Episode #596: Lessons Learned Scaling W.O.L.F Fitness-Tony Saxby on Franchise Growth

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks nyc. I have the pleasure of

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bringing straight from Jersey, Tony Saxby,

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Workout Live, Fierce, AKA Wolf. Good to meet

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you and thanks for coming on the show. Likewise, brother. Thanks for having me.

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Awesome. So you've, you've dedicated your entire life to the

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health and fitness industry. So, you know, take us back

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to the beginning with the one location and

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we're going to roll forward and talk about Wolf franchise. Sure.

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So I've been in this industry since I was 18 years old. I started working

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at the local Central Bucks YMCA in Doylestown where I was

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from. And I just fell in love with it. They were, it was one

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of those outfits that they championed you getting better

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at what you're doing. So like when I was 18, they let me become a

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personal trainer. They had an in house certification. Over a weekend I took the seminar,

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I passed and they let me hit the ground running. So I trained there. I

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was a trainer there for about two full years. I developed a couple of training

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classes that kept us very busy and realized that I had

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kind of met my full potential at that point in time. I had asked for

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a raise and I was heavily denied. And so I walked

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across the street to my high school. I asked to rent a football field from

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the safety and security offices and I started a boot camp company

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for 4am, 5am and 6am, rain, snow or shine. We were out there for

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about three years every single day. During that time I, you know, I held

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other jobs, but my main focus was going into law enforcement. And

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so after opening my first brick and mortar location, I

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was granted the opportunity to work with Montgomery County Correctional

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Department. And I went and did that for a few years, ultimately coming back to

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fitness because it's just, it's been, it's been. Those are the only two things I've

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ever done. Law enforcement and fitness. Fast forward to 2018.

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My wife and I are looking for a rental property in beautiful Brigantine, New

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Jersey, a little barrier island. We stumbled across this old school

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gym that was lacking on care but had all the good bones

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and, you know, you miss every shot you don't take. So we asked if

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it was for sale and luckily enough, it was. After, you know, a few

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months of negotiating, we were able to come to a price and we took it

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over. So we launched in October of 2018 or end of

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September, and then had a beautiful first year. And

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then going into our winter Covid. Yep, yep, you

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and all of us. How big, how big was the location? So

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the first location was 8,000 square feet. Our OG location is

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8,000 square feet. You know, we weathered the storm just like everybody

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else. It affected everybody in different ways. But what it did for us was it

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created an area of opportunity where our competitive landscape was kind of

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exiting the space because of the uncertainty and for how long and spending what

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have you. And so September 2nd of 2020,

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they opened our doors to allow for more business. In October, we opened our

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second location in upseco, New Jersey, which is now a franchise location.

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And then six months later, in May, we opened our big boy, Northfield, which is

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25,000 square feet and is also a franchise location now.

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So as you take a look at what the template or the

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prototype looks like, what are you

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positioning it for with new entrants into the

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franchise? Yeah, I mean, five years ago, if you would have asked me if I

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ever would have bought a franchise, I would have said no. But as we scaled

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from one to three locations very quickly, and

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my ADD was kind of running rampant, it was, what do we do? Do we

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spend more money or do we try to find a way to develop a brand

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and scale this system with a mix of our own sources and opm?

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So I took about a year of reading every packet I could get my

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hands on in franchising. And without naming names, you know,

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the takeaway was most of these opportunities.

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One, they're, they're hyper, unaffordable for the regular person, you need like

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an investment group. Two, they're not really a gym.

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Their job is marketing. Their job is reselling you equipment every three to five years

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at full market while they're getting it for a lot less. And that was

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something that we would never sign, my wife and I. And so when we were

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developing our packet, it was originally to find 100 cool people

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to open 100 really cool gyms across this nation with that kind of

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resonated with our four pillars, which are honor, integrity, community, and commitment.

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And those are things I've carried with me from Boy Scouts into our locker rooms,

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the DOC Indoor Combatives Training Program facility, and through all of our gyms.

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It's kind of who we've built ourselves to be. And so

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we're not really selling a gym. We're selling an opportunity to build a community. You

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know, anybody can open a gym. It's four walls, equipment and

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lights. It's. How do you create a recurring revenue stream that you actually care

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about? It's by leaning into the. To the area of opportunity, finding what void

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is in that, commit in that. In that area of commitment and Finding how we

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can make it a better opportunity for the end user.

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So I guess to answer your question, we build communities before we build gyms. The

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gym just supports the community. Gotcha. And then as you

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take a look at, you know, finding a hundred cool people,

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you obviously, we're well past that now, but. Yeah, yeah, but we obviously,

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you know, in franchising, a lot of times you have to say no.

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Yeah. You know, so how has that experience been for you?

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And. And how have you been able to kind of dissect into

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like, hey, this is. This is, you know, an A player. Well, you hit

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it on the head. I mean, we learned early. And it

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was through. Through my own fail point, actually, to be honest,

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we earned. We learned early that saying yes to everybody is not the right opportunity

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just to grow a business. You know, it's okay to say no. We turn down

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people on a daily basis now, but in our infancy,

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to get to a scale rate, we said yes to a lot of people. And

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it resulted in two to three units of failed state in the

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franchise that we had to take back. And while that's the last thing we want

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to do, it's always for protection of the system. So we took those back and

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we gave them to operators who actually were not going against the

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grain and wanted to be a part of this system. But now

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I've got a beautiful team now. Back then, it was just me, my wife, and

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Jason, who's my president. Now we've got a full sales team.

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We've got, you know, they've got setters, We've got a full CRM, there's an

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application that they have to get to before they even get to me.

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And so that was just systems. The system had to become stronger. We learned, don't

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say yes to everybody. It's okay to say no and find the right people in

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there to do your vetting.

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

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this 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 members

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without having to do zero down and one month free or

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giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to do is

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build a rewards program that lasts, that people value

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and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the

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deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going

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to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going

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to answer questions. You are going to get those answers. You're Going to be able

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to target those members and you're going to reward them inside your club,

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

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spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their

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monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the

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actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be

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promotion vaults your answer. Trust me, this is real.

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So take a look at the success of Planet Fitness. You know

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the current private equity that's rolling into the crunch system

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right now. You know what do you what a member that's looking

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to join Wolf versus Planet versus Crunch. How does that, how do you guys

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market that differently? You know

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our, we're not a, we're not, we're not an affordable

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gym by means of what the two groups that you just named.

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We're very cost separate from them because of what we give activation

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wise. We're not into the. We don't want 10,000 members in a gym. We really

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don't. We want under 3,000 to be honest, because we know

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wear and tear, usage, breakage, all that stuff comes into play. Those are costs that

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franchisees have to bear for replacing of those things. But also

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as a gym goer, as somebody who's spent my entire life in gyms and my

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wife as well, the biggest bane of your workout is having to wait for

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equipment. And so we're not the pack of in mentality. We're like, let's get to

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a scale rate and let's go open a sister location to support all of the

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extra people that want to be in here and give them the opportunity to train

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between two or three different training environments because we don't ever build the same gym

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twice in your area. And so that's

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one differentiation. Two is, you know, our base level amenities we give for

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free. It's red light sauna, it's cold plunge, it's,

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you know, we have red light therapy and tanning in some locations. We're

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rolling out our medical peptide opportunity this month across system which will

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also include hyperbaric chambers. And those are things that come to the members

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as almost a gift for their wellness and vitality just so they can be a

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part of our system. We don't charge for those. Hmm, gotcha.

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So what's the, what's the different price points and is everyone complying

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with the no matter where they are in the country? Yeah,

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so we have, our price point's not set our price because real estate is. So

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there's varying different degrees of real estate across the country where some

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rents are 65,000, some rents are 8,000. So to be fair to

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the end user, which is the member, and to the franchisee, so they're not trying

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to sell $10 memberships left and right to anybody who will say yes.

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Where our market entry price, our floor, is 59.99, which includes all the

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amenities. And it's depending on the area of competition, depending on the development

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schedule and what real estate actually costs, it can go up to 129,

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which still would not supersede the market. You know, we don't. We're not here

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to overcharge the next person, but we're here to make sure that we can market

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assimilate and just do a better, better opportunity for you.

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Gotcha. Well, that's music to my ears. I don't like people

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racing to the bottom on price. Yeah, it's not worth it.

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Yeah, it's not. So. So give us the derivation of

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this, of the acronym. Yeah. So WOLF stands

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for workout Louis Fierce. I can take zero credit for it. I give

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it to my wife. When we were in the midst of buying

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Brigantine, we knew that we wanted the company to be called Wolf because we

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were already searching for gyms in Pennsylvania to purchase and flip, because that's what I've

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been doing for about 15 years prior is buying gyms,

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scaling them, and then flipping them over. And so we're driving home from dinner one

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night, and she kind of just like blurts, work out live

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fierce. And I'm like, wait, what? Say it again. Because I didn't. She just

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blurted it out. It was like a random thought that she captured and said it,

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and she said, work out, Live fierce. That's wolf. And it just never, ever,

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ever, it always stuck. It was perfect. I mean, she even did the

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legwork to make sure that we got our logo reinforced and we got permissions from

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it. We wanted something that was. Could

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one day be our Nike swoosh. Very identifiable, doesn't need words to it. And I

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think, you know, she did a fabulous job. But that's where wolf comes from.

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We knew that we wanted to be a pack mentality. We wanted to have community

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engaged in it and an alpha animal that wasn't just a derivative of

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scary. It was something that could have compassion, integrity, honor, and could lead.

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And so, you know, I'm sure there were, like, gorillas on our. On

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our vision board at one point in time, because I used to be £400.

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There was a bunch of stuff, but wolf was always the winner. Yeah. I

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think there was a guerrilla gyms that Bally owned in

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Chicago a long time ago.

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Fitness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went by the wayside. I

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worked at a Valley's back in the day as a personal trainer in Willowbrook,

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Pennsylvania after that.

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Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, it's a really good way to put it because we

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were. I. A lot of people learn through osmosis and they just kind

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of carry forward and just do whatever they're shown.

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I'm not a good employee. I was a great law enforcement officer because I cared

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about the people but I had a problem taking direction when I thought it was

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wrong or lesser than the right way to go.

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And so building it ourselves is always best. We can enforce it the way we

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need to, but we know that we've taken out all of the oopsies

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and all of the ignorance tax along the

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way of doing this for almost 23 years now. Awesome.

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So when you open up a new franchise and you're

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building this community, give us a little bit of, you know what that

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grassroots kind of marketing or pre sale looks

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like. That atypical. I

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mean as far as pre sale goes, you know, we use, we use in

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house. We have our own content and we have our own content team and the

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media team that really helps spin the franchisees up for their success because they're working

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in an empty location with nothing to really show for it. And so we've got

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buckets of content from all of our locations and we kind

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of just make really nice and very genuine hype reels to kind

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of start seeding the areas. And then we really work with our

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third party company to do all of our AI campaigns,

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to do all of our click to pay our self closes or $1

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activations, we use that. But when it comes to grassrooting a

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community, these franchisees are people that you know. Tony

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Saxby, Trisha Saxby, Kayl Owen, Dave Bautista. While we're going to be

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there for activations and for events, we're not going to be the people that they

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meet with on a daily basis. And so we really champion them. Getting out and

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in front of the community before they even open, going to the local coffee shop

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saying, hey listen, I don't want you guys to give us a discount, we don't

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want any Money, but here's 100 hats and 100 T shirts.

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Anybody who comes here that says they're from Wolf do we want you to,

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we're going to say hey, come to mom, come to Sally Joe's coffee shop. Today

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and get free stuff. That's it. They buy coffee, they show

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you that they're part of our wolf system. Give them a shirt, give them a

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hat. What that's doing is it's allowing for a B2B

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activation without us being in business so that when we do open our doors, I

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can ask Sally's coffee shop, hey, bring your cart over for our grand open. I

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want you to have a booth and be a part of our space because you

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are in our community now. You do that with 15 other people

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in your space, you've got a beautiful business predicated around everybody

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else's success in business. And all that we're asking for is the opportunity for you

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to work out. I don't charge for tables. We don't charge for marketing.

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We really want to make sure that if you're in our community, we're a small

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business that's owned. Yes, we're a corporation. We're owned by a company

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and by a board like ourselves. We formed it, but for that location.

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It's owned by Crystal, it's owned by Ed, it's owned by Mike. It's whoever that

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is. They're going to be the people that you meet with and work with on

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a daily and weekly basis. They're your community and they champion that every day.

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We do open houses almost once a month at every location

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where it's free for the entire community to come. Bring a friend, work out, train,

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whatever. There's no upsell, there's no hard sell. Just come and train. That's

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what the space is for. Over time, you know, that leads into

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contracts or auto pays or somebody buys a week pass, great. But that's not really

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the reason why we do it, you know. Are you

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surprised the lack of grassroots marketing that

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other companies do compared to, you know, just old school

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building relationships, you know? Yeah. I mean, I used to wrap moving

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trucks. I'd rent from U Haul and park them in shopping centers for 47 hours

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and then on the 48th hour, move them. Right. You know,

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that's a free billboard for anybody listening. 28 bucks a day gets you

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a U Haul truck. Just go wrap it, park it, you're good to

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go. But yeah, you know, I think they got away from it because it's one.

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It's personnel, it's time. It's energy and acumen that most corporations

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won't spend because they didn't build the company for that reason. They built it for

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a financial windfall. They didn't build it to activate on a lower level.

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They don't care about the metrics of the 50 or 100 people that you might

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activate on from being grassroots where we do. Because those 50 or

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100 people live in your backyard and they're going to bring. We

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see it time and time again. While they might not bring every single person they

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know, they're going to say, hey, Ed and Crystal were awesome. Or

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Justin down in Palm Bay was great. And while I didn't join, I'm going to

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send five people there. I appreciate you giving me a booth for the day, whatever

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that looks like, but it doesn't. It shouldn't

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detract from the. It shouldn't detract from the activation still. It's still super important to

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be grassroots. It's. Or corporate for the sake of not being corporate.

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You know, that's really what it is. We don't like what the other guys do,

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so we're doing it our way. Yeah, I like it. So have there been

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instances where there's a franchisee, they say, hey, I could

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buy a club, retrofit it into a wolf, or

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do you prefer they start with a. No? I mean,

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three of my personal locations that I own or legacy locations that were

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in failed state or that people were just tired and wanted to retire and so

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we bought them, flipped them. It's actually a more economical entry point for people

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then starting one from scratch because there's perceived cash flow, even if it's low.

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There's a marketing bucket through the CRM that we can reactivate on.

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Pardon me. The demographics are probably already verified before they open, so we just

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make sure that it's really an economical opportunity. But I love flipping gyms. That's how

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I started. Yeah. So how do you. What's the

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relationship with Cale? Owen? Because he's been on the podcast, he's

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sure we like what he's been doing. No, 100%.

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And his background. So when I met Cale, I flew down

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to. Well, actually I met him first at his Gym Con event in Orlando in

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2024. It was an awesome event.

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It was just filled with probably. It was over a thousand people in the audience

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just eating it all up and listening and

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the information. That was my first time in an event with other gym owners and

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like another gym environment. And the information was sound. I mean, it was real.

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It's stuff that after. At that point in time, I was in this for 21

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years. And what they were saying, I could look around and comfortably say

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it was intelligent, it made sense, and it was the right. It was the right

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guidance for anybody in that audience. And so I had the

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opportunity to fly down to Tampa a few weeks later after that event and

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meet with him one on one. And he kind of just grilled me for like

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an hour about Wolf. He was, you know, he wanted to crap all over the

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packet because he hated franchises. But like, he truly, like I did, he hated

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franchises before. And long story

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short was we just reconnected. It was,

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you know, him and his wife were at the time, at a point in their

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life where they were also looking to start another location up because they were former

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gym owners and we kind of just meshed very well. And so the

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opportunity to have him come on board as our chief revenue officer was

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available to us, and I jumped at it. And since then, you know,

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I said, before the group was built, it was me, myself, Jason and my

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wife. We were not organized on the level that he came in and

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created. Organization on our funnels were a mess. Our CRM

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wasn't being nurtured the right way. Our scripting was off. And

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he actually cares, you know, past that point, past the point of fixing the things

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that were wrong. He actually at his core cares about what we do and

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he cares about his St. Augustine community and he cares about every other Wolf community

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that we open. That's great. Yeah, we got a lot of respect for him. So

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congrats. Yeah, very lucky. Yeah. As part of the team.

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Thank you so much. So, so when you built the tech stack on this,

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obviously, you know, he's got an interesting background

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with Jim Launch and the marketing side. What

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software did you select to run the system off of?

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So we use Go High Level for our CRM and we API'd in some jotform

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integrations for applications, waivers, et cetera.

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But I mean, ultimately that's somebody else's platform.

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So sooner or later we're just gonna build our own, make it all in

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house and just fix the things that we don't like with some of the other

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offerings out there. But we use Go High Level. We use Platform

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for some integrations. We use ror, which is a third party AI

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marketing company, to do, you know, most, most of our pre sale encapsulation.

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And who do you use for the billing?

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Currently we're using Gym Desk. Okay, gotcha. You know,

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they work with UFC Gym, they work with a couple of other franchise locations.

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Their customer service was probably, I've been doing this, like I

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said, for 23 years now. And I worked with, with Zen Planner, Mindbody,

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Gym Launch. I've worked with across the board. I probably had about 15 other

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payment processors in house over the time. And I can say

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while no system's perfect at all, there's always something that's lacking or

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that we want more of. Blah, blah, blah. Their customer service is second to none,

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so I give them a huge shout out.

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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.

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Higherdose.com they are the leader in

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00:20:36,650 --> 00:20:39,610
workout recovery products. Infrared technology,

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00:20:40,410 --> 00:20:43,850
LED light masks, neck enhancers, and

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00:20:44,090 --> 00:20:47,730
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna

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blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout

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00:20:50,970 --> 00:20:54,410
recovery train yet, your time and your stop

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00:20:54,570 --> 00:20:58,130
is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout

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00:20:58,130 --> 00:21:01,400
recovery and spas end up saturating your market.

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Having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations

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for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to

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00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:12,800
you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we

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00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,200
are already an authority in workouts, Higher Dose,

348
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:20,200
check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look

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forward to helping you augment your products and services

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to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people

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happy, healthy, and sweating. And the recovery should be

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just as good as the workout.

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So in closing here, maybe you know, something that

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happened that with. With a franchisee or with a member

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that you're like, wow, you know, I'm glad I started this because of

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something that happened or life experience.

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I honestly think every day we have one of those situations or opportunities.

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After this, I'll go to our Brigantine location and train with my wife, and we'll

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be met with, I don't know, probably 20 people over

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65 and 40 people under. And they'll just keep saying thank you.

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And every week. This past week, we decided to tear down our studio, create

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3,000 more square feet of gym floor. And while at first

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everybody's allergic to change, they're like, oh, no, it's just a mess in here. What

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are you doing? As they see the two or three days of us finishing the

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project come through, they're like, holy crap, we're getting more equipment, a better floor plan,

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way more natural lighting. This is awesome. Thank you, Tony. Like, it's.

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We get a lot of those. And then during COVID we lost

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a lot of our elderly members. And one of

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the things that I always remember is one of the. One of our. One of

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our clients would reach out to us on a daily

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basis during lockdown and Saying, hey, don't close, don't

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sell. If you need anything, you come to me first. Like that gym has been

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there for 35 years. You guys are part of this community and we'll make sure

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that nothing happens to you. Thankfully, we didn't have to make that phone call, but

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we had those probably from a dozen or more of our seasonal members and then

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a ton more of our year round members, which is kind of beautiful. Like,

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this means something to these people just as it means to us. It's not just

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a gym to go to. Yeah, well, it sounds like you're building

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some real community and that goes deep. So congrats.

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Some people would say, you know, is there any white space left in the,

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in the health club and gym market? I think you've obviously just proven that

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there is. You hope you'll get results. Thank you. All right,

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thanks for coming on.

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This is Pete Moore on his halo talks. Your captain speaking. I am

385
00:23:40,210 --> 00:23:43,850
the founder and managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around

386
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active lifestyle and outdoor halo sector, trying to

390
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help as many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level,

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take that inflection point and be the force behind your growth.

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We are helping companies that have at least $3 million of

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we are positioned to help you get institutional growth capital

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you go to integritysq.com isq

397
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you can see our capabilities. Deck, happy to set up a consultation at any

398
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time that is free of charge and we look forward to

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helping solve obesity, loneliness and diabetes.

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00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:37,120
Go Halo.

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00:24:55,130 --> 00:25:09,830
Sam.