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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.
Welcome to the strongest podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Santucci and join us for some strong conversations.
All right We're ready to go with another episode of the strongest fuck podcast I'm your host Kenny Santucci and I love doing this show because it allows me to connect with other professionals in my field and people who are doing things a lot better than the average bear and No short of that today is my man Dan Goodman from varsity house This is a gym that I've known about for a very long time These guys are doing things at a very high level, top tier.
And we're going to talk today about how he transitioned from being a gym owner to now helping other people run their gyms just a little bit more efficiently. Damn. Welcome to the show kid. Kenny. Appreciate
you having me,
man. Of course. Thank you for coming on. You had an event a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago now came out to that.
Yeah. Was awesome. I wish I could have been there the whole time, but you had a great lineup of people. And I think you're really building value and helping people kind of figure out how to run the gym business because it is very different post, uh, COVID.
Listen, I mean, most people get into this industry.
I had this conversation with somebody yesterday. And I was asking her, I'm like, what do you want to do now? And she's like, I want to train people. I said, well, there's nothing wrong with being a trainer. You don't have to be a gym owner, but there is a problem with people. We were having this conversation off the record before the show with Remy over here.
You have to have a plan on how to maximize your time as a trainer. Charge what you're worth and and put together reproducible systems that people just they don't teach that in school they don't teach that like people aren't shouting from the rooftops on how to do that and You know, it's a problem because you posted something yesterday and I resonated with it.
It's like I've been able to turn my passion into my profession, or you said something along
those lines. Yeah, yeah. How it should bleed into the two, like what you do on a daily basis. People shouldn't know the difference between you enjoying yourself and having a good time. 100%.
And like, people love working out, and then they realize like, oh wow.
I can train people, get paid whatever it is, 60 bucks, 80 bucks, 100 bucks an hour, but I have to work from 4. 30 in the morning till 9 o'clock at night till infinity to make a career of this, or I have to become a gym owner, and I don't know shit about running a business, so there is, there is life as a trainer, and um, There doesn't have to be a 90 percent attrition rate or churn rate for trainers.
And, you know, we are living proof of that. I mean, I'm in year, shoot, I'm going to be 40 years old. I've done this since I was 22. So however many years that makes it. And, um, Joe, my business partner is going to be 50. So we're living great, by the
way. Yeah, he still looks, but I got to give it up. Joe of our city has guys.
If you haven't seen this guy, he looks better. He looks better than I've ever seen.
He's lost like 30 locked in. He's done some, you know, he's, he's completely, he's having his midlife now where he, uh, he went to, he's like going to Australia hunting. He's climbing, uh, uh, whatever Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Sure. I'm like, dude, like, what are you doing? He's going to jujitsu three times a week. I know you're on your jujitsu right now, but uh, he's on one right now and look, listen, I'm with him every day and it's forcing me to reconsider like, okay, like I gotta get my shit together here.
So here's the thing.
Right? So yes, it's inspiring to be around him. Don't you see that being the healthy because you guys worked in the fitness industry, obviously for a long time. Totally. Isn't he more inspiring and better to be around when he's in this mode? 100%.
And then you talk about Uh, being the trainer, like you're running around, you're doing so many sessions and, you know, I was training for two hours a day and then all of a sudden the maturation process of the business is like, I'm coaching coaches, I'm sitting at a desk, I'm crunching numbers, I'm marketing the thing and now I'm walking 3000 steps a day and working out twice a week, like what the fuck happened here?
And, you know, you have to lead by example. And listen, I was nearly a 300 pound offensive lineman. The path of least resistance for me to get back to 300 is like three bad weekends away. So I have to constantly be fighting that. And Joe's been a great example of somebody who's 10 years older than me.
That's in literally the best shape of his life right now. And it bleeds into everything we do because he is the example.
And now he's got so much more energy that he's probably pushing you guys to do other shit.
A hundred percent. He's non stop.
Yeah.
And always has been, but even more so now where, you know, you also look at like, we've whittled, we've whittled down like what he's doing in our business to a point where he could go all in on that thing.
And that's, he's, he's, uh, he's marketing our, our brand. And he is our brand, you know, he is the avatar that we're speaking to on the gym side, but he's also, you know, for other gym owners out there. It's like, hey, this guy's gonna be 50 years old and has made the thing work. So if you want to run a brick and mortar business like With the business of strength, we could teach you how,
and he's got a life outside the gym, right?
He's got kids. He's got a hundred percent. So a lot of people, I mean, I'm one of them. I'm always like, I need to be a hundred percent in my business. And then the little time that I do have to myself, I focus on. Going to jujitsu, working out, like doing the things that bring me joy because it just allows me to operate so much better.
How does he, how do you guys manage that?
So the big thing with that is you are a quick start personality. You're, you're an attack, you're in attack mode all the time. We're talking about when I got here, um, how I met you and I met you from, uh, Scott Lutris and Gabe, who were training with you, and then I came to train with you and it was just like kind of like a bro workout session, but I saw you just like this guy is everywhere all the time.
Like, what is he doing? And I came from Jersey, came to come train. We brought our whole team to the strong event, and then just one thing led to the next. And now we're here years later, literally years in the making. But for somebody like you, not that you're asking for the advice, but something that we gave you.
Yeah. Really try and focus on is what are the non negotiables that I have? Because with no guardrails, you're going to do it all. So we have guardrails of expectations that I've set forth for myself and where our people in our business know that like, Hey, that's an off limit type of thing. Like I'm home for dinner every day, unless I'm traveling.
And that's just like a foregone conclusion. Like I cannot work and will not work between. The hours of 5 30 and 7 30. I'm home with the family. If I need to sign on at night to work, that's that's okay. Bedtimes over at that point weekend, saturdays. I take no bookings doesn't mean I'm not working, but I'm not going to be on a schedule on Saturday.
J. Frugia helped me with that. We went out to one of his weekends and he's like, what do you hate about your business? I was like, well, I hate Taking appointments on Saturday, and he's like, well, why are you doing that? Still, you don't need to do that. And I just needed the permission from somebody else outside looking in.
There was a weekend with like Mike to Sani and those guys. And it was, it was amazing. I just couldn't give myself the permission to do it. So once I realized that non negotiables were What I needed and what, you know, Joe has them and they're all, they're, they're different, but like, Hey, with my family, we're going to take a long weekend together as a family.
Every quarter, I have to have the ability to step out of this business for one week at a time. And the business still goes without me. That was a, a very, uh, strong realization of being able to, to ensure that I could do this for another 20, you know,
was it hard? Because I mean, I know the fear, I know what you're going through.
It's the idea that I'm going to probably lose some revenue doing this. Yeah. So how do I make up for that? Listen,
I mean, people will talk like Dan Martell's of the world. Craig Valentine's of the world. They all talk about focus, focus energy. You might, um, and Joe says this all the time. You can't, you can't step over dollars to pick up quarters.
And the bookings on Saturdays, it's like, okay. Yeah, I had four or five training sessions that were making, let's call it a hundred bucks. So it's a 500 day, easy round number. I have other coaches in the building that don't have a full schedule. What am I doing here? Like what am I doing? What am I afraid of?
What's on the other side of this? Am I gonna, okay, I lose one session in the, in the, even if I lost all five. Okay, well, what does that freeing me up to be able to do in the future? Is that just giving me the head space to be able to pour back into our team? Because listen, if you're running a brick and mortar space and you have one employee, Five employees, 10 employees, all the unused capacity is in them.
And if you keep pushing them out of the way to gobble up the sessions or, you know, be the lead singer of every session, every day, all day, eventually it's like, you know, should I just go back to being the trainer and charge an astronomical rate and That's what I'm focused on.
I've started to realize that myself, um, having the gym and jersey, it's like, I physically can't be in both places at the same time.
So, I have to pass more along to everyone else. And it's allowed me to be like, there are days I wake up and I'm like, holy shit, I don't have anything to do, like, I don't have somewhere to be right now. Am I fucking up? Am I wrong? And it's like, no, I have someone. Handling that and you have to be okay with them kind of taking the reins and doing a really good job.
And frankly, like my team in Jersey, knock on wood, like last night, one of my trainers moved everything off the black mats, cleaned everything. Like this guy is unbelievable. Shout out to my guy, Wes. He is. So impressive, such a great coach, uh, really cares about it. And plus he's 10 years younger than me. So it's like, when you think about like that 10 year age gap, like I'm still hungry.
These guys, I'm hoping he's as hungry as I believe he is. And they're doing the things that like I would have done when I was at age. And that's how I took over a gym, you know,
and you can have, uh, uh, That's why core values are so important because you can hire and fire based on those values. And I'm gonna assume that Wes has very similar values to you.
Hundred percent. Yeah. And then the second part to that is you can create, I hate, you know, PSOP standard operating procedures. Like you can do that for simple things that you've done, just nuanced things that. You know, you're like, how could you not know how to do that? If Wes is a core value fit, it's on you as a leader to give him the tools.
Yeah.
Well, so how much of that do you think is inherent or kind of nature versus nurture, right? Like, should they have that in them or do you kind of help a lot of these business owners instill that in their people? Like, Hey, this is what I expect from you and you got to do this because I just feel like over time that's going to start to wear away a little bit.
It
does. Right. But there's a lot of nurture associated. Like I look at, okay, let's take something that you're, that you're really passionate about right now. Jiu jitsu. Can you imagine what take me? Okay. I don't know shit about jiu jitsu, been an athlete, whatever. But like day one, I come in, maybe I have some natural ability of the strength or whatever it is.
You're going to start me on the fundamentals regardless of where I'm at from like a, Okay. Um, an athletic standpoint, and you're going to drill the fundamentals for how long until we take the next step.
I think some people get that, but nowadays it just seems like things are different. When I first became a coach, trainer, I wanted to take every certification.
I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. I want to do TRX and Pre and post natal and kettlebell certs and everything. I positive weightlifting and I was just hungry for it. Now I feel like people come in and they're like, well, if I want to know that I'll just look it up on the internet, just like you said, the fundamentals.
Last night I went and trained with my Professor at jujitsu. It was 8 30 at night. Most people are going home, probably getting in bed. I'm like, I got to train tomorrow. I got to train tonight. So I go over there and we're training and we went over the same like five things 100 times. And I'm like, even this morning I woke up.
I'm like, how do you grab my sleeve again? And I'm like, all right, I have to keep drilling this and even exercises. I've shown the same people the same exercise seven years ago. And they're still like, how do I do this again? Like, that's what makes mastery is like the little nuances, like the, the slight changes.
And I think jujitsu is a great way to kind of explain that. Like the way I grab your sleeve, if I grab it on top or I grab it on the bottom, there's a huge difference. I still grabbed your sleeve to most people are like, well, I did the job. Yeah. But you didn't do it to perfection. You didn't master it. If you grab my sleeve underneath, it's much more, Effective than if you grabbed it on top.
Yeah, something that you that you said that is important for for people listening or watching your you just said something to me that really, um, that struck a chord where it's like, I thought about how he got my sleeve or maybe he choked out or Tapped you out. I don't know the jujitsu lingo you do, but you're thinking about a negative, right?
You're thinking about a time where you were beaten or a time that you made a mistake. And now the next time you go back to your professor, you're asking them about the mistake. Oftentimes business leaders. And the people that work for them, there's like an avoidance of talking about the mistake and there's no empathy towards.
It's like, dude, like, it's all right, man. Like, next time, this is how I would do it. And like, anytime, when in doubt, like, this is the system for which we do that and you Continue use that as a as a teaching moment, and you have to understand that teaching is an evergreen thing. It never ends It never ends like you could Be a ufc fighter like and get armbarred as like a black belt You know like that happens every weekend.
So But that's a teaching point where maybe you're not going to get caught in that same spot. And if you have the right person, you know, let's say they make a mistake on a training floor. Like chances are, if you use it as a teaching point, they're not going to make it twice or they shouldn't.
Well, I've realized now having a bigger team.
Um, when I was at my old gym, I would give somebody like, Hey, do it this way. Don't do it that way. And they're like, well, I liked it. And it's like, I don't want to go back and forth with you. I just know this is a better way. And this is how I want it done here. And my new gym, right? I, and with my new crew, I think it's just, and different strokes for different folks.
There are different people who are kind of absorbed things differently. Like Chrissy asked a lot of questions. I got this new guy, JD, who's great. They ask a lot of questions. They're hungry to learn. And I like being around a team like that, where they are inquisitive. They're open to me giving them feedback because I think they've seen that I've had enough time in this game that I can be like, Hey, I want you to succeed.
And I do, I truly want them to be the best version of themselves. I want to help them make as much money as they possibly can, because I know if they win, then I win. So I want them to be the best version. So I'm like, Hey, this is how you tweak this. This'll work a whole lot better. I won't. Let's just do that.
That that could be a value in your business. Like one of our core values is a commitment to excellence and the commitment to excellence is the precursor to that. Or like the way we measure that is education, staff education. What are we doing to learn like? And what are we doing as a company to commit to the learning process on the way over here?
I was talking to Adam Mentor, who's our COO and, uh, and partner in a few of the businesses where I said, Hey, like, what are we, like, what's on the calendar? What's real? Because it's like this podcast. I hit you up about doing a podcast. Like, we got to get you on the business strength until it was on the date.
Shout out to Christie for not giving up on, uh, on my shitty email ability. Um, but like when it was a date, it's happening. It's going to hit you up last night. Like I'm pumped up. So same thing for education though. So if it's memorable, it's repeatable for us. Town hall is the first Wednesday of every month and our coaches meeting, which is an evergreen, just coaches meeting half of it is, um, exercise index and forcing them to explain it to their peers.
And half of it is what we call a defensive side of coaching, which is centered around all this stuff off the floor. So helping them facilitate the text messages. The, um, the anomaly check ins, the, um, how to, how to use our CRM, like all those things that oftentimes gets, get glazed over. So there's twice a month where we're spending 90 minutes developing our team, like guaranteed.
Yeah. Well, I'm sure we have a huge audience of trainers out there and people in the fitness space who are interested in learning. Take me through the pivot of, Hey, we're pretty good at this run in this gym thing. Let's make this a real business. Even with us and what everything I've done, you know, coming from the event or doing even in smaller events or even running a retreat last year, we ran our first retreat and I'm like, Fuck.
Where do we start with this? Like, I don't even know how to start. So take me through how you started from going from the brick and mortar to, Hey, we're going to start this coaching business.
Yeah. So, I mean, like most things, it, it happened very organically where we had, I have a bunch of buddies in the industry and where we were training dudes for like the NFL, we were working with a state champion wrestlers, some of the best public schools and parochial schools in New Jersey.
And thinking that we were going to put out these products that we're going to sell like, like Jody, and that's what we did. And we're like, holy shit, this is way harder than we thought. And nobody was asking us these questions like, yeah, they, people would want to come in and see when we built the brand new facility, people wanted to see it.
And there was definitely some inquiries and we had people that wanted to intern, but the majority of the questions, what do you think didn't hit
with that though, in terms of the products? Yeah. Like, well, because I'm. You look at what JOD has, and I I wasn't one of the members there. I used to,
we have everything.
Every coach has gone through the CPPS. Yeah.
Yeah. Like, and he, I was like, dude, this guy hit the nail on the head and he, Joe's just as hungry. I think now as he was 20 years ago and he does some really impressive stuff. I love his podcast. He has a great podcast. He does, uh, you know, flawless work when it comes to strength and conditioning.
I still listen to every word he says. Cause he's just always been one of my gurus. Same. And I think like he just his old facility was like sick Mecca, you know,
the story quick story on that. I came home for winter break when I was at Rhode Island and the Parisi speed school where I worked at in high school.
Was disbanding, and I was like, man, Farallon's really far, um, this is the, this is the Farallon, Martin Rooney, Joe Dee, Scott Paltos, and like, it was just, things were changing, I was like, you know what, I need, uh, I need a place a little bit closer, and I had a couple buddies going to train with Joe Riggio, and I called Joe Riggio, he's like, hello, I'm like, hey man, like, what's going on, like, You know, I just want to know, like, do you train like Joe DeFranco?
He's like, Joe DeFranco? He's like, yeah, yeah, we train like Joe DeFranco. Tires, hammers, come on down. And like, literally that's how I met Joe Riggio. I was on the phone. I was like, do you train like Joe DeFranco? You're closer to my house and here we are, you know, that was almost 20 years ago.
I remember when I called a couple of my buddies and I was like, yo, Joe D said it was cool if I go work out over there.
I was like on the show at the time and I just started like training and stuff and I was like, I'm going to go learn from Joe D and every workout, I always remember leaving there because I was living in the city at the time. So I was coming back and forth.
He was in Rutherford or East Rutherford. He
was in um, Wyckoff.
Wyckoff. Wyckoff. And so I would go there and it'd be like me, a bunch of guys from the Giants, my cousin, who's trying out for the Vikings, you know, uh, Tommy, uh, Tiano. Yeah, yeah, of
course. Mammoth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was with him and we would have like the best workouts. And I'm like, this was just, it was a breeding ground.
It was a different time too. Like Dave Deal was there, Triple H. Yeah. Who was the, um, who was the WWE superstar? Oh, um, that kid. No, uh, EA all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um. She's the champ right now, W. W. V.
Oh, no, not Mandy. Um, blonde from Jersey, like from you. Yes. Like Verona or something. Yeah. Yeah. What is her name?
I know who you're talking about, but he had this, you know, list of great people. And then every time I did something, I was like, I got to get Jody involved. Cause he's the best.
Oh, he's the man. Yeah. But like back to your point of the products, it also was a, at the time, the, Availability to thing a room like this and tech was more difficult 10 years ago, like way more in terms of getting your products out there and click funnels and things like that.
And at the time we were, I was training 35 training sessions a week. Like we had a big business, we had. Over 400 clients. It was just, we would put this product together and be like, all right, people are going to buy it. And then there was no like speaker tour. We were like, there was no paid ads. We're just like here floated to our email list with like five emails and expected to just fly.
Do you think that was a miss that you guys, of course, of course it was, but we didn't have. The capacity of time to do it. And we were too stupid and too cheap to hire somebody to do it for us. Whereas now I would never deal with any of that if we, and we will, but like even now when we're promoting events, like we have resources of marketing and people that are helping us do it.
Just like right now, we're not in a room filming the show and then editing it and it's like, Hey, like there's a, there's a production behind this and it, it. Speeds up the, the frequency and your ability to do it. And, you know, for with execution. So, yeah, that's what it is. It's, that's what you need. Actually, everybody's got the lat.
We just did a sales summit and I talked about like all the, um, all the ideas people have when it comes to selling or the things they want to sell on their gym. It's like, that's all great. But what are you executing on? What are you committed to executing on? And then, you know, we go into a workshop of execution and actually make people take an idea and push it and just spend an hour pushing their offer and how that looks without seeming, you know, sleazy and stuff like that.
But back to the original question. We just started answering the questions that people were asking frequently. How are you pricing? How are you getting clients in the door? How are you running your internship process? Um, what are your days looking like? And we started teaching for free, taking calls because we wanted to, because these were friends in the industry.
And I said to Joe, because at the time, we were going to run a sports performance seminar. Bring in like the underground bring in a bunch of experts and talk about something pertaining to sports performance I said dude, there's not enough people asking us these questions Every question that we nine out of ten questions that hit the email box or DMS or Facebook messages at the time are About how we're running our business.
Let's run a two day business seminar and We did it and we sold it out and we didn't make any money because we didn't know what to charge or Whatever, but I was like, holy shit. All right, let's do it again. And two or three years went by and Jim Jones and Utah asked us to come out. And once that list hit, we had the opportunity to go speak in London and it was our busiest event ever in a different country.
That was like a, I listened to your show on the way in, like you, you did a, um, for Jersey Shore in Times Square and you invited your family and stuff. That was like the first time where that was in 2017 or 2018 where I was like, holy shit, we've arrived. Like there's 20 people that paid real money to hear us talk about.
A gym business. We're onto something.
Do you think it's a bigger, do you think people are absorbing this stuff a lot more overseas than they are in the States now? The, they
love strength and conditioning. Yeah. The UK, like, if you ran a strong London, That would hit, you know, like, I know it's strong New York, but like strong London and those events happen there.
But the UK,
they have some great, their fitness scene has blown up, blown up. They love CrossFit still, blown up. They have, you ever hear of the turf games? Yeah. So the guy who runs the turf games, they had me out there 2018, 2019. I hosted the event. So I was the MC for the event. Unbelievable turnout.
Well, look at like, think about some of their biggest celebrities.
Eddie Hall is. I mean, in strength, like he is a revered, you know, strength athlete. You look at, like, even it's, we, we've done an event in Scotland, like they have these, like, the dinny stones. And how many of these, like, smooth stones are just hanging around some lady's backyard where you can, like, sign up and go lift it?
I don't know if I could, but I certainly want to try. Yeah. But that culture, every time we've, we've gone there, uh, three times and every time has just been amazing. And, you know, it's probably, it's partly because I love to travel, but being able to do what you love in a brand new places, it creates a different level of stimulus where, um, You know, it's pretty cool.
The difference in the UK will say is their sports performance like they don't have people making money on sports performance like we do here because of their education system. Um, and if you are a good athlete, you are. Signed by a team at a young age, almost like they had NIL before NIL was a thing where if you are going to be a rugby player, you're associated with your rugby organization at 14 years old, you know, you're not getting paid, but you're working in the developmental system.
Much sooner. Like, whereas we, your high school wrestler, high school football player, like you could train wherever you want to whatever you want. So it's a little different in that capacity, but there's a lot of hungry trainers there. There's a lot of people that, um, are trying to make a living in this space there right now.
Yeah, no, I definitely see an influx, even in, you see it with, uh, you know, entertainment as well, right? You see the world of entertainment where it's a lot of these British actors, they look. Amazing. They're like the lead male. They're the alpha in almost every movie, you know, so it's, it's impressive. I like, I like their culture a lot, but going back to, uh, you know, Jay and Mike and a lot of those guys, you know, I went to one of their seminars, probably 2017, 2018.
So it was Mike Tassani, Jay, Luca, they invited me out. We were down in Miami. I was there for like two days. I felt so geared up and enlightened afterwards. I think guys, if there's any coaches out there or any guys, especially like middle age guys, and you're kind of feeling like where, what you should be doing or where should you go.
Definitely check out Jay Farooj's page. He does this kind of retreats for guys on the weekend. I definitely want to get back. And every time I talked to him, I was like, dude, I just got to find a weekend to go down there and do it again with them because it's very empowering. They help you understand like where you should be in life.
And just like you said, like you're, he was like, it's as simple as that, but you need to hear it from the right person. Just being like, Hey, step away from this and do this. And I thought those guys are.
Absolutely. Look at Jay though, like Jay probably doesn't even know that and hopefully listens to it. So shout out Jay for that.
Give me the permission to do that. But you look at a guy like Jay, he's doing of like a very few things, but exceptionally well.
Yeah.
And he's not. Again, I don't know him. I know you guys are personal friends and we just know him through the industry. But, um, he's just ultra consistent. Yep. I get an email from Jay every single day.
Every day. And I have for a decade. And I've consumed over the years. And I look forward to that, bud. It's, uh, he does a few things exceptionally well, and that's, uh, it's easy to be a multiplier. It's hard to be a subtractor. Very hard.
Well, I was, you know what I was saying, and one of the things, I was, I forget who I was telling this to, but We were talking about strong and it was almost my way of paying homage to these people that I respect so much and who have helped me so much.
And Jay being one of them, Joe being one of them. It's surprising to me that this younger generation, like I look at these guys and I'm like, Oh man, they're doing something really well at a very high level for a lot of people. Like the, the amount of value that they've built into myself and my business, I can't even, I can't quantify it.
So. If when these people like yourself and they're like, Hey, it's 1500 bucks or 200 bucks for a weekend or 2, 000 for a weekend. It's absolutely worth it because you can't put a price tag on what the value that these people bring to your life and the fact that the younger trainers and younger people out there.
Aren't paying homage to like somebody there's got to be somebody that you look up to and it's not just like I feel like now like we didn't have any of these like I like the trend brothers or some bullshit or like
I don't even know who that is. Yeah
Who's a Sam Sulek, right? Yeah, he's one of these guys where I don't really know too much about him.
I'm not sitting there watching his YouTube page, but he's like a younger guy who's doing a ton of gear. I guess he's like sharing a lot. And that's what this younger generation is obsessed with. But I, I love the fact that Jay and Joe, these are the type of guys who are like, they're doing stuff really well for themselves and they're helping other people do it.
I don't know what the, who the, the younger generation looks up to, but I think these guys who are 10 plus years older than us, Have just really set a good example of being like, okay, this is, this is how I could get to that next level. This is what I could be doing to improve.
So there's like the, the old, uh, concepts of, you know, the, the man in the arena.
I love that quote. Yeah,
I have it hanging on my wall.
It's an amazing, I mean, it's an amazing speech and quote. But when I went out to that event, shoot, that was, I probably went. Whatever, let's call it 10 years ago. There's a lot of things that I had to do that made me feel uncomfortable in a good way.
Like, uh, public speaking, the improv shit, like, I know that's your world, but that's not mine. Yeah. Um, But it's still hard. It's hard.
Yeah.
And, you cannot reproduce that sitting behind a computer. Mm. You cannot reproduce taking, um, like, let's talk, for trainers, like, consults. You have to be knee to knee to get good at it.
Um, you have to take live reps with, People giving you objections. You have to get out in front of the room and speak to others to get your point across to be persuasive like you don't get that hiding behind a computer. Yeah, that's a great way to, um, to plus your education and there's entertainment involved, but there's something to be said about Putting your ass in the arena and feeling worried, like, feeling worried, feeling excited, uh, the network, your events, the events that we host, I can't tell you how much business has come from, um, Just, uh, let's call it by accident, like opportunities that have just kind of fallen into our lap.
And I look back and I'm like, you know what? Like that does. It does feel like it fell in our lap, but that's 10 years in the making and doing what we said we were going to do for 10 years with no expectation of a Bluecross Reciprocal thing, you know,
like consistency and what you love. I mean, I feel like the training game is changing.
Like we're talking a lot about the business side of things, but there are a couple of guys, uh, there's one kid from Canada who I follow a lot. Um, I've been, uh, my friend Ben Yanni's, he's another guy I train, I watch and I pay attention to a lot of stuff he's saying, and there's a lot of stuff on the training side of things that I know a lot of people out there have questions on because.
Even for myself, I live it, I breathe it, I'm doing it every day. And there's so much research in what is effective as far as hypertrophy, what's effective as far as strength training, how did the two kind of bleed together? Are you guys teaching? You're the trainers and coaches that you work with these business owners on a lot of that stuff as well, because I think that's what's ever evolving that our understanding of like how the human body works.
There's a lot of and is is what we do on a daily basis, our own research.
So what we did, I mean, some of our events like the underground event was very focused on. The event of training, right? We ran trainer school last year, which was specific for trainers. It was like, Hey, gym owners, like out of the room trainers that people that are on the front lines of training people, sets reps, cadence, corrections, exercise execution.
So we are educating in that sense, 100, 100%. Um, our director of training and COO, Adam Mentor is, um, I mean, in terms of training knowledge is, Exceeds anything I've ever known. Uh, Joe is, you know, he's a, he's still a professor of uh, physiology and anatomy at Montclair state. So these guys, they, they geek out on that for sure.
Um, when I, when you ask the question right there, like, do I think that we could have more evergreen education for the group on training? Absolutely. But our focus is on creating a, uh, A reproducible model that doesn't require the owner to be there. 14 hours a day. Um, I do believe that I know where you're going with it.
Like, I just think that the client, the majority of the clients that we see the issue is not with. Most of the time, the issue is not the program, the issue is getting them bought in to show up to the program because, you know, and our thing for the gyms that we work with it, there are gyms that are predicated on strength.
You know, we don't work with, not that there's anything wrong with it, any fitness, in my opinion, is good, but we don't work with Pilates studios, we don't work with, um, you know, hit, play, F45 type places. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but our ideology is strength.
Yeah, well, I mean, that leads me to my next question.
When people come to you and they say, hey, well, could I do Pilates or, you know, an Orange Theory class instead of coming here one day?
You know, I, I tell everybody, listen, just most people, I just want to move, you know, but if you have clear, concise goals on what you're trying to accomplish, then you, you know, you got to go down the right road, being more educated. And I think the consumer, the average consumer is becoming more educated on what definitely doing,
but I look at, I know my wife will watch this.
So, uh, Dana. Shout out to you. But I look at her. She is the avatar that we're coaching like she has. She's 40. She, you know, is working mom and just like wants to feel good. Does not give a shit feel about what the exercise is, what the weight is wants to be told, like Wants to have fun, wants it to be safe, and wants to know that there is some result that's going to be elicited here.
How she gets from point A to point B, she doesn't give a fuck. Honestly, she doesn't. She cares about the vibe of the room more than the accreditations of the trainer. Um, and I'm not discrediting the accreditations of the trainer. I'm just saying that there's a lot of different ways as long as your job is to do no harm.
Don't Don't get somebody injured like don't make it all about your education or the certification just went to Your depth of knowledge should make the session feel Secure safe and fun because there's always a progression and regression For everybody everything everything and it's the people that get caught in that are the ones that are like, oh, no It's got to be just this way.
This is what's on the plan today. It's like I've been, I've been in sessions with you before, like that's not your vibe at all with a good coach. It's never, it's never going to be that way.
I'm more just like you said, it's feeling fun. I tell everybody have all the best feelings and have the most fun you possibly can have in a session.
And that's what people are going to remember. And now. Like you said, your depth of knowledge should take you to that point. You should know so much about your topic. And that's what I keep telling people when people ask me, well, what are you going to keep doing? I'm like, I almost miss because I don't teach as many classes as I used to.
I used to teach 20, 30, 40 classes a week. I maybe teach three or four right now, maybe that, um, and sometimes I miss it. I'm like, I miss being in a group of people and teaching them. Um, because I've only become so much better at my craft. I've worked with so many different demographics. I've got to have well over 10, 000 hours worth of training.
And for me, I'm like, I get excited about it. I want to continue to do it and I want to help people. And I miss that. That feeling of like just getting people's smile and that the light bulb goes off in their head and they're like, Oh shit, this is great. My ass feels good. My arms feel good. I'm leaving in a better mood than I came,
but you're also a perpetual student of the game too.
So you want to take what's been learned and then trial it, you know, and yeah. The cool thing about that is your gyms and what you do will you, I look at some of the stuff that we did and promoted 10 years ago compared to now, I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe we used to do that or think that like moms in our area would be like attracted to coming and trained here with like barbed wire on our logo warrior training and Mike, that is so stupid, you know, and it's, but I wish we just knew, knew how to speak.
to them and there's certain things and even movements that like we would have people do or try because you know, we just spent three days at West side and I love the conjugate Method, and I just, I just got back from West side. Like, I love that, but that's not for everybody. You know, there's components for everybody, but it's not for everybody.
Yeah,
no, I definitely think there is a, this younger generation is kind of accepting like, I think that documentary, the West side versus Hall. Was unbelievable and I tell everyone, I'm like, watch that documentary because you'll be so bought into that world. And if you're not, then you probably won't like the shit I like doing, but
here's the thing though.
Like, um, West side barbell, like the West side, the elites, the, uh, the Jim Jones, like those gyms started as places where they weren't trying to make money. Yeah. Like let's not forget that they were hardcore crews and collectives of people that just wanted to train They didn't care about making money.
They were like truck drivers or like, you know working security working at a bar like they weren't personal trainers, you know, so that's a misconception that people have and
Yeah. Well, you have like the Bobby Maximus is the Louis Simmons. You got these guys who, you know, even Joe to a certain degree, like he's still an old school meathead, like he likes to train that way.
And he's constantly tweaking it. I think what makes him so good is he's always a student of the game. He's always like playing with his own injuries and working through his own pains to come up with different ways to help guys out. But
even him, he's reinvented his ideology with training as well, like, and the way he trains himself, the way he trains others.
And, and that's really, uh, that re engages his community as they age up. And, um, yeah, but it's funny, like you have like some of the. Younger interns were like, Hey, like, do you, to your point of like YouTube celebrities? Do you know Joe DeFranco? No. Who's that? I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding? You know, and it's who you idolize.
Who's your
guy? I'll tell you what, dude. And I tell a lot of people about this. I've had a couple of homosexual. Fantasies in my life. It's come across. Uh, one time I was at, if you ever watched the movie fury, you know, the tank movie. Yes. Brad Pitt. Yeah. Okay. So I went to the premiere of that. I'm sitting next to my buddy and they announce everybody who's in the film and they all come out on stage.
And then they're like, ladies and gentlemen, the star of our film, Mr. Brad Pitt. And he comes out wearing the absolute gayest outfit I've ever seen. No other man could ever get away with what he pulled it off. Yeah. And I'm like, I get it. I get it. I'd fuck this guy for sure. He looks incredible. He had like an ascot on a fucking stupid fedora hat, indoor sunglasses.
And I'm like, he looks cool. The second time I was at Olympia this year and I'm sitting there and they were talking about it was C bumps last time. It was C bumps last time he comes out on stage and he came out to, how do I get you alone? But the heart song and I'm like, well, I love that song. It starts playing and he comes out.
Oh, I love it. And
then you cruise to the front row,
dude, and I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there next to you
like this,
next to this, this jacked fucking kid who works for Celsius who I bullshit. What's that? His name? The dude always Liam. So it's due to Liam who works at Celsius. I hope he watches this and we're sitting there and he walks out on stage and he does this like double back bicep pose.
And I'm like, This fuck everybody looks great on stage, but he looks remarkably better than everybody else I'm like this motherfucker is a real deal. Like I was always a huge Arnold fan I'm always like the physique that Arnold had back in the day. This guy has blown him out of the water It's unbelievable, but you see that and you're like, okay I guess these are the guys that people are looking up to now right like you have The C bumps and you have a lot of these guys who, uh, you know, who are coming up the ranks.
You just look incredible. I think as we start to tweak sports science a little bit more and a little bit more, but I like the fact that he pulls like if you ever watch his gym, he's got a YouTube video. Um, on his gym and he's got a lot of like old school equipment that he's like tweaked and plays with and stuff So I love that.
I love the throwbacks to you know Because you can't forget all the history that has come before us Of what these people have done and everything repeats itself I mean you've been in the game long enough when we started lifting right you were in high school, right when you yeah I was 13 14 years old and it was just You know, bodybuilding circuits.
I was pulling workouts out of magazines. I mean, that's where you got most of your stuff from and it was a lot of bodybuilding and then got into like circuit training. I probably by like my senior year junior senior year. We started doing a lot of that stuff for wrestling and then I got to college and we started doing like sport and more sports performance stuff.
We're doing a lot of like power cleans and things like that and then I started working with Joe and I learned a lot about that, but you're starting to see I started to see this like after CrossFit had it like it's moment. I'd say from like Two, for me anyway, from like 2009 to 2015, 14, 15. Then I was like, holy shit.
A lot of CrossFitters started dabbling in the, the bodybuilding thing. So it came back around and I think bodybuilding is having a moment. And to your point about the West side barbell with the barbed wire and all that stuff, if you look at some of these brands like dark sport and young LA, like these, this younger generation likes that hardcore, like almost metal.
Type of shit.
Yeah. I mean with all stuff. It's like what's old is new though. Everything comes back around, right? Like, you know, it's just called something else now Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting just you know You going back to the sports science when you're talking about making money doing it There is a world where sports science is Is the thing 100 percent you look at like certain combine facilities.
You're literally taking guys. We're we have a tight end that train with us for a long time. He's going up to Marquette, Michigan to advantage sports where there's 10 guys and they're they're they're in a testing lab every day. Really every day. Like it's it's the it's deck deck at Dexter's Dexter Dexter scans every day there, you know macros to the calorie weight in.
All the metrics, force plates, everything. It's like, that's great for a period of time. And there's going to be four guys working with 10 if you're trying to scale a gym with 100 clients and it's you and one other coach. Yeah. You can have some science definitely, but it can't be, it can't, that level of detail doesn't scale unless you're charging your clients two, three, 4, 000 a month,
but you've trained enough athletes over the years.
How much of that do you think is really necessary? Like, how much do you need to dial that in? Andy Galpin was on a podcast, and somebody had asked him, Hey, if I wanted to get into the best gym, And he gave this long, like, he's like, Well, I'd have you do this, and I need to know this, And I'd have you shit in a bag, and fuckin test your piss, And your sweat, and all this stuff.
Well, in reality, if like, and that's what his point was, if you really wanted to get to the best, I would need to know everything so I could dial that in. But in reality, for most people, no one's going to go down that hard. No one's going to go that far.
No, it's so funny. I was, I took my son, he loves, uh, it's cold as shit here and he wanted to go.
Play golf yesterday. I was trying to get him, trying to get him to play a skilled sport. So baseball, golf, we'll figure it out. We'll see where it goes. How old is he? He's four. So we take him to a golf galaxy and there's this thing on, uh, I don't know why it was happening, but Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholas was up and he's like, I didn't have, you know, the psychiatrist that was speaking me through like, you know, my, what I'm thinking about when I'm hitting the ball.
I didn't, I had, you know. I didn't have a specific meal plan. Like I did my workouts. I did these things and I still achieve the level of success. And he's talking about like, if he had those things, would it have made him a better player? And it's on the TV. It's like running. I'm like watching him in the bay and watching this.
I'm like, like, I think it would have, I think it would. But the point that he was trying to make is that it's overkill at some point. You got to get out there. Overload. You got to get out there and golf. You got to take the swings. Yeah. And I was, you know, real time in our business on Monday, I was bitching with our leadership team about, uh, conversion percentages with our leads and like lead quality and just, I was being an ass.
Honestly, that's sometimes my job to kind of push people along and, and be the chief reminding officer of what we're trying to accomplish. And, uh, our, our sales manager, Mike, just looks at me. He's like, dude, like, He's like, we just got to, he's like, he, and he said, he's like, throw these numbers out the toilet.
He's like, we need to make the people on our team better communicators. If we do that, like, all these numbers are gonna freaking fix
themselves. I literally drill it into their heads, most of my coaches. I'm like, if there was a trainer at my gym, I love this kid. He's one of my good buddies now, and I, I tell people all the time, as a trainer, he's a four.
At best, he doesn't know fuck all, he's really not into continuing education, like he'll see me do something and be like, how did you do that? And he'll just try to re manipulate it, as a personality, he has a full book, I mean he's there, what, 6, 7, 8 hours a day, probably the busiest person next to the two of us, and Kills it, but doesn't know shit.
All I go, he's just enjoyable to be around. And I tell them, I go, guys, yes, I want you to give them a good product, learn and understand as much as you can. But if you are someone that people want to be around, you could do anything. You could sell them anything. You could give them anything. Just be more magnetic.
Yeah, it's magnetic. Yes. Be more magnetic. And part of being more magnetic is being looking the part, right? You want to be able to be that type of person where people are like, yeah. You walk into a room, you're like, this guy's definitely a coach or player at some point in his life, you know, people want to see that I, even for myself, you know, I've been a trainer 10 plus years when I walk into a jiu jitsu gym, I'm always like, all right, who's got the most fucked up years, who is the most battle twinners
is coming along a little bit, you know, your trophies are coming along.
But so I'm, I look at these guys and I'm like, all right, who's the most fucked up? Cause he's probably, he's probably taken the most meetings and competes the
most. So the thing about training and just in jogging my memory now, like something that will, will help business owners with quite a bit is the way in which they're, they're teaching their coaches to conduct themselves on the floor.
Not from a scientific standpoint, so we have an interpersonal code of conduct that we that we teach to our team and we teach to others and the acronym is SWIFT smile, work the room, instigate success, find a friend and be thankful.
I like
that. If you could do that. Like every day like you start the day like you smile, you're dabbing people up like you're working the room so that you know in detail that is like how many touch points is that like how many conversations is that?
How many cues is that? Um, instigating success is just knowing Kenny's been lifting the 50 dumbbells on his bent over rows for the last three weeks because my notes tell me that part of being a good coach is keeping score. So Kenny, this week we're going to do 55. I know you can do it and the numbers tell me so.
Yeah.
Yeah. You know, uh, finding friends is just making the connection, but also being a great connector in the room. Are you introducing new people? Are, are you doing things with your gym community that fosters friendships? And then last but not least is this is a just simple manners is thanking people for coming to your damn gym every single day.
Hey, Kenny, thanks so much for having me today. I really appreciate it, dude. Like, where is that? Like these people if you're gonna spend their money anywhere there if you're in a private game, okay They're every freaking day. People are making the decision to go. Yep. I'm gonna go pay money a varsity house today Mm hmm they're making a conscious or subconscious decision at some point in the day of like am I gonna keep being a member here and Them walking out the gym without anybody saying goodbye or thank you.
That could just that could be the catalyst. Yes That can be the catalyst. So always leave them with a thank you. Really appreciate you being here today.
So, I mean, you're out in the suburbs. I'm out in the suburbs again. Um, what do you say to people when they're like, Hey, I could either go spend the 200 a month or whatever it is to come to Varsity House, or I could go to Lifetime or Equinox or one of these other big gyms.
What is your real sales pitch? Because you work with a lot of smaller business owners. So what do you say to them when they're trying to compare, like, uh, if a client or even in their own mind, they're comparing themselves to these corporate giants.
So we're in the accountability business, like 100%. That's what you're in.
You're not in, you're not in the health club space, which is why I really, um, I'll work with. You know, regardless of where your price points at, but one of the biggest things is, let me see your price sheet. If you're trying to play the game of, but Equinox charges this, but Lifetime charges this, but Orange Theory charges this, you're not, most of the time, you're not selling what they've got.
So what is your unique selling position? What is it? Like, what can, what game can you beat them at? And it's usually not going to be, um, service offerings or the facilities. So what is it going to be? It should, it can be, um, small groups, uh, real community, seeing the owner, um, accountability, results driven.
Everybody's going to know your name. And that's what people are buying. And for most people that are selling that you can't sell that for 200 bucks a month, you have to sell that for 350 400 500 a month and really focus on the either the one on one market or, you know, we sell small group personal training where the majority of the gyms that we work with, they're selling an hour slot where they're working with between four a.
m. to 2 a. m. The high end would be 12th. They're not playing the 2025 30 person game because again, that's where F 45 and Orange City are playing. And I think personally, they're doing a great job with that. So, um, the majority of people that That want personal training one on one and don't want to pay 150 175 200 when you float it to them that hey You know Kenny you can do this thing where you're gonna be on a custom plan for 50 an hour It sounds super attractive to the guy that was used to paying 150 an hour So maybe I'd take Kenny through 10 personal training sessions and graduate him to the small group where now there's four or five other people that are Pretty similar to Kenny.
And now I'm making 300 or 350 an hour, as opposed to 100, 150, 175. Do
you, do you see that as the direction of like smaller businesses, like the boutique gym space,
the only way to make it in my mind, that's the only way to make it. And here's why one on ones people. You have to be a very unique space, uh, where the one on one gym, you know, like let's say you and I were coaching mornings together, you had a client one on one and I had a client one on one, there's going to be rapport in that room if we're in a space like this size where we're in just.
Word. Maybe if I went away, you could take, you know, my client or something like that. But typically with one on one culture, there's not a lot of crossover. There's not a lot of carry over with small group training and you can, you know, um, build a system where it's like, Hey Dan, like these are my six clients coming in.
This is the, this is the plan for the day. These are the progressions for Remy, this is the progressions for Christie and uh, just You know, you can make me aware and the group takes a shape and a mind of its own. It's not dependent on Kenny.
Yeah. No, I like that a lot. Where could everybody find you guys?
Yeah, so, uh, uh, well, we've got the business of strength dot com. Business of strength on Instagram. And then if you want to find me, it's Dan underscore Goodman, 78. And my email is easy. It's Dan at varsity house, gym. com. Our gyms are all varsity house gym. They all have separate pages, Oradell, Orangeburg, and Ridgewood.
Check us out. Um, we're always posting. We're very active there. We're making a big push this year.
Yeah. And my final thoughts are there's a lot of jerk offs out there selling you, uh, How to run gyms and how to run businesses having never ran a gym themselves. These guys are the real deal. That's why they're here.
So Dan, thank you for coming on the show. Definitely check them out. Um, obviously they're doing the thing and they're doing a really well, so I appreciate it,
man. Thanks so much. Thanks.