Episode #537: Effective Fitness Strategies and Business Insights with Noam Tamir of TS Fitness

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1:03 This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing thirteen years successful entrepreneur and a guy with an amazing haircut for radio. No. For actually, we could do this on video as well. So, Nolan, Tom, we're good to see you again, and, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Appreciate you. Awesome. So you got your, you got your diplomas behind you here on, on NYU and, what you built. But first, tell us why you called TS Fitness, and, why'd you decide to start a studio back in the, the early days of 02/2011? So, yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about my backstory. So it's interesting. We met for the first time. I know you were meeting a lot of people, but with Doug LaVine, from founder of Crunch, so that's my alma mater, along with NYU. So I started, as a personal trainer. I worked in the hotel industry for a little bit, was getting my master's degree, became friendly with the trainers at the Neighborhood Crunch. They were telling me a little bit about the industry. They were telling me a little bit about, you know, their flexibility and everything. So I decided to work a little bit more part time, and I became a trainer. Also wanted a free membership. So that was, that was a little a little benefit. So I worked my way up the ranks, was a personal trainer, became a assistant manager, ended up becoming a personal training manager, and then I decided to go off on my own. You know? When you're a personal trainer, it's almost like you're

2:35 an entrepreneur. Mhmm. So you're running your own business. So I said, okay. You know, let me let me do this on my own. I got a a good, you know, Rolodex of clients, so let me give it a shot. I was renting space from a local gym, and then I started doing the numbers. And I said, okay. You know what? These numbers kinda match up. Why don't I open my new space? I know how to manage people. I know how to build a team, and that's what I did. I went out not knowing anything, really about running a business. Made all the mistakes you can miss you you can make. Wrong contractor, wrong hires, paying people too much. So, you know, again, I learned from my mistakes. I think it's one of the best ways to learn. A lot of people hesitate. They don't they're afraid to make mistakes. So that was in 02/2011, opened up TS Fitness. Started off with a lot of just private one on one training, and then slowly migrated to small group training. And that has really been the recipe for success for our fitness studio is doing the small group personalized training. Let let me ask you a question going back to these, you know, mistakes. You know? And those are those are I use all those.

3:50 I've been watching some stoicism related videos. So, like, every mistake or every experience, like, creates an opportunity for something else. So so, you know, if you said, okay. If I would have made a hundred mistakes, let's say, but I only made 50 or or how many did how many less mistakes did you make because you basically went in there and you learned how the crunch personal training model worked? And the reason why I'm asking you this is because some entrepreneurs come into us, and I think they're they're too early to become an entrepreneur. So I spent some years kinda learning or, like, diagnosing how somebody else runs their playbook and their business model. Like, you're kinda said, hey. Look. I did the math on this. I've got a Rolodex for the people that don't know what a Rolodex is. It It used to be where you put your business cards and you flip them, and you actually had, like, a thousand people's business cards alphabetically. Now that's obviously your your Gmail contact list or your your MailChimp list or what have you. So talk about how important it was to to learn on somebody else's dime effectively and working for them and then what you kinda took from there and kinda pieced together as your own, you know, unique playbook, if you will.

5:00 Well, like you said, the numbers are super important, and those are things that I'm still learning more and more about as the business expands. I think that's really important. You gotta know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers, you're destined to, I don't like to say fail. You know, I always say I either learn or I win. You know, there's no failure here. But, yes, if somebody, you know, doesn't have the success that they would like to, a lot of it has to do with the numbers. The other thing is learning how to lead, learning how to manage people. And that's something that Crunch helped me do was learning how to create that team, create that culture, which is really important. Because if you're just doing something on your own and you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to run a brick and mortar business like a fitness business, you are going to burn yourself out trying to do everything. And Yeah.

5:51 You know, coaching people, teaching them, having some systems in place, philosophies in place, I think is really important. We used to do, a lot of staff development, at Crunch. So I think that that's really important. Making sure that you're creating an a growth opportunity for your team, for your employees, I think is very, very important. When you say look at the numbers, what are some of the things that you track on on a daily, weekly, monthly basis that because you focus on the numbers. And the reason why I ask is that there's some groups that we work with, and they say only my numbers, like, right now, who are on you know, won't launch until January, February. But, you know, right now, we're November 18.

6:32 There are some of my clients who'll tell you how they're tracking as of, you know, October 31. There are some groups that might not know their results, you know, only since, like, September. And there are some groups that might say, look. I know what I'm doing every single day. And that's how, like, I'm I I I can't manage the business unless I can measure it. So long winded way of asking you, like, what are some of the things that are important to your business that you can look at or that you get delivered to you daily that gives you, like, a pulse? Are we talking about now, or are we talking about in the past? Like True now. Or, like, when I so when I first started, I really was just looking at my income versus my expenses. I really wasn't looking at, like, how many leads I had, what my conversion rates were, anything like that. But now we do something called the scorecard, and that's something that I've learned through, a couple of the mastermind groups that I'm part of, which Which ones are you part of? So I'm part part of right now, business of strength, which is run by two incredible guys, Joe Riggio and Dan Goodman. They've been really helping me, mentoring me. I was in a previous one that, they were part of. We were in, like, a exclusive section of that mastermind. It was a lot larger, and they were two of the people that really stood out to me. And they have their own mastermind within that. You know, aside from that, it's not they don't compete with one another. Oh. But, but, yeah, they've they've been instrumental in my success. So what's the

8:02 scorecard? This on the scorecard is our revenue, our expenses, the number of members we have, what our attrition rate is, the number of leads we have, the conversions, the the conversions that we have. And that's that's pretty much it, but we're all we're tracking that daily. 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 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.

8:53 So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards 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 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. And you're in the location daily. Correct? I'm in the location daily. Yes. And how how many members and I'm I'm gonna ask you some questions. I think I already know the answer. But at the number of members that you have, how many of those members do you know their name? I know 95% of them. Okay. Sometimes I feel like there are boutiques out there that I've been to.

9:56 Let's say, for example, without naming names, SoulCycle. Now we're just named. I'm sorry about that. Right? I go in there four or five times a week back before COVID when I lived in New York. And I'd say, like, maybe 50% of the staff knew my name or my nickname that I had on my bike, but they didn't really know anything about me, besides my classes, you know, a couple of, like, you know, jokes here and there or, you know, what my shoe size was. What what kind of information are you getting, or do or are you trying to get out of your members to, like, understand, like, what their trigger points are? Or what what might it what maybe might make it hard for them to break up with me? So a big part of it is the team that I have. So I don't have as much contact over the last year with the members. We have, I've I'm on a Second Floor. My office is separate from the gym floor. So quite a bit quite often, I'm in here creating content marketing, sales development, system development, business development. So I do something called the four bullet Friday, where every week I'm emailing all the members. I'm giving them some interesting information.

11:07 I'm making some jokes. I'm getting them to know me, getting them, you know, from helping them, like, understand who I am. K. So so that's how I kinda connect with them. I also make sure to reach out via text every week to new members if I haven't met them yet. Right. If I see a name that I'm unfamiliar with on our attendance sheet, I'll try to go up there and introduce myself. So that's one of the biggest things about our studio is the community. That's what keeps people coming back. We understand that, you know, our client avatar or member avatar is a certain demographic with certain pain points, and we become the solution for that. A big part of it is also checking in with our members. You know, a lot of gyms, a lot of fitness studios, they'll just leave people to their own devices. They don't do check ins with them. They don't see how their progress is. We use a tool called an Enbody.

12:04 It's really just a accountability tool. You know? You see what their body fat percentage is, what their muscle mass is, and the program works. You know? I would say about ninety percent of our members achieve their goals. They're happy with their goals. They come because of the goals that they have, you know, these these pain points, but they stay because of the community. Mhmm. You know, they we do something kind of fun in every single workout, which is an icebreaker. So right away, we're finding out information about our members. What's your favorite sports team? You know? Good. I could see that it's, is it the what is your favorite one? The Giants or the Rangers, would you say? It's a great question. I would say right now, I'm more of a a Ranger fan than a Giants fan because of their success. Their weather plan. Attached to versus their lack of success. So Yeah. But, also, it's a PBIS to get in and out of MetLife Stadium versus walking to the garden. So Oh, in the garden. I went to a Ranger game last night against Kraken. We wanted to know. So, Love it. Yeah. So some of the things you're talking about here, you know, I I joke around, but I'm serious is that you can't have artificial intelligence until you have intelligence. So it sounds like if you know that the my favorite team, you you know, that's gonna be another connectivity point. If you know that you know, and I say this on other podcast. If you know that when I was 12, you know, I used to be a chubby kid, and I used to shop at the Sears department in the husky section because I had to get elastic jeans because I used to eat a lot of sugar. Like, you gotta know that that's a trigger for me.

13:38 And then if I'm in your class and I look like I gained a couple of LBs, you're gonna be like, bro, are we going back to the steers husky section, or are we gonna go into this small group training class? Like, let's get our shit together here. Okay? Stop fucking around. And and those those things also connect you to other members. Yes. You know, they'll start they'll start being banter between two two members, and then they start talking and trying to schedule sessions together. And before you know it, they're hanging out outside of the gym. And that's a connection that we created. And that's how you get, like, a a a member to stay for life. You know? Unfortunately, it is New York City, so you are dealing with a lot of a lot of attrition because of people moving. You know, they move 30 blocks away. They're not coming. I was just You know? I was just asking that because I I live exactly 21 blocks from you right now. And this podcast might the one takeaway from this podcast, regardless of other people, might be I'm gonna become a member of of your location because I wanna get results. And I haven't gotten the the results on my own because I haven't been motivated the last several months to do that. That's my own situation I'm working through. Alright. We should So so but but my question for you is, you know, you're off sixty second first sixty first and second half. Right? So, yeah, sixty first between first and second. Yeah. So my question for you is and for and for you to, like, help other people understand how you do your marketing. Is your marketing a five block radius? Is it a 10 block radius? Is it, hey. People are actually commuting here from One mile. One mile. 20 blocks. 20 blocks is where we do our Google

15:08 Ads, our Facebook Ads. Yeah. That's that's and then, obviously, we get, you know, referrals. So those are the warmest leads you can get, and those, people can travel a little bit more for us. But for the most part, we've really dialed in our marketing to be, you know, 99% of our members are within work or live within one mile. Got it. And then from a standpoint of what you prescribe to people and and the reason why I'm asking you this is because there's a lot of different things that people can and and would like to do, whether it's, hey. I like to I like to go cycling. Maybe that's not something I wanna do three or four days a week. It's like my core workout anymore because I'm not getting the physical results in the mirror that I'm looking for, by cycling. So I need to do more strength training. Are you helping people prescribe, like, hey. This is what you're looking to achieve, and I could be, like, 60 or 70% of that workload.

16:09 And here's what I want you to do on the recovery side, either with us or with or somewhere else. Here's what I want you to do physically outside of taking our small group training classes. So how do you think holistically about giving someone a prescription and maybe understanding or do or overtly based saying, you don't have to come here a % of the time. Like, I'm like your anchor, but I also want you to do other things. I don't wanna pigeonhole you into, like, I'm like your only place, you know, and you listen to me, and and everything has to happen on 60 First Street. Yeah. I I think that strength and conditioning is gonna give you the most bang for your buck, and I think that people are really understanding that. We definitely are getting a lot of people that are coming from us from other more cardiovascular and hit style type of workouts and understanding that they're not getting the results that they want because they are doing more of a calorie burn more than changing their body composition. And, also, the older you get, the harder it is to do that, the more wear and tear on the body. So when we prescribe, which we do, when people come in, based on what they're doing outside of the gym when they come in, we'll suggest either two, three, or four times a week of training. I would say about seventy five percent of our people are coming in about three times per week, and then they're doing some type of cardiovascular or, like, movement based. I'm a big fan of Pilates. I'm a big fan of yoga, you

17:41 know, doing some, we call, zone two training where you're getting your heart rate up. Not super high, but, you know, you're in a place where it's great for your VO two max, which is a term that's really been starting starting to get used a lot a lot more for longevity. So so we're definitely trying to preach to them to get at least five days of movement in per week. Three days of strength training, then two days of something that's going to definitely elevate your heart rate at a, you know, moderate level. Gotcha. And, obviously, nutrition is really, really important. My wife is a nutrition coach. I'm a nutrition coach as well. Twice a year, we run nutrition challenges, and we probably get about, like, a 40%, participation rate out of our members. Wow. And they really learn habits. It's really more of a habit based type of program than this is what you need to eat, and this is the time you need to eat it. So along with that, you know, you're we I'm I'm okay with saying to people that when it comes to weight loss, when it comes to overall health, to be honest, nutrition is 75% of it. Sure. I wish it was more exercise, but it's just not.

18:59 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 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 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're paying 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 wholesale code, and we look forward to helping you all bet your products and services to meet the demands of your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweaty, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

20:09 You know, as you look at yourself as an entrepreneur and, you know, you've had one location since 02/2011, you know, a a number of of entrepreneurs might say, hey. I wanna have a second location. I wanna have a third location. I wanna have a tenth location. At the same time, you know that within a 20 block radius of 60 First Street, there's, like, over a million people that live there. That is like, hey. If I go open up, like, one, I gotta clone myself, which is impossible. Two, you know, the goals I have and the profitability that I could generate from a new location, I might be able to actually do within the four walls of my current location. Or I can remotely put someone into, you know, the field without having to sign another lease. So how do you think about in this kinda new normal of I wanna go to where the members are, or I wanna basically have, like, my headquarters. And I'm not, like, diluting my headquarters.

21:05 And I don't care if I say to you, and I pretend I'm you for a second. Hey, man. I got one location for thirteen years, and someone's like, oh, you only have one location for thirteen years. Like, yeah. That's, like, the point. You know? Like, I got one office for Integrity Square. I don't wanna have five offices, but I accomplished everything out of one office. So how do you think about the psychology of growth and, like, the requirement or the necessity to have another location or be like, hey, man. I'm good. Like, I don't I don't need to be, like, commuting between 60 First And Second and 60 First And Tenth. So that's a great question because I've had this tug of war for the last, I would say, two years. Sure.

21:48 Our facility operates at a great very high efficiency. The one thing that I can say is that if you're gonna open up a second location, you better have somebody that is gonna be an awesome number two. Yep. Either opening up the next location or station that your first location to make sure that things do not, you know, fall off. Yep. So a lot of people will go and open up another location without having that, or they'll, you know, spread themselves so thin. Some people are built like that. Some people can do it. I think I'm somebody that that is built like that, but do I want to do that, has been the question. Now I do have a great number two right now who has developed really well, and I have really kinda more led him than managed him over the last year. I believe that he can run this facility quite well without me here where I can go and open up another facility, and then grow somebody to run that second facility. So I'm definitely in agreement that you can just stay with one location and do quite well, especially in New York City.

23:01 The the challenge for me and the and the kinda, like, head trash that I have is that there's a lot of people in my mastermind group. Nobody's in the city. It's really interesting. Out of the mastermind groups that I've been, nobody is in New York City or in, like, a big like, I mean, there's nothing else like New York City, in this country that is, a, so competitive, but, b, has so much wealth Right. In such a small area. Yeah. So I've seen people in the suburbs open up three, four locations because, a, you have a car. You can drive to locations. B, once you get a person locked into your gym in the suburbs, they're not going anywhere. They're staying thirty or forty years. Your attrition is not gonna be as high as somebody saying to me, oh, I'm moving downtown or, oh, I'm moving to the suburbs. I had a baby, and now we gotta move out because we don't have enough space. So that constant turnover is something that becomes quite a challenge about opening up another location. But if you do it right, your margins can be super high in New York City. Yeah.

24:07 Yeah. And then from a standpoint, talk about, like, your your, the the person that you're talking about here who is number two. How do you manage, you know, here's your level of responsibility, and here's the growth that we can have just where we are so you so you retain, you know, some of the best people? I mean, clear expectations is really important. You know? Having a very good description of responsibilities, roles. You know, one thing that I do to prioritize my day is I'll write out, like, the five biggest things that I need to get done. And that's something that, again, I also translate to my team. I share that with my team, constant pursuit of growth with my team. So that helps them, you know, get locked into their job here. This year was the first time I put people on salary.

25:05 So that type of security you know, people crave security. They want security. They they wanna know that you value them, and a big part of that is showing them that there's a path to growth. So that that's that's how I kinda lock in my number two. I recently also hired a full time sales manager. K. And that's somebody that is doing I mean, it's awesome to see this kid grow. He's my number three, and he is just really rocking. And that, you know, that was done through constant role play, constant growth, reading of books, seminars.

25:47 So, you know, people also crave growth. So seeing that that is those are things that that human beings want, then if they don't, those aren't the right people for you. Right. Right. Awesome. So, you know, in in closing here, what are you most excited about in in 2025? Is it, you know, the fact that people are getting on Ozempic and Wegovo and then coming in and, like, you kind of fast track them to to better health. Are you seeing that people are, you know, wanna get out of their house and and and wanna make change or maybe are more motivated than they were before? Or, is there some other, like, tea leaves that you've picked up that might be, you know, an moment for you or for us, you know, on where the future was?

26:35 Well, going back to location number two, I mean, I'm ready. I'm excited to to go explore that and get locked into that and start working on that and being able to positively impact more people. You know? Yes. It's about, you know, revenue and profit, but the ability to create a whole new community is really, really that's why I got into this business, to be honest, is that I just love community. I love the creating that strength. You know, I say I'm not in the fitness industry. I'm in the strength industry. Yep. You know, you're creating people stronger inside and out. So that that is that's really what I'm most excited about. And, you know, listen. There's going to be you know, I'll tell you one thing. I tried to expand into a Second Floor and start trying to offer group fitness, like classes. Yeah.

27:27 And I realized that that's not my service. I need to stay in my lane. Yep. My lane is small group strength and conditioning sessions, personalized stuff, more of a community, not people just dropping in and doing packages. Then I'm competing with the f 40 fives. I'm competing with the competing with the Orangetheories. That's not what I want. I wanna be in the avenue of between that group fitness classes and one on one training. There's a big, I think this is a big opportunity for a lot of people to get into is a small group Yeah. Semi private training. So that's really what I'm most excited about, going into 02/2025. Awesome. Alright, man. Well, look.

28:08 I'm I'm glad we're able to connect to you. Thanks for coming to the event. Yeah. Congrats on your, on your success and and, really understanding the business that you built. I think a lot of entrepreneurs should take a pause, you know, get their scorecard set up, understand how the business works, and then you can start to scale and put the number two and the number three in place because you actually know what you're trying to get them to achieve and what constitutes a win. So if you don't have a copy of our book yet, we we gotta get one over to you if you'll love it. Called Time to Win You'll you'll have to personally drop it off so we can get you, to experience what the small group training is. You're only $20 for it. I'm not intimidated about walking in there. I'll come in with a book. No problem. Alright. Let's do it.

28:50 We'd love to have you. Alright, man. Well, congrats on what you built. Let's, let's keep it going and, you know, wave the halo flag for us. Oh, for sure. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Awesome. Great work.