
around it. And then so that our brains can can be freed. Right?
Because, you know, it's all well and good, I think, to own multiple businesses. And,
like, Tony Robbins has, like, a hundred and five business he owns. You can't
(27:31):
operate multiple businesses. Right? And I just found and and, admittedly, part of this
might be my own, you know, speaking of some of the emotions of this too,
Pete. It's like, part of it
is I I just think there's no way for the current as much as I
tend to not be operating this year, true, that wasn't even on the org chart.
Right? And my business partner who's fifty fifty owner, he hasn't worked in the business
(27:51):
in, like, four years. Right? But for me, I would be lying if I didn't
say it continued to take up a fair bit of psychic space. Right? I had
always made myself very accessible as, like, the small business pizza shop owner.
So, you know, it's was not uncommon for both team members or clients,
to come to me directly if there either was an issue or positive feedback or
something something. And I think for my brain space
(28:14):
to free myself up, I think for this next phase as an entrepreneur and what
I foresee is my opportunities, I just decided it was time to make a clean
break. We were able to find a deal that we felt was favorable for both
sides, and I'm very excited for them and and will, you know, do my best
to support them and cheer them on and, while I get to pursue other things
with space that's now created. Gotcha. Awesome.
(28:36):
Alright, man. We'll we'll we'll put a, a a follow-up here on the,
the actual press release. Congratulations on on the success there.
And, I'm assuming once this deal goes through, you're still gonna be part of
the halo sector and hustling away. %. Yeah. Now I'm, like, life in this
industry. Yeah. Like, I just I love fitness. I love this biz. I love, like,
yeah, I love every all all I do is think about, like, gyms all day
(28:58):
long. I mean, it's like, I love it so much, and I'm excited I get
to do it as a career. Awesome. Alright, man. Thanks for being on. Hopefully, we've
got a little bit of a a piece of wisdom here on, a couple different
things on how to optimize your business from a person who's
got a lot of experience and experience where you get when you don't get you
what we want, and he is gonna help us sidetrack that way there,
(29:19):
whether his name's on the door or not. Awesome. Yeah, man. Appreciate it, Pete.
Thanks.
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wizard. Go get them.
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing a
(01:07):
longtime listener and one of the movers and shakers
in our field of Halo, Mark Fisher. Mark
Fisher Fitness, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you so
much. Very, very happy to be here. Awesome. So you're a unicorn
guy. Yeah. Why don't you start off giving us the true story of Mark Fisher
fitness in the, accidental,
(01:29):
unintended consequence Yes. Of venue
light. The sort of tale. The sort of tale. Yeah. So so,
yeah, I let's see. My background, I kinda got
into the space as the, you know, skinny guy that
started working out in high school, hoping girls are gonna talk to me.
Went on to get a bachelor of fine arts in the musical theater,
(01:51):
and that definitely proved my odds, to make out with girls, but also
allowed me to have another incentive to start working out to take my
physique seriously. I spent my twenties pursuing a career as a
professional actor in New York City. I did okay with that, but I
really caught the fitness bug. And what started as this hobby, this
respite from the uncertain uncertain world of show business
(02:14):
became this thing that I was really, really passionate about. I really, really got into.
So throughout my twenties, I developed something of a niche following in the
Broadway community. And then, you know, right around time I turned 30
years old, I had just done a, a national commercial for Allstate.
So I got a chunk of money. So for people not familiar, if you do
national commercials, you know, it that's actually passive income. Right? So so I
(02:35):
have this money come in, and I decided myself, I'm like, alright. I
think I'm a I think I'm a TV film actor now. So I tell my
agents, I'm like, alright. I'm not going to do regional theater anymore. I'm gonna stick
in the city. And while I was here, you know, I had these latent
entrepreneur aspirations that I think were bubbling up at this time, and I was
studying the the nascent origins of the online fitness space.
(02:56):
I was following sort of the first wave. You couldn't really call them, like, influencers,
but, you know, this era and the late two thousands for people that are, like,
you know, strength and conditioning nerds, you had the advent of a website called T
Nation that introduced the works of, like, Mike Boyle and Charles Poliquin and
Dan John, all these, like, legends of the field. And I wanted to
make something that was reflective of the work of my
(03:18):
mentors, but I wanted to make it for my friends. And my friends are Broadway
people. So I've always been something of a, you know, eccentric, I
guess you could say, and a reverent guy. So we created this
interesting brand that was largely derived from me speaking out of tongues and
my business partner codifying it. So for people not familiar, Marc
Fisher Fitness doesn't call our members clients, so we call them ninjas.
(03:40):
And, we don't use the term gym because a lot of our members are not
gym people. They don't like gyms. So we call it the enchanted ninja clubhouse of
glory and dreams. And, our mascot is the unicorn. And, you know,
the final thing I'll say before we open up to follow-up questions here is the
tagline is ridiculous human serious fitness. So to be very clear,
a lot of that can have the veneer of lightness, but my background's,
(04:02):
like, pretty intensive rigor strength and conditioning. What I really wanted to make was
the meat and potatoes of best practices that would encapsulate what I
believe to be the best way to take care of a body through training, nutrition,
even behavior change psychology. I just wanted to deliver in a way that was a
little bit more interesting for my pals. And, yeah, it's been been quite quite the
wild run. That turned out there was definitely a market for people that wanted the
(04:24):
fitness to be good, but maybe didn't feel comfortable in some of the traditional spaces
and places that were available to them. So that's kinda how we got here. And
and as you kinda came up with these, you know,
Broadway ask or almost like, you know,
movie script related, you know Yep.
Colloquialisms. Let's say. Is that the right answer or might be? Yeah. I think
(04:46):
that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did that kinda, like like, bring down
some of the barriers to say, like, look. This might be hard and this might
take a lot of work, but, like, we're gonna have fun doing this together and
don't take yourself. We don't take ourselves as seriously as you maybe,
you know Yep. Think we should. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it. Right? And I'll
I'll, you know, for the benefit of listeners that might be listening with a kid
(05:07):
in the car, I'll spare you the some of the specific metaphors we've used internally,
but fair to say, some of them are pretty blue. Right? We really kind of
push the limits of, maybe what was acceptable, but exactly
for that rationale. Right? And I think we got away with it because there was
an aggressive nurturing, like, an aggressive almost wholesomeness
to it. And the whole point was precisely that. Right? Like, you can't feel
(05:28):
awkward and insecure about yourself if we're too busy, like, having
fun and being silly and playing. Right? And, again, it's it's a little bit of
an art because it it has always been very important as to be a coaching
centric facility. Right? Like, we're like nerds. Right? You're imposing loads on
someone's body. Things like, you know, biomechanics matter, joint position
matters. But, ultimately, if people are not coming in, if they're not compliant, if they
(05:50):
don't like the experience, we're not getting what we want out of this.
And we, I think, really benefit from day one having just, like, a very crystal
clear avatar and a very specific kind of person that we thought would, you know,
want the good results, but, you know, might benefit from a little bit of a
comedic lubrication, shall we say. Comedic lubrication. I like
that. So so what are some of the early wins that you had related
(06:11):
to to how you positioned it? And, you know, you had
your niche following already Yeah. In the industry that you're in.
Yeah. How how did you expand that, and and how did that is
that something that's a playbook, or is that something that happens, like, was is that,
like, special sauce? Yeah. I think there's pieces of it that are
playbook, but not quite to that, you know,
(06:33):
like a Lollapalooza style, like wham bam, like, holy crap. Right? Because
the thing about this is right? So most of my work, I I should mention
briefly these days, is coaching consulting on the business of gyms. Right? And,
specifically, I work with personal trainers and strength coaches that open up
gyms and are dismayed to understand they need to understand marketing, they need
to understand workers' comp, they need to understand performance check ins, etcetera, etcetera.
(06:55):
Right? So one of the first things I will do with people, which is still
a good move, you know, there might be listeners that are relatively sophisticated, but just
haven't thought to do this is part of the game of marketing is people have
to know you before they're gonna hire you. And in most situations, they need to
kinda have some like and trust before they move forward. Right? You do you don't
go right direct to offer, though. You know, put that aside. You probably can with
certain page strategies these days. So the first move, I think, is to
(07:18):
sort of develop what is your database of the people you already have relationship with.
And for the love of God, at least let them know that you've opened up
a gym, that you have this opportunity. You know, fitness is interesting too because
virtually everybody, at least in theory, benefits from a fitness product. I'm not
suggesting you're gonna hard sell your grandma. I am suggesting that if you have a
business that people in your life would benefit from potentially working with
(07:38):
you and would get value from, you should probably at least let them know on
some regular basis that exists. And in Mark Fisher Fitness, we did that,
but the thing that is distinct is number one, I had been professional actor
spending my, you know, twenties. I was a friendly guy, right, hanging out in the
bars in Hell's Kitchen. And, you know, I did I did a lot of shows,
and I didn't do long range shows, but I went from show to show. So
between myself and my cofounders, we literally knew by name
(08:02):
probably 3,000 I'm not exaggerating. Probably, like, 3,000 people we actually
knew. Right? And both of us basically now this is maybe not the best, like,
you know, can spam, maybe not the most, you know, friendly, for
what you should do for email marketing in 2024. But we
basically just started talking to all our friends, basically dumped in our entire contact
database. So that I think was useful because even at that time, I was
(08:24):
hammering email marketing. Right? I was, like, several times a week. I was trying to
get value. I was establishing a brand. I was thinking from their perspective. Okay.
What are their questions? What are their problems? And how do I help them
and put on paper or digital paper things that will be useful to
them? I think the other thing that was uniquely valuable about Marc Fisher Fitness,
it's harder to replicate is in general, people talk a lot
(08:46):
about niching. And for I'll say this for a lot of my clients, I don't
reject that claim. But in practice, you know, depending on your market, you're only gonna
niche down so far. Right? If you're, like, you know, say, like, a a town.
Right? You open up a gym and you're doing small group personal training, whatever. Right?
You're not gonna be like, I'm looking for, you know, men the ages of 37
to 39 that are former professional athletes that have two kids or may you know?
(09:08):
But at Mark Fisher Fitness, because the Broadway community had the distinction of number
one, consisting of, you know, probably 10,000 people.
And number two, a a very specific geography because, you know,
all the Broadway theaters are in a very specific area. That
that was a a useful strategy. It's, I think, kinda hard to pull from. And
I'll say, I think we've leveraged the hell out of it. Right? We utterly crushed
(09:29):
it, but it's hard to imagine, another specific situation
where you have a community both that large, that insular, and then
really anchored in a very specific, geography.
This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this
company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards
(09:51):
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
members without having to do zero down and one month
free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What
you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that
people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards
(10:13):
vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.
They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be
able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your
club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and
outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them
to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded
(10:35):
properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.
You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This
is real.
Did you morph into, you know, doing Broadway
workouts for people that aspire to actually work on
Broadway? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. It's it's sort of evolved
(10:57):
over the past few years. Right? Because we still work with definitely people in the
Broadway community. In the beginning, it was kinda all Broadway all the time,
and it was a mix of people, I think, that were aspiring
to become Broadway Performers. We you know, at one point, I had written down. At
one point, it was like I mean, at one point, we literally had, like, 20
plus Tony winners that were, like, part of our membership base. Right? And we're in
(11:19):
New York City. We're very large by the standards of this sort of independent brick
and mortar gym, but, you know, we're not like 10,000 people. Right? So you had
a combination of established industry players. You also had a lot of behind the scenes
people, and that was also a big piece for us for a long time too.
Now over the past several years, I I think that has evolved. I think
we still work with members of Broadway community, but I think it's zoomed out
(11:40):
a little bit more broadly to, you know, people in the Hell's Kitchen
area that don't feel comfortable in gym spaces. As you might imagine, it leads
pretty heavily, queer identifying particularly for the men. So, again, we still
work with a lot of Broadway people, but I would say it's opened up over
the past several years to a with with love, we sometimes say the Isle Of
Misfit toys. Right? If you if you ate lunch alone in a bathroom
(12:01):
stall in middle school, you'll you'll likely understand what's going on here.
Right. Right. And and then the the follow-up question to that is, as
you're helping more and more companies, you know, from a
consulting standpoint, how much of that is, like, creating a new
playbook every time or basically, like, hey. Look. And we've got a book that that
we wrote. It's like, here's your playbook. Yeah. You know, you could modify off of
(12:23):
that, but there are certain things that we've learned
that, like, there's no way to to to go to to shortcut.
Yeah. No. I I think that's yeah. That that's precisely right. And when I think
about, like, how somebody gets better and and
I might suggest this is probably principle for any field, but certainly in the world
of, you know, independent brick and mortar gym owners. Right? So, again, so for context,
(12:45):
you know, we're looking at, you know, the relatively smaller businesses. Right? We're looking
anywhere from, let's say, 200 k to maybe maybe 2,000,000 per unit.
We're looking for one to five locations per owner depending who we're working with. And
we've recently started working more with franchises. Right? Because I'll also
mention briefly, I don't know if you know this, Pete. I also am a franchisee,
and I I'm a co owner of, an alloy personal training unit in New
(13:07):
Jersey, which is an emerging, small group personal training brand, Rickmay.
Yep. Yep. So so as far as what, you know, we think is best
for people, it's like you don't wanna make it up totally, and you probably don't
wanna totally copy paste. Right? So when we work with people, we do have a
library of very specific playbooks broken down by business function.
And, you know, a lot of the game is helping the owner think through, okay,
(13:29):
sequentially, what is the rate limiting factor? What is the constraint? Because
you do have to make some decisions. You can't do everything all at once, and
we find having as copy pastable done for you playbooks as you
can to be a valuable starting point. And then in practice, people are gonna have
to vary, both, you know, in some cases based on the
market, in some cases based on the model, and in some cases based on the
(13:50):
level of sophistication of the owner. Right? I mean, we don't need to go fully
down the weeds here. But as an example, right, depending on the owner's relative
skill at something like sales, that may or may not lend itself to various
different front end offers and and sales funnels. When
when you take on a new client, and I've had this experience, so I
wanna see if it's similar to yours. I'll
(14:12):
go in and somebody's kinda like at the at the end of their rope or
the Yeah. You know, it's like they got a month of runway left. It's like,
did you ever think about calling me like three months ago, four months ago? Maybe
when I had a little more time, you know, to turn this shit. So how
do you do you take on every assignment? Obviously, you got a lot of
empathy for your rescuer like I am and you wanna help everybody.
(14:33):
But Yeah. You have to help everybody. Like, you know,
like, someone called me up and be like, hey. I need to sell my studio.
Like, when? And they're like, you know, I need to sell by, like, December 1
or I'm in default. I'm like Right. You know, we got a holiday. Like, I'm
on the road right now. I'm hanging out with my buddy for his birthday. Yeah.
Just turned 53. Ranger fan, obviously.
(14:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's
Right. Yeah. It's tough because, you know, we wanna help them all, but, I mean,
the way we think about it and, again, I we we do have some
leeway based on the individual. But in general, if you're
looking for someone doing an ongoing coaching, if they wanna hire us some workers for
a year on retainer, where most situations, we're gonna be looking for at least a
(15:15):
15 k, revenue per month minimum. Right? Minimum.
If somebody is, you know, wants more help with
just marketing and they wanna engage us for a twelve week marketing sprint, that's
gonna be a little bit less of a commitment. And if you have 30 clients
in your own space, then, you know, we think there's enough juice there
that we can potentially help you. But, like, here's the real talk, Pete. Right? Here's
(15:37):
here's, like, here's the ugly talk. Here's what no one wants to say about. Right?
Yeah. Let's do it, man. You might suck. Turns you up. You might be bad.
Do you know what I mean? Like, so you might have, like, so and to
be very clear, if you're listening to this, you know, and I'm triggering the hell
out of you, though I don't know how many people with, you know, eight clients
are listening to listening to Halo, but maybe you are. Maybe you're a real, like,
killer up and comer. In practice to my mind, if you've got again, that's a
(15:57):
crude algorithm, but if you're 30 clients, like, okay. There's kind of the thing
happening here. Further, you know, if some of the plays are
things like, if you don't wanna do paid ads. Right? Okay. Well, what do we
got? Alright. Well, let's talk to referrals. Well, filling out seven clients, that's
that's a volume game. Okay. Well, let's talk to former clients. Oh, I don't have
any former clients. Okay. Okay. Right. So, so I
(16:18):
like to see people get, like, a certain proof of concept. And, again, I I
don't mean to say that that's, like, a % guaranteed. Further, my
if I'm looking to help somebody to your point, like, I wanna help you, but
I got a lot of free stuff. Right? I've killed myself. There's, like, free books.
There's there's there's podcast. There's YouTubes, and I'm very happy to send
people some content. And if they're able to run
(16:38):
with it, you know, hopefully, they can get at least to the starting
gate, which for me is at least 30 clients. And then from there, hopefully, we
can work with you. Now, again, you know, as we both well know, that doesn't
speak to profit margin. That doesn't speak to coachability. That doesn't speak to
all sorts of other things that are important. So, you know Yep. I'm I'm sure
you're the same. Right? You do your best to, like, suss it out to, you
(16:59):
know, set expectations in a very direct way, and then, you you know, you figure
it out together. And, you know, the longer I've been in the game
yeah. I think, yeah, I think, what I say with great
respect, I think sometimes, like, firing crimes is, like, underrated. If you know this is
just not the right fit, it's not in everybody's best interest. And I think there's
ways to do that that are professional and respectful in everyone's best
interest. So so before we get to the, to to
(17:22):
to, an overview of the announcement that you're gonna make that'll be after the
podcast launch Yeah. Just, relates to your business. Give me, like,
three situations where you went into a consulting
assignment, and you had an moment. And that
moment resulted in what? Did it result in
somebody adding workout recovery because they had extra
(17:44):
space? Did they take out towel service and put in a service that
optimized revenue? Did they completely overhaul all
their personal trainers because they found out that these weren't the right
fit? Or did we did you scrap, like, their
marketing plan because they were going after a completely wrong demographic and forgot who they
were? Something like along those lines. Yeah. What are some examples? I I
(18:07):
mean, like, you know, a lot of my work, you know, is focused
on the marketing piece. And, certainly, you know, there we have plenty of,
like, very specific testimony as far as results. I mean, thinking about things that are,
you know, maybe useful for listeners that I have learned by work with people. It's
like, oh, oh, oh, and and, again, some people listening is gonna be obvious. Right?
The first one is, you know, particularly, again, if you're an independent gym owner,
(18:28):
you gotta talk to strangers. That that's just the game. You you have to talk
to strangers. One thing that Sure. And this has been very important for us, particularly
because my gym in New Jersey, very different brand than Marc Fisher Fitness. It's a
franchise model. It's not personally branded. Why did you do that? Why why why would
you pay a franchise fee? Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me circle back that in
one second, Pete. But, yeah, that's a great question. I always have because people are
often like, what? You evolved to unicorn guy? So,
(18:52):
you know, in that particular brand, you know, we had to get it going. And
certainly, you can you you can indeed do probably paid ads. Right? In 2024,
everybody everybody some people are upset because it's
not as cheap as it was. And in a lot of markets, like, listen, I'm
in Midtown Manhattan, even North New Jersey. It's like petting a deer.
Right? It's like like it's it's pretty burnt out. Like, people you have the the
(19:12):
amount of follow-up needs to happen. Your show rates are not gonna be what they
are. Some of you listening might be lucky. If you're in a smaller market, you
can still have markets where it doesn't look like that. So you do have to
have a page strategy, but the page strategy cannot replace press and flash. It
can't replace talking to other local business partners. It can't replace, you
know, Orange Theory. Listen, they built a lot of their brands going in the parking
(19:32):
lots in front of Target and just talking to strangers and offering them free workouts.
Right? And that play, I think still works even more sophisticated
markets. You can't really replace that. Now it's gonna cost you time,
in ways that you might prefer to, and I would I suspect, you you
know, probably a lot of people you work with probably prefer just be appropriately capitalized
to spend when you need to spend on a grand opening because, you know, it's
(19:54):
hard to climb up that hill if you don't get where you wanna go after
opening. So, to sidebar for a second as far as the
thinking behind the franchise. Yeah. I mean, listen. I've known Rick for a lot of
years. We've we've spoken together a lot of events. Mark
Fisher Fitness, I love so much. I've learned so
much from it. It's done amazing stuff I'm so proud of, and it I just
(20:14):
knew it wasn't gonna scale. Right? There's a lot of operational complexity in that
business. A lot of things I didn't I didn't know. Right? I did a lot
of things right intuitively, but I didn't make a simple business. Right? It made
a really cool, confusing business. You know? Also, it made a
lot of money. Yeah. It's it made a lot of money over the years, but,
you know, it's not really designed to scale. And even the brand, you know, it
I I don't think it took a takes a business genius to say you're probably
(20:37):
not gonna have, like, the, you know, the the unicorn ninja glittery rainbow
whatever gym in in Nebraska. So, you know, to my mind, I was
thinking about, you know, what kind of the next opportunity might be.
I I've done you know, this is maybe getting a little bit of weeds, but
I've done other kinds of investing. For me, I was just more interested in something
where I could put my my thumb on the scale and maybe get a better
return because I'm going into something where I can affect the return, and I'm coming
(21:00):
in batteries included. It also was a situation where I happen to have an operating
partner on the ground that was willing to be the on the ground guy and
do most of it. So it allowed me kind of a favorable position to essentially
function as an equity adviser while I have somebody to do the stuff, and I
consult and I can advise. And then, of course, also, you know, I just
like learning. Right? You know? And I knew that for me also knowing
(21:21):
Rick, I like the model. I even welcomed and this is why it's not a
good fit for everybody. Right? Because, again, I know I'm like a unicorn guy. But,
first of all, I'm an operator heart, number one. Right? So I don't mind, like,
run the play. And number two, I didn't mind binding myself with some
limitations on adding some of the complexity built in the MFF,
particularly if I'm looking to do it at scale and really through other people,
(21:42):
and build a model that, you know, it's we're not talking McDonald's in the
fitness industry. Right? But the advantage of a good franchise model is you don't need
geniuses to run the system. Now listen. I have some amazing people I work with
there, and you're always gonna be better off with awesome people. But I think
they've built a mouse trap that made a lot of sense to me, and I
thought I would learn things. And, I thought it would ultimately be a good investment,
(22:04):
and I believe that's true. Well, I like to throw batteries
included, by the way. I don't think anyone's used that before. Okay. Like Yeah.
Sure. I stole from somebody, but yeah.
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose. Higher Dose
(22:24):
dot com. They are the leader in workout
recovery products, infrared technology, LED
light masks, neck enhancers, and other
products such as PMF mats and sauna blankets.
If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train
yet, your time and your stop is now. You gotta
(22:46):
get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end
up saturating your market. Having your members walk out of the club and
going into one of their locations for $200 per
month where they paid 39 to you. Let's become an
expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in
workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a
(23:08):
wholesale code, and we look forward to helping
you augment your products and services to meet the demands of
your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy,
and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.
Yes. It's you you got a successful consulting firm. You've also got,
(23:30):
you know, a successful location. So as you thought about
potential exit strategies or so somebody knocked on your door and
said, hey. I wanna buy you. Yeah. What are some of the things that went
through your head, you know, financially? What are some of the things that went through
your head emotionally? And and and where are you at right now?
Yeah. So Maybe you could dispose of maybe knees or no knees. Yeah. Yeah.
(23:52):
So, I think we've we've said this explicitly. But yeah. So this isn't
at the time of this recording, this will be very popular by the times go
live, but I'm in the process of finishing, signing
a seller purchase agreement for Mark Fisher Fitness. So, yeah, it's
interesting because this type of gym, particularly a gym, you know,
named Mark Fisher Fitness is like, hashtag key man risk.
(24:13):
So, you know, it is great advice to think about the exit going in.
Candidly, I didn't. Like, I was an actor that I, like, accidentally opened up
this weird, like, unicorn gym for my friends, and it did really well.
And, listen, I don't wanna undersell myself. Like, I think I I took to this
well, and I'd like I'm real I consider myself a real student of the game
of business. But, you know, in practice, in the beginning,
(24:35):
we would joke, not joke, the exit strategy. We were just gonna, like, light it
on fire whenever we're just gonna burn it down when we're done. Right? Yeah. We'll
just be oh, now it's done. We saw walk out naked, and we're like, that
was a chapter. Right? And, you know, that that's an okay way to
go. Right? But the problem is if you like the the
the community, if you like the mission, if you like what this business is and
how it functions in the world, you know, it's all cute to say, like, I'm
(24:58):
just gonna burn it down, but you want to have a nice home. Right? And
but, of course, selling an independent gym is not without
challenges. Right? And it's an interesting moment in my corner of the industry, right, because
you're seeing the the rise, the aging actually, of these independent
gym owners that, you know, kind of where the first generation like me
to maybe have, like, a little bit more business awareness. We opened up our gyms,
(25:19):
at least in the small group. I don't mean to suggest that people weren't doing
good stuff before my generation, but this sort of smaller coaching
centric independent model, And some of them, you know, had done
pretty well over the years, and your what you want from your life begins to
change. Right? And I got to the place where, like, I'm thinking of I think
a little bit more like an investor. I don't mind getting my hands in the
operation, but I like to think more about the models. And I
(25:43):
love MFF, but the consulting business has been starting to really
grow at a really nice clip. It's the work that I'm on fire about. And,
you know, it's interesting. I I attempted candidly to run the
business without an operation role the past couple years, and it was just it was
just hard and things that, you know, like, I, you know, know on some level,
if you don't have somebody there, it's really driving the vision of the
(26:05):
business. It's it's hard to do, and you have to,
you know, it's a particular type of person could do that. And listen, my team
is amazing. Right? I'm not taking away anything from them. I think they've done a
great job of running it in my absence, but just got to the place from
the one hand for me. I was like, alright. Listen. I have this other opportunity
that I'm on fire about. I have a a two and a half year old
daughter. Right? And I have a very brief window with her. It's very important for
(26:28):
me to optimize my life in a way I can spend time with her. And
then three, I really want this business to be loved and cared for with passion,
with somebody's on fire every day to get up and solve the problems
that that business needs to be solved. And we got
lucky and that, like, you know, this was the, yeah,
I mean, a little bit like one of those crazy karmic things. We had a
(26:49):
someone that had been a trainer for four years, who had been a coaching client
for five years, who had opened and grown a pretty cool business in
Gowanus that was, you know, not, you know, not
somewhat related to MFF's brand in a lot of ways. And it just so happened
he was starting to think about, okay. I'm ready to start to search for another
location. I really wanna understand what it would take to scale this just as my
(27:10):
business partner and I were starting to think about, okay, what might be an off
ramp here that, would allow us to trust that
this business is going to have an opportunity to flourish with someone getting their arms
around it. And then so that our brains can can be freed. Right?
Because, you know, it's all well and good, I think, to own multiple businesses. And,
like, Tony Robbins has, like, a hundred and five business he owns. You can't
(27:31):
operate multiple businesses. Right? And I just found and and, admittedly, part of this
might be my own, you know, speaking of some of the emotions of this too,
Pete. It's like, part of it
is I I just think there's no way for the current as much as I
tend to not be operating this year, true, that wasn't even on the org chart.
Right? And my business partner who's fifty fifty owner, he hasn't worked in the business
(27:51):
in, like, four years. Right? But for me, I would be lying if I didn't
say it continued to take up a fair bit of psychic space. Right? I had
always made myself very accessible as, like, the small business pizza shop owner.
So, you know, it's was not uncommon for both team members or clients,
to come to me directly if there either was an issue or positive feedback or
something something. And I think for my brain space
(28:14):
to free myself up, I think for this next phase as an entrepreneur and what
I foresee is my opportunities, I just decided it was time to make a clean
break. We were able to find a deal that we felt was favorable for both
sides, and I'm very excited for them and and will, you know, do my best
to support them and cheer them on and, while I get to pursue other things
with space that's now created. Gotcha. Awesome.
(28:36):
Alright, man. We'll we'll we'll put a, a a follow-up here on the,
the actual press release. Congratulations on on the success there.
And, I'm assuming once this deal goes through, you're still gonna be part of
the halo sector and hustling away. %. Yeah. Now I'm, like, life in this
industry. Yeah. Like, I just I love fitness. I love this biz. I love, like,
yeah, I love every all all I do is think about, like, gyms all day
(28:58):
long. I mean, it's like, I love it so much, and I'm excited I get
to do it as a career. Awesome. Alright, man. Thanks for being on. Hopefully, we've
got a little bit of a a piece of wisdom here on, a couple different
things on how to optimize your business from a person who's
got a lot of experience and experience where you get when you don't get you
what we want, and he is gonna help us sidetrack that way there,
(29:19):
whether his name's on the door or not. Awesome. Yeah, man. Appreciate it, Pete.
Thanks.
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