Is your gym on a path to make a million dollars?
The first step towards reaching new heights of profitability and success is viewing yourself as more than just a skilled trainer, and your gym as more than a gym.
You need to shift into seeing your gym as a wealth-building asset.
In this episode we cover…
- Common mistakes gym owners make that hold them back from reaching new heights of profitability.
- How to make the mindset shift to becoming a million-dollar gym.
- Critical misconceptions to avoid on your path to becoming a million-dollar-gym.
And so much more!
Want to learn how Naamly can give you the tools to reach that million-dollar milestone faster? Start a FREE trial to see just how easy you can accomplish daily business operations with Naamly!
Watch The Full Episode Now!
Sumit: Well, welcome to just one thing where training gym owners get actionable insights to build a dream business. I’m your host, Seth, and I’m with the legendary Tom Plummer. And we sit down over the next 10 minutes to give you one topic that will stimulate your thought process. So let’s get started, Tom. It’s always a pleasure to have you.
And since it’s our very first episode, what is the one thing? About the industry that you would want your
Thomas Plummer: viewers to know about like, well, I love your format, so, but I’m just, it’s 10 minutes. I’m laughing because you’ve been to my workshops. It takes me two days to make a point. So there’s like 10 minutes.
Okay. Focus, focus, get it done. So. So the one thing and the gym business, I, I it’s, I would have given you a different answers at different stages of my career. As I look at people, but looking at accumulation of decades of thousands of trying to help people survive this business, thrive in the business, create wealth, do the things in there.
I’d say that the. I’m going to give you a two point answer. So I’m sneaking a second point in it’s one. You have to think about it as a business. And then so. Dumb ass obvious, but it’s not what happens is people create a business and it becomes more like they created a job for themselves. They think as an employee, they work 50, 60 hours, 70 hours a week because they don’t believe anybody else can do it.
Like they do it. So they’re up at five o’clock in the morning, they’re home at nine at night, they work Saturdays. Some of them work Sundays. They, they treat it as if they. Are an employee for somebody that’s holding a whip over their head. They, and they, they there for, they get caught. And then the second part of that is.
That part, that mentality libs to a very limiting belief. Um, I’m working with a guy, uh, I’ve known him for a long time. I respect him immensely as an owner. He’s a good family, man. He just does a lot, but we’ve been together about four years now and we were doing 20,000 a month in his gym in today’s standard.
That’s people think, well, that’s good. You’re in the $25,000 club. And I tell guys that’s pathetic. That’s your entry into the game. That’s your, you know, it’s, it’s not something it’s a good start. It’s a good foundation, but it’s, it’s just nothing more than that. It’s a starting point. So I’m working with, with this guy and we’re talking 20 grand.
He goes, yeah. He says, I’m kind of really there looking at his business as location and I’m going, yeah, no, there’s more here, more here, more here. And I said 12 months from now, we’re going to be doing 40,000 bucks and a month and he’s just, he could, he just, no. That was it in his head. And I said, let’s do these things and see how they work.
And I got to move it forward and it took us about 14 months, but we got to 40 grand. And then a year after that, we’re going into the third year. We’re at 60 grand. And by the end of this year, we’re probably going to break 83,000 a month, which is a billion dollars a year. So the, the bigness mistake they make is they go into this with the mindset that I’m just a high paid employee in my own business, but they bring limitations of what the potential of the business should be.
So a lot of the mentorship groups, for example, they, they, they tout that $25,000 club. And again, that’s an entry, but if you own a gym, you have to get out of your own way. And you have to start to see these as the, as a business that you all you could manipulate, you bring a team in and your earning potential is probably 2, 3, 4 times what you believe it is.
Every training gym has to go in with the mindset that within 24 months, this is going to be doing 83,000 a month. That’s your thing. These gyms mature in about 18 months where they usually get that nice, steady flow of new clients coming in, but there’s a little growth surge after that is the accumulation effect, takes it out of the receivables building.
So your 24th month between 1824, I should be an $83,000 a month business. And that people go, no, not in my town, Tom. That’s crazy. I’m the exception to the rule? No, you don’t know my people. You don’t know my town. I do know your town. I do know your people. I do know what you’re doing. I do know thousands and thousands and thousands of gym owners.
And the biggest mistake that you make is you. You’re the limiter in your own business. This is not a job. This is a vehicle to create wealth over time. This is not something that you work 60 hours a week. If you’re 45 years old and you’re getting up at five o’clock in the morning to go train clients, because you have to.
Not because you just love it, but because you have to, then you really have screwed up that business planet. So that self-limitation factor. Plus the fact that we really don’t understand these as business, but just an extension of the job world, that would be the biggest mistake.
Sumit: Okay. So, so that’s, that’s a lot there.
So let me try to unpack what I just heard and, and tell me where I missed you. Big picture, get out of your own way. Think three to four times the money that you would imagine going in, working for someone else. And in 18 to 24 months, you should be hitting 83,000 odd, which is a million a year is what you should be targeting.
And the gym business is a vehicle to create amazing wealth
Thomas Plummer: In the longterm. It should be. That’s what, that, that’s the mindset you should work, work, bring into the game. I was working with a guru. Uh, some, you know, I, I, I’ve been very blessed. I’ve been able to work with a lot of the guys that, all the things that, you know, teach it perform better, do those things.
And this guy, a number of years ago, um, Yeah, obviously it was a much younger man at that point, but he had just come off of some really tough times in this business and going through a tough period in his personal life. And his business was devastated. And, uh, I’m looking at this business going, oh my God, this thing, this is really.
Potential. And I started working with them and each month I talked to him, I mean, he just, he got stuff done at a rate that was very rare. I mean, he just, once he decided that I’m going to do it, he was that type of person that just got it done. Finished it. Went forward with it. And we’re sitting at this, I’m looking into this about a year in, and it’s like, man, this, this is not just a million dollar business.
This is going to be, you know, in 12 months now, 18 months from now this business know, because I keep pounding the projections over and over and over with them. And I’m going, this, this, this, this could, could, could touch $2 million a year in a training gym. And they did. Uh, talented operator, you know, every, every inch of that is guru status, but, uh, he had a belief system issue when he started.
He just couldn’t believe that those numbers would exist in a business that he’s already had been beaten in somewhat. But the good thing about him is he’s a very intellectual person, very intelligent, very, you know, he just a doer, he gets stuff done. And when he got out of his own way, he started to. Grow the business and it just people is probably one of the first trading gyms in the world across $2 million in 7,500 feet.
It was, it was a phenomenal. Thing.
So that, that bringing those in to the table, it’s that limiter, that ability to seek your business as a business. And that’s kind of the downside of our role of who we are in this business is most of the people in here are so passionate about it. That they just I’m going to change the world, but I’m going to do it one sweaty client at a time.
And they don’t step aside and say, look, I I’ve got to create a vehicle, be change with the team because I can touch more people. I could manage more than I can do myself. And that’s one of the basic rules you learn. And, you know, first year freshmen business in college, you manage more than you do yourself.
That’s just logical. But it’s not to a gym owner because, oh my God, nobody trains. Like I do all my clients would quit if I shifted over now and all they’re here because I’m a one-on-one God and they would all leave me. And none of that’s true, you know, you can keep, you know, but if you’re training over five, maybe, maybe 10 hours a week in your own gym, you’re, you’re a mess because there’s no out, no, you have to start that way.
But 18 months, if you’re still doing it and some guys just love it and they just I’m the coach. I like I’ll make 60 grand a year. That’s more money than I’ve ever made. I’ve got my own business. I got status. I go to the mentorship and party with the guys and I do all that type of stuff. That’s fine if that’s you, but make sure that is you, because I will tell you what, that’s fine.
When you’re 27 years old, when you’re 37 years old and you’ve got two kids and a big mortgage, and you’re looking at, I’m getting tired by, body’s getting tired. I don’t know if I can continue this pace. It’d be nice to have a different mindset and a little more money in the bank. So every trainer arrives at that point, you know, it’s, you don’t need money until you need it.
There’s a point where you wake up one day and you go, I, at this point in my life, I need money and I own a gym. Why is this not the source of my income? Because you never let it be.
You took the wrong approach. You thought it is a hobby. You thought it is a job. You know, you’re working your butt off for a tough boss. You who won’t let you take a day off, who won’t give you a vacation will never give you a raise. So you’re working $70 hours a week and make an 18 bucks an hour, $15 an hour, average $12 an hour average because you bought yourself a job.
So, what do I own? I own a business. It’s a business. That’s the operative word. What does a business do? It shouldn’t create wealth for the people that own it. And over time it has to be sold. Eventually every gym in the world will sell our clothes. Every gym in the world will go away. And at some point I have to control my own fate.
In that meantime, between here I started and here. When I someday sell it, I have to create enough wealth to take care of myself and my family beyond this. And I asked a lot of coaches, imagine your back goes out and you can’t train for three months. What happens? And most of them say, I’ll lose my business.
I don’t have enough backup. I don’t have enough people. One of my guys got the virus this year and he missed three weeks of work. And the gym in his state could operate. But it really is him. He shut down for three weeks, lost all his income loss, all his revenue, because there was no backup. He, he, he and this guy is pushing 50 and he is the product in his own gym.
And that’s a mistake. That is a mistake. Just from a
Sumit: Context perspective, Tom, when you talk about million a year, then getting to 18. Within 18 to 24 months. What’s the square footage you’re looking at because we are going to have listeners across the board, micro gyms, you know, boutique gyms as they’re called training gyms, just, just too many verbiage is out there.
So just to provide that context, what’s the square footage.
Thomas Plummer: They, you can safely say 3,500 and up, but I’m seeing gyms now that if they’re set up properly, And you’re in Dallas major markets that you can run 1500 feet, 1800 feet, 2200 feet, and still chase a million bucks. It’s theirs. It doesn’t take off because of the eliteness of training.
Um, it it’s, the market has changed. The world has changed. The gym market has changed forever with the virus. Um, but that if I build a business for the top 40% of the people in my market by a fluence, then if I have 1500 feet and have a couple of hundred clients paying me three to $400 a month, um, I’m not, I’m sitting on a million bucks.
Sumit: Okay, fair enough. I think this is going to be a great wrap and maybe for our next session, and next episode, we should talk a little bit more about what does a million bucks really mean from a profitability perspective, how much, you know, you went a little bit into the income and expenses.