With news outlets and national media highlighting the delta variant’s challenges, most gym owners are feeling a sense of uncertainty.
Should you prepare for another closure? What about state restrictions and limitations? What can you do now to prepare for the worst?
We aim to answer these questions and more!
In this week’s episode of Just One Thing, we discuss:
- How and why you should create “mini gyms” inside your gym.
- How to evaluate your risk of potential state shutdowns or restrictions.
- Why your 2019 business model won’t work in 2021 and what you can do about it.
Plus so much more!
Although no one can read the future (including us), we hope this episode gives you some confidence and direction for what you can do now to put yourself in the best position for the future.
Now more than ever, it’s important to keep your clients engaged and excited to be back in the gym. Not only that, but it’s also EASIER than ever to keep clients engaged with Naamly! No longer do you have to juggle an email platform, spreadsheets, and attendance tracking. Start your FREE Naamly trial and see how you can eliminate several software subscriptions by using one simple platform!
Watch The Full Episode
Thomas Plummer: Well, hello there, Tom again? Hey.
Sumit: Yeah, like I said, we’ve been switching this. It should be the other way around.
Thomas Plummer: Well, it’s one of those cheap, uh, romantic comedies and stuff like that, where it’s just like two guys hanging out in a bar and just like Groundhog day over and over and over again, we’re back.
Sumit: I’m having a lot of fun with these I’m learning so much and I’m sure the listeners are getting amazing tactical advice and nuggets to implement on their own business. So. Thank you for doing this.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah, it’s it’s uh, it’s one of the rare things for everybody to talk about as you w you really want to teach people not the what, but it’s the why.
And if I can, if I understand the why I’m much better to solve the, what problems later. So what happened in the gym, but the most owners they’re so reactionary, they hit that, but they don’t go back and say, why did that happen? Why is it happening? What could I have done earlier to make sure that it doesn’t happen again?
They, they deal with the problem that they sell them ever solved the problem as looking at the bigger picture. So nothing else. I hope this series helps people see that anytime you have a problem, go beyond the problem. Go back to the earlier than layer. Why is that problem problem happening in my genes?
And is it bigger than I think it is. And is it something consistent and what am I doing in this gym? That’s, that’s making that happen because almost all the time, it’s our behaviors, our learners, that cause problems that drive out a little members of her own business.
Sumit: Fair enough. But there’s some things that are outside the gym owners
control as well.
I get the idea about being responsible, taking ownership, all that good. The wood thing happened, right. Totally outside of my control, but yes, I understand. React to the circumstances is my control. But, um, and like we were discussing, I’ve been reading about the Delta variant now. Right? It’s coming in it’s uh, and at the same time I talked to training gym owners and they’re exuberant about the, the upside they’re seeing the business.
The gyms are getting packed again. This we’re still in the summers and they’re having the best June the best July. Um, w now we’re in July. Compared to even 2019 and every signal points to this, this boom that’s coming in the fitness industry, especially in personalized training. But then yeah, I read about the Delta variant.
You read about other countries going back to shutter.
Thomas Plummer: What
Sumit: happens if this impacts again, the U S that again, what do I do now? Because I’m, I’m hoping and I’m wanting, and I’m longing for this. Positive growth if you will.
I, I, I spent a lot of time probably too much time researching this.
Um, I put out some letters last year. Most of the, well, not most, I think all of them are predictions in the letters. 100%.
Sumit: All of them came through. Right? I think, I believe not think I know you were the first one who predicted 30% of the gyms will shut down and that’s exactly what happened. You know, you predicted this is the way to handle.
The management of the brand, all of those letters, like I have printouts of those letters. I said that those letters to people, I even had them on my software saying, this is what Tom is saying. And every one of them is come through. You know,
Thomas Plummer: that I tracked a lot at that time was early January of 2020 or 2020, was that, you know, it’s, what’s going to happen.
When’s it going to break? When are we going to get vaccinated? And so. That happened to start on may. And we reached that first thing. So that was an important trend to track because you could see when we got to a point where things would start to open up. And then the second way is really based on the fact that did we comply with the first one?
Well, we’re, this is not going to be universal, but there’s a large percentage of states. And again, I don’t care about your politics. I don’t want to see them on social media, but I don’t care about politics no matter which side you’re in, but there’s a high number of states that are not reaching vaccination goals and they’re having hospitals fill up again.
Uh, I was reading one about that interview with a Midwest doctor. And he’s saying like we were down to 20 people in the, um, our unit intensive care unit and we were celebrating because we thought we could see them there. Then we thought we would be, we read about this group of hospitals that are state, that got down to zero.
We said we were already partying and celebrating. And then two weeks later we had 90 people in here and he was talking about a, that the person in the 20 and 30. He says they’re dying at a faster rate because of the Delta variable depth they’re Bulletproof. They come in, even when they put them on, um, they, you know, Intervate them and stuff.
They, they they’re, they’re blocked and faster, quicker, uh, stabbing more brutally. It’s a much, even a more horrible death, even when you’re on the ventilator. And it’s there, there’s a trail pointing that. That we’re going to see this and, um, timeframe, everything points to after the holiday, uh, meaning, you know, September after labor day, that as we start to move back inside and we ordered states and the Southern states start to pick up more of our parties and things for, for example, uh, Florida is a perfect example of, it was just 45% vaccination rate.
So, but it’s, Disney’s open. Uh, the beaches are open. Uh, you’re going to have that last wave of college kids coming down in the late summer. There’s always that family wave coming in. So. Every country in the world, that’s open to travel is still coming to Florida. Every state that can get down there, people are taking that big vacation.
Cause I haven’t taken my kids anywhere in two years. Now I’m going to take my kids to Disneyland and drink five Mar know, five martinis in a sippy cup. You know, I’ve got to get out and there’s Florida, I think is an example that you can see rather than they shut it down or not. You’re going to see a very, very high.
Pounding in late September, October that may even take us back a level where they may have to do some type of lockdown. Again, some kind of restriction. I don’t think we’ll go all the way back that we’re out of business again, but they may go back and say, look, you’re back to 50% capacity. Um, if I was in a state right now as a gym operator and my state vaccination rate was under 60%, I’d be really start to think about what it’s going to be in the fall.
And again, I’m. I’m looking for the second wave in some states to kind of affect our business again, again, not to the extent it did last year, but it’s going to, it’s going to get us, um, where we might have some kind of restrictions we have to operate on. And I think that’ll start in late September and probably continued through till the end of the year.
So, um, and what does that mean? I’ve been trying to. Everybody. I’ve worked with anybody. Listen to me to go back and look at what you do in the business. And if you’re, if you’re, you know, one-on-one very viable, still works, but modify your gym into the pod system, which I’ve been teaching for years, where you have the gyms within a gym, put a lot of emphasis on small groups because in 300 feet and we’ve actually taken kettlebells and put funny names on and laid them out, generous in 300 feet to figure it out.
So four, four people and a coach can actually social distance themselves within 300 feet and never really come into contact. We know 300 feet is a perfect space for that because it allows to distancing, but it still allows us to train as a group. So we know that happens. So that would be something I would look at.
So the training gems that get are under restrictions should have the ability to function and even still make money, because I don’t think we’re going to go back to zero. We’re going to go back to some type of limitations. Will we see the mask again? I think the mask are going to have to be a factor. I think it’s going to be voluntarily for a lot of people.
Um, I see people where I live now that we’re we’re on this particular county insidious, highly vaccinated, but I still see people now putting masks on going back in the grocery store. So I didn’t even see three weeks ago because they’re afraid of the Delta variant. Taking it to other people in their lives that are not vaccinated.
So I think you’re going to see the mask start to come back a little more. I think you’re going to see a kind of second wave. If your state is over 60% vaccinated, the magic number is 67%. That’s where you reach some type of minimal herd immunity. If we go from, if you’re up around 70%, something like that, you’re probably not going to see any of the restrictions or if you do, there’ll be very moderate.
Just maybe a couple of limitations on the number of people in the gym at a time and training gyms. We should have learned our lesson last year. You know, if you’re dependent on nothing but team training, you get corrected again, it could be tough, but the certain states like that shouldn’t be affected. So you check your state’s vaccination rate.
That’s going to be an indication of what the fall’s going to be.
The wave is here. July is good August, even in the states that are totally open and. Pushback will be flat because everybody in the world is going to Disneyland, meaning we’re on vacation September on, and I’ve predicted this all the way through every indicator is pointing toward this still happening is you’ll make more money in September through probably may of next year.
Then you’d probably have in many years because there’s a client that’s wanting to come back in, but the client has to change. And that’s another problem is you can’t go back and do a, a six, 15 day kickstart. You can’t go back and do these bikini programs. You can’t go back and do this type of stuff because the consumer’s coming in.
Now, if you think about it, everybody coming in the gym almost is a fitness Virgin, because most of the people haven’t been in a gym in a year. Yeah, everybody coming in, is it start over? Yep. It’s a total reset, but we don’t teach them that way. We don’t think about that. So if I’m not ready in September for this new client coming in and big waves, the client needs more help.
They want to go slow. They’re not, you can’t assume that I can throw them into a group within three days. They, everything needs to slow down. Everything needs to pace itself out and how you market to this client is different because they don’t respond. They’re there. This, like, I don’t give a damn about the Keeney season.
I don’t want to die this winter because everybody there’s 60% of our people out here. Believe this virus is horrible because we’re at least that we were pretty far along. Is it national average, but it’s state by state that’s causing the problem. So the states that are wide open are going to be insanely busy, but we can’t go back to our 2019 business plan because it doesn’t work for this new client.
So, if you change your business plan, your, your gym is set up to handle it. Maybe even moderate restrictions, you’re going to make more money in 12 months and you’ve probably made in your whole life. But I can’t, I don’t see it enough gym owners as of today. Ready to exploit that.
Sumit: Okay. So this is so you’ve given me the grim news.
67% or less, you know, there could be more restrictions coming our way, given me really good looking news, which is the most money I’ve ever probably made is on the cards, but I’m not ready for it. So break down, like you hit upon a few things, right. Break down. What are the things that I should get rid of and what are the things I should embrace?
To get ready for, if I am in that 67 or less than 60%, uh, vaccinated steak, what, what, what should I do more of? What should
Thomas Plummer: I do less of? And those states are public knowledge. So, you know, it’s, it’s places like Florida, Mississippi. Um, most of Texas county by county, there there’s, uh, places in the Midwest that are falling into those states.
There’s states that, you know, if your state average is 40, 45%, um, that means that that’s an interesting thing. I saw another interview with a doctor, uh, and this guy looked beaten. I mean, he looked like he was from the mid to 2020. I mean, he was that little. Um, and he said, he said that night, 7% of everybody that’s coming through now is been unvaccinated people.
So if the Derrick, the Delta variant does accelerate, which they think it will because of the weather change and people are more, tend to be heading in doors that it’s bringing a younger wave to this. So that 25 35 year old person is now the one getting the variant because of the ones that didn’t get vaccinated.
So if I’ve got to train in gym based on team training, and my city is 40% vaccinated, uh, I think you gotta be looking at that number and saying, Ooh, that could really hurt me. You know, as always I say this there’s fingers, I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m incredibly wrong when people will, Tom, that prediction, he was absolute total bull crap, but good.
I’m okay. But statistically, if you’re in a town that 40, you know, and your state’s 45% vaccination rate and your market is 25 to 40 year old people, and they’re not vaccinated. The chances that the very there is going to take them down is pretty damn strong. It’s going to affect your business. Now, maybe only a moderate rooster.
Because none of those states, their governments want to go back to full lockdown with mass. They just will refuse to do it, but just because they refuse to do it doesn’t mean it’s not going to affect your business. And as your clients go down, so it doesn’t matter what they do. They may say no, no mass, no restrictions, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to destroy your business.
If I asked, you know, today a hundred gym owners, how many of you have easy time finding employees? What would the answer be? 100% now. There’s no employees. Well, what do you think’s going to happen? If that virus flips through the town or even trainers are getting sick. Because there were not vaccinated in that group in business could be really hard in those states.
So what did you do to prepare for that one? If you’re in a state and your, your overall vaccination rate is 60% or less assumed that you may have some challenges you might want to prepare for in September, October. Okay. So first of all, I’ve been looking at my gym. You have, can I modify the gym in August and put some pod systems in pod means 300 foot gyms with redundant equipment.
So I can segregate people that makes common sense. I don’t want to drag out elite client all over the gym anyway. So if I’ve got, you know, 2,500 feet, I could put three pods in and that takes up 900 feet, but now I’ve got four gyms. I got my main space and through many gyms. So now I can run 12 people segregated.
[00:18:42] So if the state says, no, we’re going 50% restrictions we need to Cedric. Yes, sir. I’m ready. Let’s go. Jesse affect my business file. So if you’re a launched guy and you run groups of 30, 40, 50, and you get mandated back down, then that in your state, then that’s going to affect you. You need to prepare for that.
Now, can I dilute that business by getting into small group and one-on-one and launched that program in August and stuff? And maybe you start to dilute that you and I have talked in the past about that, you know, that 24 to 36 year old client, 35 and 55. Well, most of the guys that just do team training or 90, 80% of the clients are so in that 24 to 36 range, so I can limit my exposure by.
Putting more money into different layers where I have multiple layers of clients. So if I lose one segment, I don’t lose my business because I got three segments. Um, there, there, you older, more full client is more likely to get vaccinated. So that’s, so I I’m actually kind of preparing the fact that if I lose one segment, I still got two other to keep paying.
Like multiple clients, multiple types of clients. That’s something I’d look at is can I stop segregating into one dimension and start to expand my concept into multiple dimensions? So that, that would be something I look at. Another thing is reserved cap. Um, you know, we, we know the pattern. If you go into the restriction like that, you’re going to, you need an extra month or two in reserve capital.
If there’s, if you go restrictions for 90 days. Uh, so we need to think about refinancing debt. Now we need to looking at our overall, how did we come out of the virus?
I look at a lot of the gyms that closed last year of training gyms. And I wouldn’t say.
A solid, solid 10% of the closures, especially if markets like California and Jersey, places like that were self-inflicted wounds, that they were so angry at the states and the mandates that they fought so hard to defy those mandates that they lost their businesses. So guidance Jersey on, they say mask, I’m not wearing a mask in here.
I’m not going to ask my clients to do that. Guy lost his gym. Huh? I wonder why, because 70% of the people in his state, one did the word math. So he why to find yourself out of business. So you have to look at this, are you the worst problem in your business? Are you the problem? And you’re going to have to make a decision if they do slip backwards in the mandates and you do see maps start to come back in and grocery stores and gyms and public places, you know, just my God.
I don’t know, but I’m certainly everything points, everything point in the states with less than 60% vaccination rate that there’s a second wave that may affect how we have to do business in starting in mid September, October, November.
Probably going into the first of the year. By that time, they think that that, that will force enough people to get vaccinated, that we will reach a point where the virus is because there’s no vaccinations. Then the virus can get ahold of, if everybody would have vaccinated, the Delta very sort of bounced off more people, but because it has a home on vaccinated people, it’s getting a foothold in state.
So that those people eventually, when they see somebody dying 30 year old guy dying, a horrible death of like, maybe I’d better get my aspects. And Aiden, they think that the wave of people that are suffering through here will actually the drive up back to nations by the people previously hesitant because it seemed to get vaccines you needed to, or be on TV, dying, a horrible death with a ventilator.
Your last words are, and I actually saw this on an interviewed the guy’s last words where he said, I denied it. I just, I, I would tell anybody anything now I, you know, I was wrong and then he died, you know, a couple of days later he was gone and I hope we don’t have to get to that point to do it. But if you were to stay over 67%.
And you know, people and that’s gonna increase somewhat and you should be okay. There may be minor restrictions, uh, going in that will be load limits and all training generous by now, you should’ve learned that lesson. You should be ready to be able to function a load limits.
Sumit: Okay. Well, thank you. Uh, thank you once again for sharing that, bringing that up to surface now, you know, talking about it, I guess.
No, one’s talking about this, right? Like you, you always said you gotta be prepared.