Episode #544: Mark Fisher-From Broadway to Building a Unique & Thriving Fitness Community

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I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership

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wizard. Go get them.

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing a

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longtime listener and one of the movers and shakers

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in our field of Halo, Mark Fisher. Mark

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Fisher Fitness, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you so

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much. Very, very happy to be here. Awesome. So you're a unicorn

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guy. Yeah. Why don't you start off giving us the true story of Mark Fisher

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fitness in the, accidental,

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unintended consequence Yes. Of venue

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light. The sort of tale. The sort of tale. Yeah. So so,

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yeah, I let's see. My background, I kinda got

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into the space as the, you know, skinny guy that

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started working out in high school, hoping girls are gonna talk to me.

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Went on to get a bachelor of fine arts in the musical theater,

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and that definitely proved my odds, to make out with girls, but also

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allowed me to have another incentive to start working out to take my

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physique seriously. I spent my twenties pursuing a career as a

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professional actor in New York City. I did okay with that, but I

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really caught the fitness bug. And what started as this hobby, this

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respite from the uncertain uncertain world of show business

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became this thing that I was really, really passionate about. I really, really got into.

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So throughout my twenties, I developed something of a niche following in the

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Broadway community. And then, you know, right around time I turned 30

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years old, I had just done a, a national commercial for Allstate.

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So I got a chunk of money. So for people not familiar, if you do

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national commercials, you know, it that's actually passive income. Right? So so I

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have this money come in, and I decided myself, I'm like, alright. I

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think I'm a I think I'm a TV film actor now. So I tell my

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agents, I'm like, alright. I'm not going to do regional theater anymore. I'm gonna stick

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in the city. And while I was here, you know, I had these latent

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entrepreneur aspirations that I think were bubbling up at this time, and I was

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studying the the nascent origins of the online fitness space.

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I was following sort of the first wave. You couldn't really call them, like, influencers,

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but, you know, this era and the late two thousands for people that are, like,

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you know, strength and conditioning nerds, you had the advent of a website called T

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Nation that introduced the works of, like, Mike Boyle and Charles Poliquin and

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Dan John, all these, like, legends of the field. And I wanted to

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make something that was reflective of the work of my

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mentors, but I wanted to make it for my friends. And my friends are Broadway

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people. So I've always been something of a, you know, eccentric, I

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guess you could say, and a reverent guy. So we created this

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interesting brand that was largely derived from me speaking out of tongues and

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my business partner codifying it. So for people not familiar, Marc

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Fisher Fitness doesn't call our members clients, so we call them ninjas.

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And, we don't use the term gym because a lot of our members are not

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gym people. They don't like gyms. So we call it the enchanted ninja clubhouse of

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glory and dreams. And, our mascot is the unicorn. And, you know,

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the final thing I'll say before we open up to follow-up questions here is the

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tagline is ridiculous human serious fitness. So to be very clear,

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a lot of that can have the veneer of lightness, but my background's,

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like, pretty intensive rigor strength and conditioning. What I really wanted to make was

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the meat and potatoes of best practices that would encapsulate what I

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believe to be the best way to take care of a body through training, nutrition,

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even behavior change psychology. I just wanted to deliver in a way that was a

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little bit more interesting for my pals. And, yeah, it's been been quite quite the

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wild run. That turned out there was definitely a market for people that wanted the

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fitness to be good, but maybe didn't feel comfortable in some of the traditional spaces

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and places that were available to them. So that's kinda how we got here. And

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and as you kinda came up with these, you know,

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Broadway ask or almost like, you know,

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movie script related, you know Yep.

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Colloquialisms. Let's say. Is that the right answer or might be? Yeah. I think

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that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did that kinda, like like, bring down

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some of the barriers to say, like, look. This might be hard and this might

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take a lot of work, but, like, we're gonna have fun doing this together and

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don't take yourself. We don't take ourselves as seriously as you maybe,

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you know Yep. Think we should. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it. Right? And I'll

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I'll, you know, for the benefit of listeners that might be listening with a kid

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in the car, I'll spare you the some of the specific metaphors we've used internally,

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but fair to say, some of them are pretty blue. Right? We really kind of

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push the limits of, maybe what was acceptable, but exactly

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for that rationale. Right? And I think we got away with it because there was

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an aggressive nurturing, like, an aggressive almost wholesomeness

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to it. And the whole point was precisely that. Right? Like, you can't feel

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awkward and insecure about yourself if we're too busy, like, having

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fun and being silly and playing. Right? And, again, it's it's a little bit of

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an art because it it has always been very important as to be a coaching

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centric facility. Right? Like, we're like nerds. Right? You're imposing loads on

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someone's body. Things like, you know, biomechanics matter, joint position

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matters. But, ultimately, if people are not coming in, if they're not compliant, if they

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don't like the experience, we're not getting what we want out of this.

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And we, I think, really benefit from day one having just, like, a very crystal

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clear avatar and a very specific kind of person that we thought would, you know,

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want the good results, but, you know, might benefit from a little bit of a

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comedic lubrication, shall we say. Comedic lubrication. I like

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that. So so what are some of the early wins that you had related

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to to how you positioned it? And, you know, you had

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your niche following already Yeah. In the industry that you're in.

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Yeah. How how did you expand that, and and how did that is

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that something that's a playbook, or is that something that happens, like, was is that,

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like, special sauce? Yeah. I think there's pieces of it that are

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playbook, but not quite to that, you know,

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like a Lollapalooza style, like wham bam, like, holy crap. Right? Because

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the thing about this is right? So most of my work, I I should mention

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briefly these days, is coaching consulting on the business of gyms. Right? And,

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specifically, I work with personal trainers and strength coaches that open up

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gyms and are dismayed to understand they need to understand marketing, they need

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to understand workers' comp, they need to understand performance check ins, etcetera, etcetera.

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Right? So one of the first things I will do with people, which is still

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a good move, you know, there might be listeners that are relatively sophisticated, but just

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haven't thought to do this is part of the game of marketing is people have

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to know you before they're gonna hire you. And in most situations, they need to

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kinda have some like and trust before they move forward. Right? You do you don't

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go right direct to offer, though. You know, put that aside. You probably can with

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certain page strategies these days. So the first move, I think, is to

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sort of develop what is your database of the people you already have relationship with.

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And for the love of God, at least let them know that you've opened up

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a gym, that you have this opportunity. You know, fitness is interesting too because

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virtually everybody, at least in theory, benefits from a fitness product. I'm not

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suggesting you're gonna hard sell your grandma. I am suggesting that if you have a

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business that people in your life would benefit from potentially working with

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you and would get value from, you should probably at least let them know on

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some regular basis that exists. And in Mark Fisher Fitness, we did that,

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but the thing that is distinct is number one, I had been professional actor

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spending my, you know, twenties. I was a friendly guy, right, hanging out in the

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bars in Hell's Kitchen. And, you know, I did I did a lot of shows,

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and I didn't do long range shows, but I went from show to show. So

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between myself and my cofounders, we literally knew by name

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probably 3,000 I'm not exaggerating. Probably, like, 3,000 people we actually

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knew. Right? And both of us basically now this is maybe not the best, like,

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you know, can spam, maybe not the most, you know, friendly, for

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what you should do for email marketing in 2024. But we

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basically just started talking to all our friends, basically dumped in our entire contact

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database. So that I think was useful because even at that time, I was

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hammering email marketing. Right? I was, like, several times a week. I was trying to

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get value. I was establishing a brand. I was thinking from their perspective. Okay.

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What are their questions? What are their problems? And how do I help them

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and put on paper or digital paper things that will be useful to

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them? I think the other thing that was uniquely valuable about Marc Fisher Fitness,

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it's harder to replicate is in general, people talk a lot

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about niching. And for I'll say this for a lot of my clients, I don't

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reject that claim. But in practice, you know, depending on your market, you're only gonna

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niche down so far. Right? If you're, like, you know, say, like, a a town.

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Right? You open up a gym and you're doing small group personal training, whatever. Right?

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You're not gonna be like, I'm looking for, you know, men the ages of 37

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to 39 that are former professional athletes that have two kids or may you know?

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But at Mark Fisher Fitness, because the Broadway community had the distinction of number

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one, consisting of, you know, probably 10,000 people.

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And number two, a a very specific geography because, you know,

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all the Broadway theaters are in a very specific area. That

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that was a a useful strategy. It's, I think, kinda hard to pull from. And

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I'll say, I think we've leveraged the hell out of it. Right? We utterly crushed

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it, but it's hard to imagine, another specific situation

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where you have a community both that large, that insular, and then

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really anchored in a very specific, geography.

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This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this

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company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards

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from retailers that allow you to incentivize your

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members without having to do zero down and one month

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free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What

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you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that

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people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.

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So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards

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vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.

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They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be

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able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your

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club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and

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outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them

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to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded

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properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.

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You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This

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is real.

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Did you morph into, you know, doing Broadway

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workouts for people that aspire to actually work on

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Broadway? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. It's it's sort of evolved

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over the past few years. Right? Because we still work with definitely people in the

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Broadway community. In the beginning, it was kinda all Broadway all the time,

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and it was a mix of people, I think, that were aspiring

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to become Broadway Performers. We you know, at one point, I had written down. At

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one point, it was like I mean, at one point, we literally had, like, 20

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plus Tony winners that were, like, part of our membership base. Right? And we're in

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New York City. We're very large by the standards of this sort of independent brick

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and mortar gym, but, you know, we're not like 10,000 people. Right? So you had

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a combination of established industry players. You also had a lot of behind the scenes

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people, and that was also a big piece for us for a long time too.

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Now over the past several years, I I think that has evolved. I think

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we still work with members of Broadway community, but I think it's zoomed out

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a little bit more broadly to, you know, people in the Hell's Kitchen

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area that don't feel comfortable in gym spaces. As you might imagine, it leads

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pretty heavily, queer identifying particularly for the men. So, again, we still

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work with a lot of Broadway people, but I would say it's opened up over

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the past several years to a with with love, we sometimes say the Isle Of

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Misfit toys. Right? If you if you ate lunch alone in a bathroom

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stall in middle school, you'll you'll likely understand what's going on here.

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Right. Right. And and then the the follow-up question to that is, as

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you're helping more and more companies, you know, from a

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consulting standpoint, how much of that is, like, creating a new

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playbook every time or basically, like, hey. Look. And we've got a book that that

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we wrote. It's like, here's your playbook. Yeah. You know, you could modify off of

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that, but there are certain things that we've learned

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that, like, there's no way to to to go to to shortcut.

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Yeah. No. I I think that's yeah. That that's precisely right. And when I think

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about, like, how somebody gets better and and

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I might suggest this is probably principle for any field, but certainly in the world

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of, you know, independent brick and mortar gym owners. Right? So, again, so for context,

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you know, we're looking at, you know, the relatively smaller businesses. Right? We're looking

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anywhere from, let's say, 200 k to maybe maybe 2,000,000 per unit.

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We're looking for one to five locations per owner depending who we're working with. And

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we've recently started working more with franchises. Right? Because I'll also

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mention briefly, I don't know if you know this, Pete. I also am a franchisee,

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and I I'm a co owner of, an alloy personal training unit in New

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Jersey, which is an emerging, small group personal training brand, Rickmay.

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Yep. Yep. So so as far as what, you know, we think is best

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for people, it's like you don't wanna make it up totally, and you probably don't

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wanna totally copy paste. Right? So when we work with people, we do have a

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library of very specific playbooks broken down by business function.

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And, you know, a lot of the game is helping the owner think through, okay,

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sequentially, what is the rate limiting factor? What is the constraint? Because

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you do have to make some decisions. You can't do everything all at once, and

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we find having as copy pastable done for you playbooks as you

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can to be a valuable starting point. And then in practice, people are gonna have

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to vary, both, you know, in some cases based on the

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market, in some cases based on the model, and in some cases based on the

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level of sophistication of the owner. Right? I mean, we don't need to go fully

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down the weeds here. But as an example, right, depending on the owner's relative

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skill at something like sales, that may or may not lend itself to various

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different front end offers and and sales funnels. When

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when you take on a new client, and I've had this experience, so I

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wanna see if it's similar to yours. I'll

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go in and somebody's kinda like at the at the end of their rope or

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the Yeah. You know, it's like they got a month of runway left. It's like,

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did you ever think about calling me like three months ago, four months ago? Maybe

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when I had a little more time, you know, to turn this shit. So how

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do you do you take on every assignment? Obviously, you got a lot of

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empathy for your rescuer like I am and you wanna help everybody.

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But Yeah. You have to help everybody. Like, you know,

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like, someone called me up and be like, hey. I need to sell my studio.

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Like, when? And they're like, you know, I need to sell by, like, December 1

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or I'm in default. I'm like Right. You know, we got a holiday. Like, I'm

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on the road right now. I'm hanging out with my buddy for his birthday. Yeah.

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Just turned 53. Ranger fan, obviously.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's

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Right. Yeah. It's tough because, you know, we wanna help them all, but, I mean,

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the way we think about it and, again, I we we do have some

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leeway based on the individual. But in general, if you're

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looking for someone doing an ongoing coaching, if they wanna hire us some workers for

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a year on retainer, where most situations, we're gonna be looking for at least a

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15 k, revenue per month minimum. Right? Minimum.

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If somebody is, you know, wants more help with

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just marketing and they wanna engage us for a twelve week marketing sprint, that's

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gonna be a little bit less of a commitment. And if you have 30 clients

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in your own space, then, you know, we think there's enough juice there

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that we can potentially help you. But, like, here's the real talk, Pete. Right? Here's

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here's, like, here's the ugly talk. Here's what no one wants to say about. Right?

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Yeah. Let's do it, man. You might suck. Turns you up. You might be bad.

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Do you know what I mean? Like, so you might have, like, so and to

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be very clear, if you're listening to this, you know, and I'm triggering the hell

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out of you, though I don't know how many people with, you know, eight clients

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are listening to listening to Halo, but maybe you are. Maybe you're a real, like,

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killer up and comer. In practice to my mind, if you've got again, that's a

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crude algorithm, but if you're 30 clients, like, okay. There's kind of the thing

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happening here. Further, you know, if some of the plays are

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things like, if you don't wanna do paid ads. Right? Okay. Well, what do we

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got? Alright. Well, let's talk to referrals. Well, filling out seven clients, that's

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that's a volume game. Okay. Well, let's talk to former clients. Oh, I don't have

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any former clients. Okay. Okay. Right. So, so I

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like to see people get, like, a certain proof of concept. And, again, I I

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don't mean to say that that's, like, a % guaranteed. Further, my

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if I'm looking to help somebody to your point, like, I wanna help you, but

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I got a lot of free stuff. Right? I've killed myself. There's, like, free books.

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There's there's there's podcast. There's YouTubes, and I'm very happy to send

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people some content. And if they're able to run

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with it, you know, hopefully, they can get at least to the starting

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gate, which for me is at least 30 clients. And then from there, hopefully, we

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can work with you. Now, again, you know, as we both well know, that doesn't

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speak to profit margin. That doesn't speak to coachability. That doesn't speak to

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all sorts of other things that are important. So, you know Yep. I'm I'm sure

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you're the same. Right? You do your best to, like, suss it out to, you

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know, set expectations in a very direct way, and then, you you know, you figure

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it out together. And, you know, the longer I've been in the game

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yeah. I think, yeah, I think, what I say with great

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respect, I think sometimes, like, firing crimes is, like, underrated. If you know this is

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just not the right fit, it's not in everybody's best interest. And I think there's

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ways to do that that are professional and respectful in everyone's best

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interest. So so before we get to the, to to

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to, an overview of the announcement that you're gonna make that'll be after the

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podcast launch Yeah. Just, relates to your business. Give me, like,

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three situations where you went into a consulting

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assignment, and you had an moment. And that

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moment resulted in what? Did it result in

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somebody adding workout recovery because they had extra

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space? Did they take out towel service and put in a service that

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optimized revenue? Did they completely overhaul all

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their personal trainers because they found out that these weren't the right

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fit? Or did we did you scrap, like, their

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marketing plan because they were going after a completely wrong demographic and forgot who they

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were? Something like along those lines. Yeah. What are some examples? I I

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mean, like, you know, a lot of my work, you know, is focused

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on the marketing piece. And, certainly, you know, there we have plenty of,

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like, very specific testimony as far as results. I mean, thinking about things that are,

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you know, maybe useful for listeners that I have learned by work with people. It's

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like, oh, oh, oh, and and, again, some people listening is gonna be obvious. Right?

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The first one is, you know, particularly, again, if you're an independent gym owner,

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you gotta talk to strangers. That that's just the game. You you have to talk

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to strangers. One thing that Sure. And this has been very important for us, particularly

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because my gym in New Jersey, very different brand than Marc Fisher Fitness. It's a

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franchise model. It's not personally branded. Why did you do that? Why why why would

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you pay a franchise fee? Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me circle back that in

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one second, Pete. But, yeah, that's a great question. I always have because people are

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often like, what? You evolved to unicorn guy? So,

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you know, in that particular brand, you know, we had to get it going. And

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certainly, you can you you can indeed do probably paid ads. Right? In 2024,

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everybody everybody some people are upset because it's

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not as cheap as it was. And in a lot of markets, like, listen, I'm

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in Midtown Manhattan, even North New Jersey. It's like petting a deer.

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Right? It's like like it's it's pretty burnt out. Like, people you have the the

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amount of follow-up needs to happen. Your show rates are not gonna be what they

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are. Some of you listening might be lucky. If you're in a smaller market, you

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can still have markets where it doesn't look like that. So you do have to

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have a page strategy, but the page strategy cannot replace press and flash. It

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can't replace talking to other local business partners. It can't replace, you

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know, Orange Theory. Listen, they built a lot of their brands going in the parking

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lots in front of Target and just talking to strangers and offering them free workouts.

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Right? And that play, I think still works even more sophisticated

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markets. You can't really replace that. Now it's gonna cost you time,

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in ways that you might prefer to, and I would I suspect, you you

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know, probably a lot of people you work with probably prefer just be appropriately capitalized

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to spend when you need to spend on a grand opening because, you know, it's

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hard to climb up that hill if you don't get where you wanna go after

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opening. So, to sidebar for a second as far as the

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thinking behind the franchise. Yeah. I mean, listen. I've known Rick for a lot of

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years. We've we've spoken together a lot of events. Mark

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Fisher Fitness, I love so much. I've learned so

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much from it. It's done amazing stuff I'm so proud of, and it I just

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knew it wasn't gonna scale. Right? There's a lot of operational complexity in that

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business. A lot of things I didn't I didn't know. Right? I did a lot

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of things right intuitively, but I didn't make a simple business. Right? It made

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a really cool, confusing business. You know? Also, it made a

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lot of money. Yeah. It's it made a lot of money over the years, but,

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you know, it's not really designed to scale. And even the brand, you know, it

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I I don't think it took a takes a business genius to say you're probably

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not gonna have, like, the, you know, the the unicorn ninja glittery rainbow

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whatever gym in in Nebraska. So, you know, to my mind, I was

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thinking about, you know, what kind of the next opportunity might be.

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I I've done you know, this is maybe getting a little bit of weeds, but

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I've done other kinds of investing. For me, I was just more interested in something

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where I could put my my thumb on the scale and maybe get a better

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return because I'm going into something where I can affect the return, and I'm coming

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in batteries included. It also was a situation where I happen to have an operating

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partner on the ground that was willing to be the on the ground guy and

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do most of it. So it allowed me kind of a favorable position to essentially

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function as an equity adviser while I have somebody to do the stuff, and I

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consult and I can advise. And then, of course, also, you know, I just

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like learning. Right? You know? And I knew that for me also knowing

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Rick, I like the model. I even welcomed and this is why it's not a

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good fit for everybody. Right? Because, again, I know I'm like a unicorn guy. But,

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first of all, I'm an operator heart, number one. Right? So I don't mind, like,

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run the play. And number two, I didn't mind binding myself with some

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limitations on adding some of the complexity built in the MFF,

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particularly if I'm looking to do it at scale and really through other people,

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and build a model that, you know, it's we're not talking McDonald's in the

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fitness industry. Right? But the advantage of a good franchise model is you don't need

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geniuses to run the system. Now listen. I have some amazing people I work with

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there, and you're always gonna be better off with awesome people. But I think

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they've built a mouse trap that made a lot of sense to me, and I

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thought I would learn things. And, I thought it would ultimately be a good investment,

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and I believe that's true. Well, I like to throw batteries

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included, by the way. I don't think anyone's used that before. Okay. Like Yeah.

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Sure. I stole from somebody, but yeah.

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This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose. Higher Dose

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dot com. They are the leader in workout

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recovery products, infrared technology, LED

380
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light masks, neck enhancers, and other

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products such as PMF mats and sauna blankets.

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If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train

383
00:22:43,015 --> 00:22:46,855
yet, your time and your stop is now. You gotta

384
00:22:46,855 --> 00:22:50,535
get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end

385
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up saturating your market. Having your members walk out of the club and

386
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going into one of their locations for $200 per

387
00:22:57,750 --> 00:23:01,270
month where they paid 39 to you. Let's become an

388
00:23:01,270 --> 00:23:04,950
expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in

389
00:23:04,950 --> 00:23:08,675
workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a

390
00:23:08,675 --> 00:23:12,195
wholesale code, and we look forward to helping

391
00:23:12,195 --> 00:23:15,955
you augment your products and services to meet the demands of

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00:23:15,955 --> 00:23:19,655
your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy,

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and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

394
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Yes. It's you you got a successful consulting firm. You've also got,

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you know, a successful location. So as you thought about

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potential exit strategies or so somebody knocked on your door and

397
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said, hey. I wanna buy you. Yeah. What are some of the things that went

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through your head, you know, financially? What are some of the things that went through

399
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your head emotionally? And and and where are you at right now?

400
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Yeah. So Maybe you could dispose of maybe knees or no knees. Yeah. Yeah.

401
00:23:52,140 --> 00:23:55,820
So, I think we've we've said this explicitly. But yeah. So this isn't

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at the time of this recording, this will be very popular by the times go

403
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live, but I'm in the process of finishing, signing

404
00:24:02,780 --> 00:24:06,345
a seller purchase agreement for Mark Fisher Fitness. So, yeah, it's

405
00:24:06,345 --> 00:24:09,945
interesting because this type of gym, particularly a gym, you know,

406
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named Mark Fisher Fitness is like, hashtag key man risk.

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So, you know, it is great advice to think about the exit going in.

408
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Candidly, I didn't. Like, I was an actor that I, like, accidentally opened up

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this weird, like, unicorn gym for my friends, and it did really well.

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And, listen, I don't wanna undersell myself. Like, I think I I took to this

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well, and I'd like I'm real I consider myself a real student of the game

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of business. But, you know, in practice, in the beginning,

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we would joke, not joke, the exit strategy. We were just gonna, like, light it

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on fire whenever we're just gonna burn it down when we're done. Right? Yeah. We'll

415
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just be oh, now it's done. We saw walk out naked, and we're like, that

416
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was a chapter. Right? And, you know, that that's an okay way to

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go. Right? But the problem is if you like the the

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the community, if you like the mission, if you like what this business is and

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how it functions in the world, you know, it's all cute to say, like, I'm

420
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just gonna burn it down, but you want to have a nice home. Right? And

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but, of course, selling an independent gym is not without

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00:25:05,565 --> 00:25:09,165
challenges. Right? And it's an interesting moment in my corner of the industry, right, because

423
00:25:09,165 --> 00:25:12,845
you're seeing the the rise, the aging actually, of these independent

424
00:25:12,845 --> 00:25:16,620
gym owners that, you know, kind of where the first generation like me

425
00:25:16,620 --> 00:25:19,820
to maybe have, like, a little bit more business awareness. We opened up our gyms,

426
00:25:19,820 --> 00:25:22,700
at least in the small group. I don't mean to suggest that people weren't doing

427
00:25:22,700 --> 00:25:26,300
good stuff before my generation, but this sort of smaller coaching

428
00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:29,985
centric independent model, And some of them, you know, had done

429
00:25:29,985 --> 00:25:33,825
pretty well over the years, and your what you want from your life begins to

430
00:25:33,825 --> 00:25:36,544
change. Right? And I got to the place where, like, I'm thinking of I think

431
00:25:36,544 --> 00:25:39,345
a little bit more like an investor. I don't mind getting my hands in the

432
00:25:39,345 --> 00:25:43,169
operation, but I like to think more about the models. And I

433
00:25:43,169 --> 00:25:46,929
love MFF, but the consulting business has been starting to really

434
00:25:46,929 --> 00:25:50,690
grow at a really nice clip. It's the work that I'm on fire about. And,

435
00:25:50,690 --> 00:25:54,289
you know, it's interesting. I I attempted candidly to run the

436
00:25:54,289 --> 00:25:58,045
business without an operation role the past couple years, and it was just it was

437
00:25:58,045 --> 00:26:01,745
just hard and things that, you know, like, I, you know, know on some level,

438
00:26:02,285 --> 00:26:05,805
if you don't have somebody there, it's really driving the vision of the

439
00:26:05,805 --> 00:26:09,025
business. It's it's hard to do, and you have to,

440
00:26:09,660 --> 00:26:12,460
you know, it's a particular type of person could do that. And listen, my team

441
00:26:12,460 --> 00:26:15,820
is amazing. Right? I'm not taking away anything from them. I think they've done a

442
00:26:15,820 --> 00:26:19,180
great job of running it in my absence, but just got to the place from

443
00:26:19,180 --> 00:26:22,320
the one hand for me. I was like, alright. Listen. I have this other opportunity

444
00:26:22,635 --> 00:26:25,750
that I'm on fire about. I have a a two and a half year old

445
00:26:25,750 --> 00:26:28,865
daughter. Right? And I have a very brief window with her. It's very important for

446
00:26:28,865 --> 00:26:31,980
me to optimize my life in a way I can spend time with her. And

447
00:26:31,980 --> 00:26:35,480
then three, I really want this business to be loved and cared for with passion,

448
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,180
with somebody's on fire every day to get up and solve the problems

449
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,840
that that business needs to be solved. And we got

450
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,680
lucky and that, like, you know, this was the, yeah,

451
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,535
I mean, a little bit like one of those crazy karmic things. We had a

452
00:26:49,615 --> 00:26:53,135
someone that had been a trainer for four years, who had been a coaching client

453
00:26:53,135 --> 00:26:56,495
for five years, who had opened and grown a pretty cool business in

454
00:26:56,495 --> 00:26:59,555
Gowanus that was, you know, not, you know, not

455
00:27:00,110 --> 00:27:03,470
somewhat related to MFF's brand in a lot of ways. And it just so happened

456
00:27:03,470 --> 00:27:06,750
he was starting to think about, okay. I'm ready to start to search for another

457
00:27:06,750 --> 00:27:10,110
location. I really wanna understand what it would take to scale this just as my

458
00:27:10,110 --> 00:27:13,150
business partner and I were starting to think about, okay, what might be an off

459
00:27:13,150 --> 00:27:16,785
ramp here that, would allow us to trust that

460
00:27:16,785 --> 00:27:20,545
this business is going to have an opportunity to flourish with someone getting their arms

461
00:27:20,545 --> 00:27:23,905
around it. And then so that our brains can can be freed. Right?

462
00:27:23,905 --> 00:27:27,585
Because, you know, it's all well and good, I think, to own multiple businesses. And,

463
00:27:27,585 --> 00:27:31,429
like, Tony Robbins has, like, a hundred and five business he owns. You can't

464
00:27:31,429 --> 00:27:35,269
operate multiple businesses. Right? And I just found and and, admittedly, part of this

465
00:27:35,269 --> 00:27:37,510
might be my own, you know, speaking of some of the emotions of this too,

466
00:27:37,510 --> 00:27:41,190
Pete. It's like, part of it

467
00:27:41,190 --> 00:27:44,765
is I I just think there's no way for the current as much as I

468
00:27:44,765 --> 00:27:48,285
tend to not be operating this year, true, that wasn't even on the org chart.

469
00:27:48,285 --> 00:27:51,885
Right? And my business partner who's fifty fifty owner, he hasn't worked in the business

470
00:27:51,885 --> 00:27:55,245
in, like, four years. Right? But for me, I would be lying if I didn't

471
00:27:55,245 --> 00:27:58,960
say it continued to take up a fair bit of psychic space. Right? I had

472
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:02,480
always made myself very accessible as, like, the small business pizza shop owner.

473
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:06,259
So, you know, it's was not uncommon for both team members or clients,

474
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,320
to come to me directly if there either was an issue or positive feedback or

475
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,019
something something. And I think for my brain space

476
00:28:14,695 --> 00:28:18,215
to free myself up, I think for this next phase as an entrepreneur and what

477
00:28:18,215 --> 00:28:21,975
I foresee is my opportunities, I just decided it was time to make a clean

478
00:28:21,975 --> 00:28:25,335
break. We were able to find a deal that we felt was favorable for both

479
00:28:25,335 --> 00:28:29,040
sides, and I'm very excited for them and and will, you know, do my best

480
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,560
to support them and cheer them on and, while I get to pursue other things

481
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,940
with space that's now created. Gotcha. Awesome.

482
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,840
Alright, man. We'll we'll we'll put a, a a follow-up here on the,

483
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,105
the actual press release. Congratulations on on the success there.

484
00:28:44,105 --> 00:28:47,945
And, I'm assuming once this deal goes through, you're still gonna be part of

485
00:28:47,945 --> 00:28:51,705
the halo sector and hustling away. %. Yeah. Now I'm, like, life in this

486
00:28:51,705 --> 00:28:55,530
industry. Yeah. Like, I just I love fitness. I love this biz. I love, like,

487
00:28:55,530 --> 00:28:58,170
yeah, I love every all all I do is think about, like, gyms all day

488
00:28:58,170 --> 00:29:01,610
long. I mean, it's like, I love it so much, and I'm excited I get

489
00:29:01,610 --> 00:29:05,210
to do it as a career. Awesome. Alright, man. Thanks for being on. Hopefully, we've

490
00:29:05,210 --> 00:29:08,730
got a little bit of a a piece of wisdom here on, a couple different

491
00:29:08,730 --> 00:29:12,515
things on how to optimize your business from a person who's

492
00:29:12,975 --> 00:29:15,775
got a lot of experience and experience where you get when you don't get you

493
00:29:15,775 --> 00:29:19,315
what we want, and he is gonna help us sidetrack that way there,

494
00:29:19,695 --> 00:29:23,135
whether his name's on the door or not. Awesome. Yeah, man. Appreciate it, Pete.

495
00:29:23,135 --> 00:29:23,635
Thanks.