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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
This episode of the Strong New York Podcast is powered by Celsius. Whether you're on the run or in the gym, this is a way to give that extra pump. So live fit. Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of the Strong New York podcast. I'm your host Kenny Santucci. And today I have two pythons from Jersey who I've known for a very long time.
These guys are OGs in the business. Um, one gentleman is responsible for why I fell in love with training so much. Uh, I brought him up thousands of times on the podcast with everybody who we, uh, we share mutual friends with. So without further ado, my man Chris Atella and the legend Joe DeFranco.
Gentlemen, thank you guys so much for making the trek from Jersey here. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Yes, I know its a pain in the ass coming in. It definitely is. It definitely is. Um, we're so close yet. So far. Yes. It's for, yeah. It's hard to just cross the river sometimes. Yes. 'cause you never know what you're gonna get with traffic.
So you guys have been doing this a long time, and one of the things that we talk about here, uh, a lot is, and the one thing we all share in common is we've all owned a gym at one point, and we know that business could be an absolute fucking nightmare. We were just talking before about how to hire people and training and how that becomes a nightmare.
But you had, when was your, when did you first start? In the, when you were just had like the garage gym, that little small space. What year was that? I, I, that was 2003. I got into the industry in 1998. I graduated college, interned at another gym and then worked there for five years and then started my own business in 2003, which a lot of people know was a literal storage closet in the basement of an existing health club.
And you had like three or four pieces in there, right? You didn't have, yeah, that was it. I had a, a west side rack, three by three rack a with a bench in it, adjustable bench in there, and then a reverse hyper and a glute hammer raise. I was like a big Louie west side, you know, disciple at the time. And um, literally just three pieces of equipment and a 500 square foot storage closet.
And now you're a DI West side guy as well, right? Yeah, yeah. I think we all kind of. Subscribe to that whole like Louis West side thing. I mean, I love it. I push it on everybody. I made them all. I actually brought the guys out a couple months ago and made all my coaches take the course. I'm like, if you take any course, you have to take this one.
I paid for two of them to take it just 'cause I'm like, alright, if you're not gonna do it, I need you to take this course, just so you understand what the hell we're all talking about. Yeah. Well I think it was Joe D that kind of introduced. All of us for sure. To west side, right? Yeah, yeah. West side for skinny bastards.
Yeah. What, what year is that article? Probably 2004, like about a year. It was like a year or so of experimentation in the storage closet. And then 2004, 2005 is when I wrote about what I was doing. Yeah. And now when you, when you finally got to space, like the legendary space in Jersey, in, um, what town was that?
Wykoff. Wykoff. What year was that? What did, what year did you first sign a lease? So I, I was in the storage closet 2003 to 2006, and then I got my own, you know, space that I could call my own in 2007, which wasn't the gym that I think most people think of. The one that you trained at Yeah. Was the third.
Gym in the, uh, industrial park that I started at. Okay. So I, I went from 500 square feet to 2000 to like 2,600 to then the, the 6,000 square foot one where I had, that was 6,000 square feet. Yeah. It was a double, it was basically a double unit. Yeah. Plus a, we had that little loft on the top, so it was about 6,000 square feet total.
That place was a legend there. It was awesome. Every time I walked in there I was like, it was always somebody in there. There was the coolest shit on the walls and like the workouts were, I think you helped me understand how workouts don't have to be a hundred miles an hour. Go, go, go. You could facilitate a great workout with, you know.
The least amount of shit and, you know, just precision. Yeah. Yeah. It wa you know, it was funny 'cause we had the reputation for being kind of a hardcore gym because of the location and we didn't have air conditioning. And, uh, you know, it, it definitely had that, that kind of blue collar grit feel. But people, at least people that trained with me long term, that was what they would always say, uh, that they were most surprised about.
You know, the workouts were certainly challenging and they were tough, but they weren't solely designed to kill you. I, I think that's, Chris and I talk about this in our Iron Business Blueprint course when designing like a great group training program for your, for your gym, most of. The group training programs out there are based more on a feeling than a result.
Mm-hmm. It's like, Hey, you're gonna come in here, we're gonna kick the shit outta you, you're gonna puke, you're gonna be sore, you're gonna be tired. But at the end of a couple weeks, months, years, like, did you make any physical changes in your body? Did you get any results? And usually the answer is no. My gym was always based on results.
Some workouts are gonna be real hard, but if, if we push really hard today, tomorrow you're gonna notice that we're probably gonna scale back a bit like it. The workouts weren't designed in a vacuum. It was all part of a bigger picture and, and getting an end result. And now, where did a lot of that understanding come from?
Because at that time, early two thousands, even like a little later, it was always about like, this is the hard, this is the toughest gym. This is the hardest workout. A lot of that rhetoric was like how you got notoriety. Yeah. Or not you personally, but like, that's how people started to notice you. How'd you like.
Understand that like, hey, if I just do this, this is better than getting this bullshit. Notoriety e experience is the best teacher. Like, I didn't always know it. You know, I went through that period too, where you, you know, I wanna make a name for myself, so I wanna be the most hardcore guy. Like even my, my, my first picture on, uh, and with my bio was like me and a wife beater, like, flexing, you know, it was, it was all that image, which, you know, you're young and you're experimenting and you do that stuff, and I think everyone should experiment and go through those stages.
If, if. I was still doing the same thing I was doing 25 years ago. Like I did something wrong. You know, all of us, right? We've all changed and evolved, but I think working, and not that you can't get this working with general Pop, but working predominantly, predominantly with athletes at the time, and them having very specific goals.
Like, you know, I need to shave two tenths of a second off my 40 time by this date. I need to, my coach told me I need to pack on 10 pounds of good weight by this date. So we were, the, the programs were being based on a result, like mm-hmm. If, if a guy trained me for the combine and he ran slower, like that's very objective.
Like, you either got faster, you got slower, or you stayed the same. So from, I, I didn't have to. Experiment too long before I realized, listen, it's not just about beating the shit outta them, it's about getting a specific result mm-hmm. By a specific date. And if you don't do that, they're not gonna come back.
They're gonna go find somewhere else. So I think that's what really helped me. And then working with general pop clients, I made sure very first day when, when you come into my gym, we're gonna go over your goals and we want them to be as specific as possible so we know exactly what we need to do for you to get that result.
And, um, you know, it's, it's been like that ever since. And now what year did you open your first gym? 2012. 2012? Yeah. So you were pretty early on too? Yeah, I got in the industry in oh six, like basically right outta high school and then opened my gym in 2012. And now you predominantly work with, uh, general Pop.
Right now it's mostly gen pop. Yeah. It's evolved over the years. We had a lot of athletes in the early days. Yeah. Um, but that's evolved to like 99.9% gen pop these days. But. You, I mean, both of you had such longevity, right? I mean, you, 10 plus years that you guys have been doing this, I mean, you're what, pushing 20, close to 30 years?
Holy shit. Shit, because I started in, um. 1998, like as a professional trainer. So, you know, shit. 20 with 20, 25, what do you say? Do the math on, that's a lot of years. What do you say to most people who are like, well, how long are you guys gonna be doing this? Like, what do you do for, you know, when I first became a trainer, my father asked me, he said, so what are you gonna do for money?
So, ev everyone but my parents, they, I, I'm so grateful that I had parents that believed in me because every other person, even my closest friends were like, yeah, we've always known you're the gym guy. You love training, that's awesome, but what are you gonna do when you have to get a real job? Like, that was the number one question forever.
And it's like, have, have I proven to you guys yet that we've made a real career out of it? So I, I mean, I'll be doing it forever. Uh, you know, thankfully, I think one of the, the. We, not to get off track, but like social media and how things are now. There's a lot of negatives, uh, we could talk about, but one of the cool things with things like webinars and training apps, you know, with technology now, we pretty much sell information and knowledge.
Right. So you could do this as long as you want. Yeah. You know, do, would I want to be, I love being in the gym. Do I want to be training people 12, 15 hours a day when I'm 70? No. But like, I don't see myself not still answering questions, doing webinars, coaching for, you know, as long as my brain is still functioning and I can speak, I, I think I'll be doing it.
Yeah. I, I think this is something that you love to do so much that it just becomes a part of you. Mm-hmm. So, like Joe said, like, I don't think this is something I'll ever stop doing. It's just part of who I am. It's part of how I live my life. So it's just, it's just part of it all. Yeah. Now you have an interesting story.
What were you doing right before you got into the. Training. So it wasn't, it was, I was a firefighter for about four years as a career firefighter, but that actually came after I was in the fitness industry. So I started my career in the fitness industry in oh six. Yeah. I got, hi, I opened my gym of June of 2012, and then I got hired in August of 2012 by the fire department.
So it was like the timelines really lined up well because I always tell the story, if it weren't for the fire department, I would've been outta business in the first, probably the first year. Mm-hmm. So I was very fortunate to, to land that job and land that position. One of the things I talk about with a lot of gym owners, we always think about, and now having another gym in the suburbs.
Where do you get clientele from? How do you keep it interesting? You know, because when you're in a small town, you're like, all right, where are these people gonna come from? Because most people won't travel too many towns over. So you're like, have I maxed out the amount of people who are willing to do this type of workout?
And, you know, you've worked with a lot of kids before, high school guys and college guys. Do you have a lot of kids at your gym? Not these days, but we, we definitely used to. You have in the past. Yeah. Yep. And I, I think like that's, you, you start to try to get younger people or anybody who comes into town, but like, how do you guys kind of keep it fresh and keep it going?
I, I, it, that could kind of leads into a cool story of how Chris and I met, because for me, if I'm answering honestly the first. 10 to 15 years that I was in business. A if, if it's not a hundred percent, it's 99.9% of my business was word of mouth. I just got great results. And, you know, the, the kids told their friends and they came in.
Uh, some of the kids ended up, you know, the parents went from dropping them off at the gym to seeing the results their, their kids got. And then would ask, Hey, do you train adults? Like, instead of me sitting in the car waiting for my son, like, can, can somebody train me? Yeah. And then they tell their friend and it all just spread by word of mouth.
And then, um, again, not to get off track, but I think I, Chris, we first met, 'cause Chris, uh. Started, I started doing consultations for young gym owners, helping them get the, get their business off the ground. Chris hired me. We did consult consulting for maybe four or five years in, he came every year for a couple years, and then by like the five year mark, I would say it was, we got to the point where we had just become friends and we more were just bullshitting back and forth and.
To the point where now I was asking him like, Hey, I helped you. Maybe in the beginning, but now he took the business to another level as far as the, the marketing and the advertising. There were no Facebook ads when I started, like things like that. He started putting more time and effort into learning.
Then I was picking his brain about that stuff because now we're in a different world and mm-hmm. To keep your gym going and to get new people constantly coming in, you need to do some of that stuff too. So I started learning it from him. Like, Hey, what are you doing? What, what are you doing on that front?
'cause I just always relied solely on word of mouth. And now I think the combination of all those things is what you need to do. Yeah, no, it, it's definitely a new, brave new world out there. Yeah. It's definitely harder than ever before. It used to be, you know, there one, there wasn't as many gyms. So, right, like when you guys both started, there probably weren't too many gym.
Now I'm guessing there's orange theories and F 45 fives and you know, CrossFit gyms and lifetimes and stuff. How do you compete against all these other brands? Like what the question that I get and I always get stumped on, and you guys, I'm sure you guys have gotten this question too before, is. What makes you guys different or what makes your gym different?
Why would I go there than some of these other places? Well, to jump in for a sec, I, I would say that those places are really not your competition. 'cause at the end of the day, we're trying to help people get healthy. Look at the rise in obesity, the rise in chronic disease, it's the fucking, the fast. I don't know if I could curse on here.
Yeah, go ahead. So it's the fast food places, it's the, the Netflix and the things that are robbing people from their time where they could be training. Right. So I think that there are more than enough people to go around and train to add different places. Right. So I think, you know, if, if we have that scarcity mindset as gym owners, it, it deters what the overall, it deters us from what the overall goal is.
Mm-hmm. Which is helping people. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think once we kind of realized that and we realized, hey, we could all kind of grow this pie together and everybody could share a piece of it and help people, um, I think that kind of helps us get clear and stay on track with what it is we're trying to do.
Yeah. Um, what was the original question was, I mean, if you see those people as competition, like what do you, what, what do you tell people who say, oh, that's right. So why would I choose your gym over theirs? Because it's about the same amount, right? Like if you look at a lifetime, what is it, 200, 2 30, something like that per month.
Yeah. So, and that's about, I'm guessing, what do you charge for a membership at your gym? Is it depends, but on average around 2 77. Yeah. So if somebody's like, oh, I could join Lifetime and get a pool and a fucking, all the bullshit that you could get at a lifetime, or Equinox or something like that. I think one of the big things about what we do, and you know this, it's.
Having that culture. Mm-hmm. Right? Because you're not gonna get that at a lifetime. No. Right. So people come, they wanna be part of a tribe, they wanna be part of something bigger than themselves. It is very hard to get that at any big box gym. Right? So that's one of the things that's unique about having a small private gym is, is the culture.
But then when you look at the differences of training, you can't try to attract everyone into your gym because when you do that, now you're speaking to no one. And so you have to attract a specific type of person that you want to come train at your place and they're gonna jive with that. Mm-hmm. So when you talk about what you do, if, if they come in and they, they train for a couple sessions at your place, if they go down the street and they train a couple place, uh, a couple sessions over there, if that feels better for them and that's what they wanna do, alright, cool.
But when they are at your facility, this is now your opportunity to show them how you're different. Yeah. Right. Um, and I think. That's gonna speak to a certain type of person, depending on what you're offering, and then that's gonna kind of bleed into your marketing message and all that. This episode of the Strong New York podcast is powered by Celsius.
I have some long days here in New York. I get up at 5:00 AM I'm working all day, and I need that extra little boost midday or even in the morning, and I grab myself a can of Celsius and I just feel a little bit better. So grab yourself a can. Uh, these are my favorite. These are actually extra caffeine.
The bigger can, so I go with the big boy. So if you're a big boy, grab one of these. I was talking to. Uh, I, I think we're a very rare breed, um, and I'm pleased to say I could hopefully put myself in your guys' category. Um, but yesterday I was talking to this guy Doug, who's pretty high up at, um, high Rocks, and he was saying, he goes, there's.
From his standpoint, right? They're, that brand is growing, it's huge, and they're looking to grow and build up trainers and stuff. And they said there's all these entry level trainers and these guys who just wanna call themselves trainers. And you got like Barry's instructors and F 45 people and stuff.
And then you have like really nobody in the middle. And then you have this upper echelon of like guys who are like, all right, I'm good enough now I could go open my own place and build my own community and my own philosophy behind training. And he goes, those guys are really hard to reach because we're running businesses and we have our own shit going on.
He's like, but I'd love to hire some of those guys. He goes, or bring this bottom tier up one, but this bottom tier really doesn't wanna learn. Like I think we've all become fucking dorks about it, right? I've taken your course at least three times, four times, you know, and I try to learn more and more, but I, I feel like people, because of social media are now doing.
Less when it comes to education and more when it comes to like, oh, well I saw Chris Bumstead do that, so I know how to fucking do that. Right. You know? Yeah. So how much of, how much are you guys seeing that, like it's getting harder to hire trainers to come help you out and work out? Yeah. Everyone wants, unfortunately, the quick fix.
They, and there's the, the, the image online of like, you all these young entrepreneurs who talk about, oh, I only work an hour a day from my laptop on the beach and I'm a millionaire. And everybody thinks that's not reality. Yeah. Like, we know being an entrepreneur and, and, uh, being successful in this industry, it's late nights, sleepless nights stress, like all the shit that comes along with it.
But I also think that builds a certain type of grit and resilience and it, it does that, that kind of carries over to your gym and the, like, the culture that Chris spoke about before. Um, and like with my gym also, you talk about how do you separate yourself, not, not to get off track with the hiring, kind of bring it back to that.
But I always just tried to lean into the differences too. Like Yeah, you're right. We're, we're nothing like F 45 I, they, we we're. As different as it could be. Again, we like to say we put the personal in personal training. When you go to to a big box gym like that, you're just a number. Those models are based on you not showing up.
Mm-hmm. Like, and the reason why a, a gym might be a lot cheaper than yours is because they're banking on, let's sign up 10,000 people. Hope nobody shows up. We bang their credit card each month and that's what they want. Yeah. Whereas you come to a privately owned, smaller type gyms like ours, and we know each one of the clients by name we're first name.
When you walk through the door, Kenny, how you doing? What's going on? How's your kids doing? How'd your daughter doing her soccer game? Like that all matters. Like, yes, we want to get results first and foremost, but that's what they're not getting at the gym down the street. And um, I know I totally got completely off, off track, but I think that's a huge, huge part of having, it's a huge value, successful gym.
And then you want. People tying it into the hiring process. That's what I look for more in a trainer and a coach now is their interpersonal skills. I don't, yes. Would, would. I love you to, you're gonna take the CPPS course and I'd love for you to go to West Side and learn, and we could teach you the, the X's and O's of training.
I could help you get better at designing programs, but I want first to know that I'm hiring a good human being. Yeah, yeah. That's got great communication skills and it's gonna really give a shit about our clients that's like up here and then we could teach you the training. Yeah. That's down here. And that's been a big shift in my mindset over the years as far as hiring people.
Yeah. No, I, I, I definitely 100% agree with that. I'm always one of the things that I do, and I had a couple people in the last couple months hit me up and they're like, Hey, I'd love to come work for you. Cool. Come in, come work out. Let me see how you move. You know, things like that. The more you're around, the more you buy into what I'm doing here.
I see how they interact with my clients. I see how they interact with the other staff. Those are like the telltale signs. Mm-hmm. Of like, Hey, is this person gonna jive here? Or are they just, they think they're gonna make a bunch of money here because that's not the fucking gate. Yep. Right. So, you know, I think that's so important.
But then it's like, alright, now that they're here and you know they might have some good personal skills, are they willing to like climb the ladder? Are they hungry to learn and be a better coach? Like, is this something, because I've had so many people moonlight as coaches, but they're actually like trying to be actresses or fucking some other bullshit.
Right? Like OnlyFans girls. I'm like, alright, go do that then. 'cause you're stopping yourself from doing that. Pretending you're a trainer, you're not a trainer. Yeah, right. You know, you have zero desire to be a trainer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you guys started this business, what about a year ago, right? Together.
Year and a half now. Year and a half already. Yeah. Yeah. So how, I mean, how, you kind of explained it a little bit, but you were helping different guys. Yeah. I, I'll, I'll start and then Chris could jump in. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I think it's really cool how it came about because it wasn't like this, this, you know, master business plan it when I.
Shut down my woff gym that you, you spoke about and we moved to Austin for a little bit. We were under the same roof with on it. Some people know we were there for two years. Uh, Cameron Joss was running that facility for me. I needed a home base because I just had twins and I was trying to work from home, but like it wasn't working.
So I found a little office and a small gym in East Rutherford that I was gonna use that was like 20. 12, 13, 15. 15. 2015. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually, it's 10 years. It's 10 years the year I met you. Yeah. It's crazy because it, it still feels like the new kind of gym slash office, but it's 10 years old already.
Uh, so I'm in there just by myself. I, I'm going there to work, I'm shooting some content and I was, I started to get some people reaching out to me asking to do more business consult stuff. Like, Hey, I love, I love training, but I have no business background. I wanna turn my passion into a career. I love to, you know, start training people outta my garage or my basement, but I don't know where to start.
Can, can I come and, and speak with you for an hour or whatever. So I put on my website, I was like, maybe I'll start doing business consults for a very specific type of person, um, once or twice a week. Mm-hmm. The very first email I get. Was from some, uh, Chris's girlfriend at the time. Shout, shout, shout out to the ex.
You always get the shout out. My boyfriend's birthday's coming up. Uh, you know, he follows all your work. I, I would like to purchase one of your one hour business consults. Awesome. I got my first consult. Chris walks in and shared his story. Firefighter training people on the side, but I'd love to make training and, and owning a gym.
My full-time gig. We sit down, uh, you know, we talk, I think we, it was an hour consult that lasted three, or I think it was four seven. Yeah. I always say always over deliver. I, I, I, uh, kidding. I, we went all out and we just kind of hit it off and, but I'm, you know, I'm passionate about it and I really felt like where he was at, like, I had been there, so I'm like, oh, I know I could help him.
Give him some initial information. A year later, he comes back for a second consult. And was it the very first year that you had already opened your own gym? No, no, I was three years in the third one. It was, I I was already three years in. Yeah, we opened in 2012 and then it was 2015. Oh, okay. So you were, so we were trying to make it worded.
Alright. So point to make it work at, I'm sorry. Do you have partners at the time or no? No. So all, you've always been stolen. Yeah. Yeah. And, and at that point I was already like, I. Checking outta the fire department. So I was, I was like, I gotta figure out how to make this work. That's what it was. Yeah, that's what it was.
Sorry. Yeah, so it, so he comes in the next year, we, I was like, holy shit. I saw how, how far he came in that one year, and then the next year, year three, year four, he just kept growing and growing and growing. I think it was like year five or six where I said, man, I appreciate you still wanting to do consults with me.
But from a business standpoint, like. You're now doing better than I wa Like you have more business savvy than I was. I could still help you with some training stuff, you know, clientele that you're having an issue with. I could certainly do that, but man, you've, you've really taken the business stuff to the next level.
So then we would still meet, but it was more just like friends kind of, you know, shooting the shit, him sharing with me what worked. I'm actually now asking him questions like, what are you doing on the marketing end? What are you doing on the sales end? Like that. I never really had to do that stuff. Like if I add that stuff to what, what we're doing now, holy shit, this is, you know, great combo.
And then after. Nine years of that, Chris came to me with an idea of like, Hey, I've kind of tracked what I've done over the past nine years of working with you and then hiring other business mentors as well. You, we put all that together. Your experience plus mine, plus the stuff you've helped me with, like the, got a real business trajectory that he took.
It's like, imagine we could do this with other people. Yeah. Iron Business Blueprint was born so that, it was kind of cool how, it wasn't like a master plan. It was, he literally lived it and then said, why not teach this to other people? And now you do. You get as much joy from teaching guys how to do this as you do from training.
That's how I do For sure. I do as well. Yeah, I do as well. Because you're helping somebody's life that that's like, that's exactly right. I mean, you're doing it in both, but at the same time, like you could, you're helping people with their finances. Yeah. And we're we're, my, my big thing, I think both of our big thing is like, you're help, I've been in this long enough now, and I mean, all of us have, but like I, I, I could list off.
Dozens of people who were great coaches, like people that I used to go to and pick their BA brain for training advice who aren't in this industry anymore because they didn't have the business data. Yeah, yeah. They were great technical, super smart, but couldn't get anybody to come and train with them.
And now they're doing something they don't love for the rest of their life. And there's no, to me, there's nothing worse. I couldn't imagine waking up in the morning and hating what you do a thousand forever. Like, so that that's something that, you know, we're, we're very, very proud of is that we're able to help people that love this, like we do actually make a living outta it.
No, when I, a sustainable living, when I opened, I think every gym. I've called you, I called Chris about every one and I was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing about this? Because I don't understand it. And you know, so he you're great with that. Yeah. And I leaned on both of you guys for that stuff. Um, no, I think it's a great partnership.
So how, where do you see the, where do you see the business going? Like what, what's the plan for it? Are you just kind of grown? And then One of my other things, because a couple years ago, I'd say probably three years ago I was out at this expo, I don't even want to fucking say his name 'cause it'll make my blood boil.
But I hired this absolute scumbag, um, to help with like the marketing side of it. Like he had all these connections and stuff and he was gonna help me and there was no delivery on it. And I said, listen, businessman to businessman, keep the fucking first 10 grand I gave you. I'm okay with it. Just gimme back the rest of the money.
I don't wanna do business anymore. He's like, oh, I can't do that. I'm selling the company, blah, blah, blah. All this bullshit. So it's like, I think there's a lot of fucking. Shit bags out there claiming they could, I could help. As soon as I hear somebody say, I could help you make eight figures or nine figure, I'm like, why wouldn't you just do it for yourself and shut the fuck up?
Right? Because there's all these guys out there, you're like, I know you're bullshit. You gotta a fucking Toyota Camry. You're driving around there. How are you gonna, your way of making eight figures is bullshitting other people to pay you and take them out and make eight figures. I always compare it to fucking remember the um, living color skit.
The guy, Loomis Simmons, he's like, you can't be rich, so make me rich. He's like, I'm just paying this guy to fucking hum on facet tapes and shit. Yes. Yeah. Well, dude, there, there's so many, I would say companies out there that are, you know, doing the, teaching you how to grow a gym business, but they've never grown a gym business.
Exactly. They don't own a gym. Yes. So it's like, how are you gonna help people with these problems when they arise? And what it is, it's a glorified marketing company. Mm-hmm. You know, for the, for the most part. Um, and not all, of course, there's a lot of great companies out there as well, but that's one of the things, like Joe and I both actively still own gyms.
Mm-hmm. So we're still, we're running into these problems that these gym owners are dealing with. So when we're coaching them, a lot of times they might come up with an issue, say, Hey, I'm having this issue with an ad, or this is happening with our, with one of our clients, or whatever. It's like, oh, we dealt with that last week.
Here's, here's what we did. Yeah. You know? So, um, I think that's one of the, the biggest things that, that really helps these guys. I do have. A pretty decent audience of like coaches and trainers who follow this. What are like three things that you, you make sure that everybody's doing to, you know, whether they're, they've been in business five years or they're just starting out, like what are three definitives that you think everybody should be doing?
Like, should they be out running online ads? Should they be doing referral programs? Like, there's a lot of that shit out there. And there was a lot of times we do it all the time. I feel like sometimes I'm just throwing shit up against the wall, but it's like, oh, we'll run a summer challenge. Like there's so much shit out there.
Like how do you, you mean so in specifically to marketing specifically to like Yeah, like lead, lead generation. Yeah. Because every, I think everybody, and correct me if I'm wrong, like when, when I had Solace, there was a point where he had like 700 members, but I had like 20 coaches. We had a fucking huge gym.
We were doing a ton of marketing. Yeah, we were running ads everywhere, on Facebook, in cabs, everything. She went to an event, uh, last week I sent her to this marketing event and some guy was like, oh, I have 900. Fucking clients in a th 3,500 square foot space. I'm like, get the fuck outta here. Nine. I go, that's unheard of.
Like, I mean, from our business. You guys deal with, again, are they showing up or are they That's what I'm saying and Right. What kind of model is it? Small group training only. So they would have four running at the exact same time of groups of six to eight. Okay. Nine hundreds. A lot of people. Yeah, that's a, that how many, how many hours is that?
That's what I'm saying. Even at our peak 12 hours. Is that impossible? Yeah, I know. And it's in fucking New Jersey. I'm like, where is this? What town is this? Yeah. It's like the only town that's got that many people is like Newark or so like, you know, you're not getting the people there spending two 50 a month.
Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, no, like what are the three things that you kind of make sure everybody's doing? Yeah, so the three things that we in, in regard to marketing, the three buckets, if you will, of marketing that we always teach are online, offline, and internal. Right? So. Let's look at each of those. So first off, with online marketing, you wanna split that up to two categories.
So one is paid and the other is organic, right? So obviously paid is your paid ads. Um, that's Facebook, Instagram. If you wanna love, uh, run Google Ads, that's cool too. But really Facebook and ig, those are gonna be the places that you're bringing in the most leads from. Okay, right. More than Google. Yeah, Google ads are definitely, they, they help and if you have Google reviews and people, obviously if they Google personal training or personal trainer in my area and they come across your your page, so that helps with that stuff.
But as far as running ads, Facebook and IG are definitely gonna bring in you the, the most leads, the most traffic. Then you have the organic online marketing. So that's gonna be, uh, like having a consistent cadence of posting online. We always tell people like, look, I don't have the biggest following in the world.
I have what, 3,900 followers or so, something like that. But they're probably dialed in. Uh, maybe, I don't know. Yeah. But the point is like, I think a lot of times people get this wrong because they try to go viral, right. Or something like that. Like they want to get a million followers. It's like you just gotta attract and speak to the people that are in your area.
Mm-hmm. Like if you have a million followers, how many of those people actually live near you where they can actually go train with you? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And also in their messaging, one thing Joe and I talk about all the time is don't try to impress other coaches with the content that you're putting out.
Such a big one. Speak the language of the people that you're trying to actually attract. Like put out information that could actually help them. Mm-hmm. Right. And do it on a consistent basis. So, and, and also having a, an email list is huge still. Some people will probably debate this, but listen, if you could take people from social media and use a lead magnet or something like that, that adds value, and you get them onto an email list where now you could continue to give them value.
Enhance that know, like, and trust factor. That's huge. Yeah. Right. So that's kind of like the online bucket. Then you have offline, this is like becoming the mayor or the celebrity in your area. So get to know other local business owners. Get to know, uh, the community organizations, the, the fire department, the police department run fundraisers for them.
Right. So like, just really becoming that celebrity mm-hmm. In your area is huge. Yeah. Uh, I don't think enough people do that. And then the internal stuff that would be like generating referral plays and internal challenges, um, giving your members incentive to refer. Um, so those are like the three, the big three there.
That is so simply put, because I think one that could work for anybody who's got a business out there. Yeah. No matter what you're doing if you're selling fucking cakes or Yep. You know, uh, building gyms, it doesn't matter. Like, I think that goes across the board. And I think the, the most important one is that mayor one.
Yeah. I think a lot of people downplayed the idea of like, hey, if you're in a small town or even in New York, as long as everyone knows that you do that, you are the first thing that comes to mind when they're like, oh, I need that. I should just go see him. 'cause he's right down the block. Right. So the more people who know that you do what you do, the better off you are.
Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and, but that was to, I like that. I like that three bucket list. Yeah. Yeah. And to that point, like, like rising tides will raise all ships, right? Mm-hmm. So if you're helping. Other local businesses grow. Mm-hmm. And so for example, I go to a coffee shop, I take a picture of it, I tag the coffee shop.
It's now bringing customers to them potentially. Mm-hmm. Giving them some exposure. And now if they return the favor or if you start training their manager or whatever, they're gonna start sending referrals your way too. So it just helps everyone to do good and just con connect with people that are in your area.
Yeah. The internal piece too, the kind of marketing within your clientele. I think so many trainers and gym owners forget about, I know even I did this. Um. I, I can't even tell you how many times over the course of the years when I would remember like, Hey, I gotta remind, even when I was just training high school kids, remind them, Hey, if you have a friend, bring them in.
You know? Yeah, yeah. Come in, train with you. If they like it, I'll give them a discount. Whatever it may be. The, the amount of times I've brought that up and then kids would say, oh, I, dude, I have a, I have a ton of friends, but I thought you, I thought you were, you didn't want anybody more. I thought you were booked.
Yeah. Because all they know is when they would, for that person, when they're at the gym, you're obviously busy training them, so their perception of you is like, oh, he doesn't have time for anybody else. He's busy. But, um, like, well, I train you guys right after school. So yes, it's a busy time, but at the time I had a six o'clock opening, a seven o'clock opening.
So just a simple ask at the end of the session, Hey, remember if you got a friend, you got a neighbor? Hey, does your husband wanna, if he wants to come in and train with you, just know, you know. Open door. Yeah. The, the amount of people you could get just from that before you spend a dollar on a Facebook ad or, or leave the gym and go down the street to the coffee shop, you'll be shocked how many new members you could get.
Yeah. It, it's, it's so true because there's so many times where people are like, oh, I thought you were busy. Yeah. I think I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm never too busy. Make me, make me more busy. Yeah. Yeah. Bring, bring in as many people as po I'll train people at three in the morning. Yep. Yep. Um, so. I mean, both of you guys have been doing this a long time.
How often do you look back and say, fuck, where did the time go? All the time. Yeah. The right next month will be 13 years running my gym. Mm-hmm. Um, and March was year 19 in the industry for me. Wow. So when I look back, I'm like, holy shit, man. Like, it's almost two decades for me. Yeah. Like where you spent most of your life.
Where did I Yeah. When you, when we all started, none of us had gray in our fucking beard. And that's your, that truer words have not been spoken. It's crazy. I don't think a day goes by where something doesn't happen, where I'm like, oh shit. I was at CVS the other day and like to me, what looked like an older dude's like staring at me and the jersey in me's like, what the fuck?
You look like you got a fucking problem? So I'm like, I feel this guy. Tall ass dude. He's like six foot eight, like staring at me. And he is staring at me, staring at me and I check out. And then he is like. Joe and I turn around and it kind of looks familiar. Long story short, it's a dude I trained when I was working at Parises, so I'm, I was 2020 barely, uh, 21, not even.
Yeah, I think I just turned 20 and this kid was in high school. That's why he looked so old to me. 'cause he is basically my age. I, yeah. When I trained him, you, when you're 20 and you train someone that's 16, you think you're so much older than them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as you get older, then you basically become the same age, basically.
Same age. But it was this dude that I trained him and he had a twin brother when they were juniors in high school. He was there with his two 7-year-old sons, no shit. And he's like, you remember me, you trained me at Parises when I was in high school. Then he said the name and I was like, holy shit. What year was that?
And it was like 1999 or something. That's you, you want talk about reflecting and going, wow. A lot of time has passed. Stuff like that happens to me every week. I, I worked as the, uh, the strength coach over at Union High School for the football program in 2013 and 14. Mm-hmm. So some of these guys, like, it was their senior year in 2013, and then I trained them throughout their college career.
And now I'm looking back, I'm like, I, I see them on, on Instagram or whatever. I'm like, holy shit. Like, this guy's married, this guy's having a kid. I'm like. I, I still like, in my mind, the perception is like, there's still frigging 18, 20-year-old kids. Yeah. I'm like, no, man. He's like 30 now. Yeah. However old.
It's crazy. Yeah. Time flies. I mean, I, I think about, and just the evolution of the, the fitness industry, right? You're seeing so many people adopting fitness, right? Everybody's a fucking fitness influencer, even like actors and shit. Yeah. And you've had some, an incredible career. Like when you look back, it's like you worked at Parisi, which was probably one of the top school.
Uh, yeah. It was all time. Time. I think it was, it was like the only show in town. He was a very ahead of the time. I I will certainly give him credit for that. Yeah. It was so you went a cool spot and then you had your own place where like that became legend. Like, I remember when Tommy first was like my cousin, Tommy Tiano.
He was like, shout out Tommy. Yeah. He was like, I was talking to him and he's like, oh, I'm going to DeFranco. I was like, dude, I. You gotta let it see if I could come there and he's like, oh, I'll ask Joe if it's okay. And then when he, I remember being so nervous. That's so funny. Pulling up there and I'm like, oh shit, I'm actually gonna work out here.
This is amazing. Um, and you know, and then like the whole like Triple H thing. And then you worked for the wwe you were a part of on it when it first happened. Was Aubrey a part of it when you first Yeah. He's the one who started, yeah, he was in New York for something. And it's funny. Aubrey and Triple H both had talking about gym culture.
I, I tell this story to the, to the Iron business blueprint gym owners, every, every class that we have when we talk about culture. Um, when Aubrey walked in to my gym, he was in New York for something and we had kind of known Orlando, who does my, who's my podcast producer, uh, now I met him at OnIt. Okay. So he was an OnIt guy.
He was a big Houston Texans fan. So he loved Brian Cushing. And then he emailed me to send me some free on it supplements, 'cause he knew I trained Cush. So I developed a relationship with Orlando and then that kinda led into a relationship with OnIt Aubrey, who st you know, started OnIt, was in New York and wanted someplace to train.
So he had called me and I was like, yeah, sure you could come by and, and train at the gym. I got a group of NFL guys come in and work out. And when he walked in he was like. Holy shit. He goes, man, there I, I feel something different. Yeah, he is like a big, like spiritual and like, you know, you could just see he was, he was taking it all in and he said something to the effect of like, there's something in the walls in this place.
I could feel it. He goes, I never felt. A gym like this, he goes, man, there's something special about this place. And then a couple months later I get a call from him saying, we're thinking about attaching a gym to our warehouse. We were gonna just, you know, do our own gym. But I, I think I'd rather have an existing brand that has that reputation.
And of all the gyms I've ever been to, I'll never forget that feeling when I walked into your gym. I'd love to try to reproduce that here in Austin. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, months went by and we discussed it. And that's how that actually came about. It's 'cause he walked in the gym and he just loved the culture and the vibe in there.
And we tried, that's why we even, instead of buying new equipment, he was big on like, I, I want, I, I want the old equipment. I want, like, I wanted try to make, we bought all the stuff and we just shipped it all out there. So that's how, that's how that came about. And Triple H had the same reaction that, you know, which I, I'm always very proud of.
'cause he's traveled the world and he telling me gyms he's been to in like Egypt and fricking China, Russia, like he's been everywhere. And he goes, your Jim had, it's something different when I walked in. So we, we try to. Kind of dissect that and, and help our, our coaches and gym owners duplicate that in their own spot, in their own way.
'cause it is special when you walk into a place for sure. That's different like that. And I talk about that all the time. I, I've been doing for the past, like year or so, I've been doing these gym reviews. And anytime I'm in an area, I'm like, I'm not gonna join fucking Equinox and go to Equinox all over the world.
They're all the fucking same. Right. I love dropping into like, you, you go to somewhere like, and I talk about it. I go, this place has got the feel. Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's hard to pin what it's hard pin into words, but feel it. But there's, it's the culture, it's the vibe, it's the, the magnetic energy.
I don't know what it is, but like I, you get it when you walked in your place. Like I said, I went into that dragons layer. Um, there's just certain places that have that vibe and. I can never pinpoint what it is, but what are like two or three other places that you've been to where you're like, all fuck, I wanna train, you know, but West Side was, was one of those, obviously the, um, I haven't been to the, the current one, but the one that was the, the gutted seven 11 with the, the, uh, black spray painted the windows where, uh, spray painted black, that one.
Um, was, was big for me and for, and I know it's not, it's not a public gym people could go to, but vibes, uh, wise, the WWE e performance center, when Sean Hayes was running it Okay. Was a man, that place was special. That was the one in Orlando. It's it's still in Orlando. Yeah. I mean, and I'm sure it's still incredible, but, uh, I haven't been there in a couple years.
Yeah. But man, the, I, I guess you know what it is. It's the, the it, I'm biased because it was kind of CPPS coach and driven. So the, the actual training was our style, so to speak. Yeah. Sean's in incredible, uh, one of the best coaches out there, both from a, an x's and o standpoint and an interpersonal skills and just a great guy.
But he does a, a hell of a song called him Person Best. The In the World. The Best in the World, insane. Rick Flair, stone Cold, macho Man. Macho. It's the Man. Shout out Sean Hayes. Um, but you know, you have a bunch of insane athletes from all over the world, different countries, and they're all hungry 'cause they wanna make it to the big stage.
Mm-hmm. So you have that plus a great coach, plus you know, the, the best equipment plus that, that just, that energy and that vibe and it's such a diverse group of people. Mm-hmm. There, like he had, he had a group of like six Chinese athletes starting that didn't speak a lick of English and, and they told him that day like, Hey, you got some new athletes coming in, none of 'em speak English, but, you know, put 'em through an assessment and we gotta get 'em going.
And still, like, he made it work there. 'cause there's something like unspoken in that place. Mm-hmm. That was just badass. Yeah. I, I got one for you. What? Diamond Gym? Maplewood jersey. Oh my god. Yeah, of course. That, that talk about in the walls. Yeah. Uh, dude, that, that they have not gotten a new piece of equipment since 1976.
Like know it's another one like that. I mean, I go down to Wildwood all the time. Have you ever been TOIs to the, at Tillis? Yeah. Dude, I fucking, the wood paneling. It's a, it's a shit hole. It's an absolute shit hole. The bathroom's broken. It's like the whole place is fallen apart, but you're like. I want to train in this gym.
Yeah. He's played the same playlist. I started working out there when I was like 13, 14 years old. Yeah. And it's been the same playlist. It's like Guns N Roses, mega Death, anthrax, like it's just hardcore, you know, eighties and nineties metal music. It's got that red carpet in there that, yeah. Yeah. Hasn't been changed.
Changed ever. Yeah. There's something about it I, and I was brought up like I gotta give a shout out. My dad's gym, pys Gym in Patterson, New Jersey was like where I started. So I think that's why I love that type of gym. And have you ever heard of Man's World Gym in Trenton? Most people, it's where I trained in college.
I gotta give, Joe dod was the owner. Shout out. It was an antique shop in Trenton, but it was like. Bodybuilders and powerlifters, and it was, you know, kind of in the ghetto. But I, uh, yeah, I, I was one of the few college kids that trained there. It was just like, like old jack dudes from Trenton, like trying to become like pro bodybuilders and powerlifters.
Um, but all old beat up, you know, welded equipment. But then there'd be like. A, a, a life-sized, uh, um, like cutout of like the, a bearded woman in the corner, like all weird circus stuff and antique stuff. And it was in, is it still there? New? I don't know if it's still there, but if it is, you gotta check that place out.
It was legendary. It was the biggest honor of my life. I did a before and after when I did the EAS Bill Phillips before and after contest, and I went from like 2 35 to 1 93. Oh shit. I got shredded for the first time in my life and the owner put a picture of me on the wall. That's man's world, Jim. It was like, I made it.
Like I don't, if I do nothing else in, in this lifetime, I might, if it's still around, I might still, there might be a college picture of me and my little posing candy cane posing trunks. Did you do in Man Broken? Did you do a show? You've never done a show? It was just before and after pictures. So he, he put those up there.
But yeah, shout out Man's World where, um, there was, you know, I actually like, I really do like on it, like anytime I'm down in, um. Austin, it's one of the places I have to stop 'cause it's got another great vibe. But there's now with build outs, right? And this is what I talk about with a lot of guys who are like, I wanna open up a gym, I wanna open up a gym.
And they're like, yeah, I wanna have the best equipment and I'm gonna have 10,000 square feet. And I'm like, well buddy, how much money you got? Yeah. You funding this thing yourself, because I think a lot of people forget that when you're building it out and let's say the build outs. $200,000. One, somebody wants that 200 grand back, whether it's you or somebody else.
Right. Right. And two, you still need the operating cost of what it costs to run that place. Yep. Yeah. You know, so I think a lot of people forget how hard it is to start any business, especially a gym start. If I could give one piece of advice, start small and grow slow, I, I. I didn't, I did a lot of things wrong, uh, as, as a business owner, and we tried to teach them in our course, but one thing I did right was I started as small as possible with the, the least.
It, it's not about the money you make, it's about the money that you spend or don't spend if you, I know so many people who wanted that dream facility as their first facility. Mm-hmm. And it's like you're drowning from day one. Like I all I had, and even with the storage closet, people are shocked to hear, but the, he charged me $1,600 rent, which was.
A lot of money for a literal closet, especially at that time and, and in early two thousands. But I look back, that was my only expense 'cause we were able to use the bathroom of the health club. I didn't have to pay a front desk person. Like yeah. Yeah. I had no other expenses besides three pieces of equipment that I bought, which I put on a credit card.
Once I paid that off, I had $1,600 a month and you know how many times I wanted to go back as I grew bigger and people think you're successful. But the amount of times I was like, man, I wish I had the storage closet where I had one bill each month. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's so start small, you could always get bigger, but if you go too big too soon, that could put you in enough debt that you're out of the gym business for Good.
For sure. You know? Yeah. One of the things I tell people, 'cause always everybody's always like, I have a smaller space now. My space is like 2,500 square feet here in the same, it's a good size. I like that. Yeah. It's like small and intimate, but big enough to get stuff done and it's a good vibe in there.
Yes. Um. And everybody's like, oh, do you want bigger? I'm like, yeah, I'd love a bigger space. I go, but then you incur so much more cost and now you need, now you're like hunting down people to fill the space. Mm-hmm. Right. When, when I was at Solace, it's like I kind of took over something that these other guys had built.
They spent $2.3 million building the place out, and then there was so much overhead. Mm-hmm. So everybody's like, you gotta be killing it there. I'm like, we are. I go, we, we make 3 million, but we spend 2.8. You kill it to break even, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like bigger doesn't always mean better. And that's one of the things I try to teach people.
It's like, have, I'd rather have five quality clients than 50 kind of half-ass shitty ones who are in and out and stuff. I agree. You know? I agree. I think that's one of the harder things. And speaking of clients, I mean, Chris, I, I know you probably had your fair share of great clients, but I mean, you've gotten, you've been trained in Triple H, how long now?
15 years. Holy shit. Yep. Client retention. You talk about client retention. I, I, I also have another guy, Jeff Sika, who I've been training for 23 years since I started in the Wow. In the storage closet. And, um, I more, I have more clients that have been with me 10 plus years that like I could even count no shit.
There's guys that were right now training with Calvin at my, my small private gym. Um. Guys that trained with me when they were high school into college into the NFL that are now just adults with kids and jobs that are now training in our, you know, washed up meathead program. But more than them that, that I could count.
It's something that I'm, I'm most proud of, is just the, the way we've been able to retain so many clients for so long. I mean, you got two guys sitting on either side of you that we like fangirled over you when we first met you. You know, you have a lot you and like my buddy was just here, he's one of my clients.
When I told him I was friends with you, he's like, no way. Like he want, he's like, dude, I gotta come meet him. So it's like you have gar tell my wife that when she tells me to take the garbage out when I get home and doesn't give two shit. Yeah. Well, I, I think, I think you have, you have earned this right and this reputation as like a legendary coach.
I appreciate that. In my, in my. You know, kind of, uh, Mount Rushmore of trainers and people who've kind of influenced me. I'd put you right next to like Louisie Simmons. It's say. And I only knew who that means a lot. Thank you. Who Louisie Simmons was because of you. Yeah. You know, and I think you've done so much for the industry, so it's like that's definitely something to be proud of and it's gotta be cool for you to be.
Working so closely with him now as like time goes on. Absolutely, man. I mean, Joe, I, we talk about this all the time, but like, he has paved the way for guys like us to come and like, I don't even know if I would've opened a gym if Joe didn't do what he did, you know? Yeah. So it's just like, um, yeah, man, it's, it's pretty crazy.
I appreciate that. That's the thing. I, I, I appreciate you guys saying that. 'cause that's what I'm most proud of. People ask about like, your best accomplishment in the industry. It's not the training Triple H that going, you know, I've gotten to go to the Super Bowl and the NFL draft, like all that stuff is cool, but hearing that and the amount of people that I've never met that are just like, Hey, I'm, I'm so and so a coach from Scotland or Australia, and I followed you when I was in high school.
Yeah. And I didn't know that you could make a living training people without having to own a huge big box gym or work at a gold gym. Like, I didn't even know that. Profession kind of existed the private sector until I saw you and doing it out of a small little storage closet that gave me hope that, hey, I could kind of do that.
Mm-hmm. And then now I, they'll send me pictures of their gyms and like, they have these beautiful, successful gyms and great clienteles, and these are people I never even met. So that, that's a, that's a special feeling knowing that you kind of, you know, literally help change somebody's life and again, help them do something that they're passionate about instead of working a nine to five that they hate the rest of their life.
Yeah, no, I know for me it's, it's definitely changed the trajectory of like the way I operate it and what I've done, and. The fact that I've always used guys like you as like a beacon. I'm like, Hey, he's, what? How old are you now? 51. F 49. Okay. Gimme, I'm almost 50 next month. 50 next month. Next month. Yeah. So you're, you know, you're about eight years older than me and I'm like, he's still doing it at a high level.
Like I always look up to other guys. Uh, a couple years ago I had Gunner speak at Strong New York and I got to meet him and he's one of these people, I remember when the Sly Stallone book came out. Yeah. Like, uh, and he had talked about Gunner in it, and I'm reading and I'm like, who is this guy? I gotta find out who this guy.
So then I started like looking up Gunner Peterson's up. And when I finally got to talk to him, I'm like, dude. You were like a God to me. Right? Yeah. How did you more trained Sylvester still? Yeah, we all looked up at Sylvester. Everybody looked up and train him. I thought the same thing about God, you know, talking about levels of everything.
Yeah. I thought the same thing. And he's still training people. Yeah. Yeah. He's still training people. And I, I love that because I'm like, I wanna keep doing it. And one of the things that everybody always said is like, well, you're gonna train people when you're 60 years old. I go, yeah, I hope so. Yeah. Maybe.
'cause if a fucking accountant's gonna sit behind a desk and crank out numbers, that seems like the most miserable fucking job in the world. Yeah. And if you're gonna do that at 50, 60, 70 years old, I should be able to be in a gym. You know, like we have this whole line we're dropping, it's, it's called Dying in the Gym because two, sign me up, I'll take a few.
Yeah. I'll send you some shit. Because I said, I go, if I have the choice, I wanna die in a gym knowing that like I was healthy enough to be in the gym, working out or training somebody. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like that whole philosophy, like. If I go somewhere and, and you, you checked out that gym, you were at that gym in, um, at the Fountain Blue, right?
Yeah. The hotel gym. It's sick. Hey. It was insane. Yeah, it was pretty nice. It was at one of the, be maybe the best, uh, hotel gym I've ever seen. Yeah. Shout out to Jay Wright because he, uh, he had built that place. I saw that. I don't know him personally, but I did see, I did see that. So, yes. Shout out. Yeah, he had, I like, when you walk into a hotel gym and there's Kaiser equipment there, you're like, oh, shit.
All right. Somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing. Built this place. Yes. Yeah. And turf and sleds. Yeah. I was just like, holy shit, man. You get a real hotel. This is weird. Yeah, yeah. Um, no, but that's like, I tell people all the time, like, there are certain people who've shaped the way I train and the way I look at, uh, business and, you know, you and Gunner and, you know, I've become pretty close with, uh, Don Saladino now, and he's another one who's And Jay Ji.
Yeah. Yeah. I saw Jay at WrestleMania. Yeah. We got to see each other. So I was, I wasn't at WrestleMania. I was very disappointed and I wish I would've went. Um, but. Me and a buddy of mine sat there and we were like, all right, who are the five most influential guys, you know, who took wrestling from just wrestling and made it mainstream?
And now you're a part of it. You've been, you've seen it the last 15. I mean, you always followed it, right? Yeah, yeah. I was, I was huge as a young kid. And then I got away from it. And then in college, when I was in college when, like Stone cold. Yeah, yeah. That all the DX stuff. I got into it for a little while and then out of it, and then back into it when, when I got the call from Triple H.
So, uh, as, as a fan, I always ask, I, I wanna know like, who do you guys think are like the five most influential? Like, who took it from just like, wrestling to mainstream? Well, you gotta put Hogan on that list. Yeah. To me that Hogan comes right to my right to my list. 'cause who doesn't know Hulkamania. Right.
Even if you never even watched wrestling in your life, you know, Hulkamania and Stone, stone Cold. Those are my, those two to me are like, I. Up here with, with the mainstream crowd, because I, I remember being in the mall in college and like the Austin three 16 shirts were everywhere. Everywhere. You didn't, you didn't have to be a wrestling fan.
Everybody knew them. Uh, the Rock. I would, I would certainly put up there, especially now over the past few years with the, with that crossover Rick Flair, you know, he's in rap songs. Yeah. And, you know, people wooing when, when you see him, Brett Hart. Yeah. He's, yeah. He'd be up there. He's like on the cusp for me.
Yeah. Or Sean Michaels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not feeling they're, they're, they're like on the, I don't do I, I think those are my FI would say I have four, unless I'm forgetting. Maybe undertaker. Yeah. Too, because people know, uh, if you say that name, I think most people, most people know who he's would be like, oh yeah, that's the wrestler guy.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and like, why do you, is there someone else? Am I forgetting someone I said, I had said like, the most people who would know, if you mention their name, that. The average person, you walk down the street and you're like, oh, do you know who the Rock is? They'd be like, oh yeah, of course. Mm-hmm. And I said, Hogan, Andre.
Andre. Yeah. Andre Jive, stone Cold, the Rock. And I said the fifth one, who, you know, he was never one of my favorites, but I like him, was John Cena. Uh, yeah. Yeah. John Cena made it pretty mainstream. And like, I love The Undertaker. I love Shawn Michaels. I love Brett Hart. Like those Yeah. Rick Flir too. They would be like, great company guys.
But I always say like, these were like the mainstream. They, they took it like beyond wrestling, but I think you could go to anybody on the street and say, Rick Re and they'll Oh yeah, yeah. Return, I think, yeah. I think we're so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think Macho man, Randy Savage is, he's another one. Yeah.
Probably Macho Man. Like that's, that's a, they finally Iron Sheik on, on Twitter before, dude, like he, he was awesome on Howard Stern. Incredible. I think Howard's any of this dude, Howard Stern took him to a different level. He used to have these like crazy arguments with like Beetlejuice and shit on Howard Stern.
Incredible. It was incredible. It's some of the, if you look up some of these videos and the Iron Cheek and Beetlejuice arguing, oh, I gotta look that up. You have to look them up. They're hysterical. You're gonna be dying laughing. He's the only guy that it. Man to talk about. We're losing track of time. But a couple years ago at a WrestleMania, he was in his wheelchair drunk off his ass Iron Sheik.
Really? And he is the one guy I, I always like, I'm not going around asking people for pictures. 'cause like we, we, we get to be backstage sometimes and I'd be warming up Triple H before a match or something, so I'm not being like a fan back there. But he was, we were, we were in the hotel and I'm like, I, I say to my wife, I'm, I give her my phone.
I'm like, you have to take a picture of me with this dude. She didn't know who he was. I'm like, I need a picture with the Iron Sheik. But he was so. Pissed drunk. He, I believe he was like cursing at people. And then the dude that was like handling him just grabbed him and wheeled them away. 'cause he was like cursing at people in the lobby just as I was gonna go up and get a picture.
He wheeled them away and put 'em up on the elevator and I never saw him again. And then he passed away a, a few years later. So never got my picture with the Iron Sheik. I'm pissed. So we're gonna wrap up a little bit, but like, because you've been backstage, I'm guessing a ton of times, you know, there are so many absolute characters, you know, both on, you feel like you're in a cartoon.
Yes. When you're, if you're backstage at a wrestling thing, it's bizarre. One of my buddies just sent me a video of what the honkytonk man looks like right now. And the guy looks like absolute shit. I used to love the honky tonk man. Me too. And I'm looking up old picture, I'm like, oh, he is a good looking guy.
He was in pretty decent shape and now he looks like an absolute disaster. So like there, there's gotta be guys backstage where you're like, this guy is an absolute fucking mess now. No, you know, I don't know. I if I'll, I'll see if I could think of somebody. But what the thing that stood out to me the most, I, I was backstage at WrestleMania 30 when the Rockstone cold and Hogan all came out at the beginning.
Yeah. I didn't know they were coming out, but I gotta say three people that have that larger than life. Like it factor. Yeah. I'm not, not bragging or anything, I'm just like, I'm not, I never got like superstar struck. Yeah. Yeah. Since I've been a kid, football was my thing. If I would've met Walter Peyton when I was a younger kid, I would've been like freaking out.
But like, otherwise, I guess just being around a lot of NFL guys and stuff, you kind of become a little bit immune to it. Yeah. But I remember warming, we warmed up, uh, triple H before his match, and then we were kind of just standing or waiting for someone to bring us back to our seat and literally like, I'm talking to my wife and.
If Chris is the rock, that's how close, it's the Rock Stone Cold and Hulk Hogan, two feet from me getting ready to go backstage. 'cause I see my wife like looking over my shoulder, like, holy shit, look at the size of these guys. She's like, you look so small. And I, and then I look and I'm like, holy shit. Like they look, it's like seeing cartoon characters.
Yeah. In real life. It was. That was very cool. And then Cain, who's way bigger than you even realize, he looked to me like he was seven feet. I think they list him as that. He's probably six, seven ish, but with the wrestling boots and everything. And in full like ca garb. Yeah. And he's the nicest guy ever.
Like, he's like a politician. Yeah. It's like, Hey, hey Joe, how you doing? And like, the cane garb. And so that was, that was like a, I just remember my, the, the look on my wife's face, like these guys like in their underwear and dressed up in their, you know, their like crazy outfits. But backstage they're kind of acting normal.
So it's just, um, that's good. Nobody that that. That I saw at that time that I was like, oh shit, they don't look good. It was more like, this is like cartoon come to life type of thing. Yeah. I've always looked at them as like comic book heroes. They're like, holy shit, this guy's a, yeah. I will say this, most of them and, and it, you know, for those who call wrestling fake, um, the, yeah, the outcomes are predetermined and all, but what they put their body through.
Oh. Because I will say you. Run into any of the old time wrestlers. Most of them can't walk upright. Mm-hmm. They all have a certain look as far as like being in pain limping around. Like they, what they do to their bodies is, is far from fake for sure. I'll say that they're, they're beat up man. Plus all the travel.
Like, it's, it's not an easy profession. I got a lot of respect for what those guys do and girls all year, no off it is never off a lot of respect for what they do. 'cause not 99.9% of the population would tap out in, in a week of, of living their lifestyle. Yeah. I, I can only imagine. Um, well listen boys, thank you guys so much for coming by.
Where could everybody find you guys and, um, you know, kind of learn more about what you guys are doing with the new business? Uh, most, uh, most of my content online is on Instagram at the Francos Gym, and you can also check out at the Iron Business Blueprint on Instagram, or we have the website, iron business blueprint.com.
That's where you could fill out an application and, uh, apply for our next 90 day coaching course. Nice. Yeah, for me it's at Chris underscore Ella. Nice. Well, guys, thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you guys for watching. Like, subscribe, share with a friend and we'll see you guys on the next episode.