The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
How to Build a Studio Culture That Boosts Retention & Loyalty
What happens when a successful gym reaches a breaking point? In this revealing conversation, former CrossFit gym owner Tyler Sullivan shares his 13-year entrepreneurial journey from startup struggles through exponential growth to a successful business exit.
Tyler takes us back to 2013 when his Milwaukee-based gym was thriving financially but operationally overwhelming. Facing burnout and considering closure, he instead made a pivotal decision to hire his first employee—someone who could handle everything he didn't want to do but needed to be done. This single choice transformed his business and personal life, creating space for strategic thinking and family time.
The conversation explores how systematizing a fitness business creates freedom rather than constraint. With his brother's help, Tyler implemented principles from the book "Traction," developing operational structures that allowed the gym to scale. We hear candidly about the marketing challenges faced by most studio owners, with Tyler revealing how establishing solid sales processes before scaling advertising prevented wasted spending and staff frustration.
Most powerfully, Tyler discusses his decision to sell the business in 2023. After rebuilding post-pandemic, he confronted the reality that his passion had diminished: "I started to not like things more than I liked things, and it's not fair to the customer or employees to continue if I'm not going to enjoy it." His successful exit to his head coach demonstrates how building strong systems creates both business value and personal freedom.
Are you trapped in the daily operations of your studio? Or considering whether to expand or exit? Tyler's journey offers invaluable insights for fitness entrepreneurs at every stage. Connect with him on Instagram @BCF_Tyler or email tyler@badgercrossfit.com for more wisdom from someone who's navigated the full entrepreneurial cycle.
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have to kind of move away from operations. Unless that's what you're good at, unless that's what you want to do, then you need to bring someone in that's going to be more of the face, and the CEO of the company to do that entrepreneur stuff, right? Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fit to Great cast. I'm your host, Zach Coleman. We have a special guest today. Taylor, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself? Why don't you just go off and tell everyone a little bit about your journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem, it's all good. So my name is Tyler Sullivan, born and raised in Green Bay, wisconsin, and I got a degree in college with business and fitness, decided after school to drive around the country a little bit, all the way to Florida, to Ohio and then back home. In between all that I got married and had two kids and decided to settle a little bit closer to family back in Milwaukee, wisconsin, which is kind of where I've been since 2010. And yeah, I, you know, started my studio, my CrossFit business, my CrossFit gym and affiliate back in 2011.
Speaker 2:It was always in the back of my mind to start something like this and decided to continue to run it and ran it alongside with just a regular job and decided in 2012 to quit full-time job and just focus exclusively on the business. And I ran it ever since and it sort of blew up in my face in a very good way. And, yeah, all that to lead up to COVID, which I think everybody knows was a really rough time for gyms in general or businesses in general. And yeah, after that grew it back up to where I needed to go and exited the business. I made a successful sale back in 20, or, sorry, last year so 2024, almost a year to the day and decided to sort of exit the business because I just decided I wanted to move forward with some other opportunities and see the person who I sold it to have the opportunity as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think a good plethora of your overall story is that there's evolutionary periods in all of us, and so for people that feel trapped like, hey, I can't do this, I can't do that, just knowing that, hey, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel and it's either evolving or growing. And I kind of told you a little bit about the audience before I forgot to hit record, and so why don't you dive in and talk a little bit? I want to hear a little bit about your studio and maybe some of the spots that you had plateau moments, how you got past those hurdles, what you've seen to get you to the point of possibly then realizing, hey, I wanna sell this thing.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, you know, as a hungry entrepreneur, in the very beginning of any journey, everyone sort of has a glossy eyes, so to speak. Right, we all are really motivated to do whatever it takes work hard, grind hard, and oftentimes you sort of end up skipping over the things that are necessary to grow a business long-term, like systems, like processes, like hiring people sooner, like marketing your gym better. You know, you name it, it's on there and you know. Those are all sort of things that came to a crossroads for myself. After about two years, so in 2013, at the end of 2013, um was sort of a huge turning point for me in my gym. Um, it blew up in my face in a very good way. Financially, we were doing wonderful, but on the on the backside of things the operations, and then, of course, just the operational side, with personal side being at the gym all the time, sort of going too hard to sue or too hard too much, and not knowing how to ease off the gas pedal, created a dynamic in my gym and my personal life. That said, I need to either change something right now or like in drastically, or I'm going to have to stop this thing. Change something right now or like in drastically, or I'm going to have to stop this thing.
Speaker 2:Um, and I actually contemplated shutting down the gym in the end of 2013,. Um, due to the fact that, uh, it was impacting my personal life too much and also, just, I couldn't handle all the all the things that were happening inside. So it was at that point where I decided, well, I'm not going to stop this thing. I think I can make this thing better, and I started learning a little bit about what to do and how to how to get over these types of hums with some mentors of mine.
Speaker 2:Um, and I decided to hire my first person, and my first person that I hired, uh, was everything that I could not, or I didn't want or didn't need to do necessarily, but needed to be done.
Speaker 2:I was right that I didn't want to do that. It needed to be done, right, so I could still focus on coaching, I could deliver a quality service and really meet the needs of the people that were deciding to come into my business. And this person that I hired ended up taking off so much on my plate that it freed me up to be with my family. It freed me up to focus on some of the major things rather than the minor things, things rather than the minor things, right. And then after that I hired my brother, who ended up being part of a sale in his company and he drastically helped me with creating systems in my business. So it wasn't just taking off the busyness, it was also systematizing the business and he was really good about the processes and that kind of transformed the business in 2014 and forward. And that was a major hurdle and it happened within about three to four months that we overcame and then started to see some benefits of those changes.
Speaker 1:Did you see that the process of creating all of those, the process of creating the processes, actually took longer than the actual implementation and seeing the change to those processes?
Speaker 2:Sure, it's part of it. It's like you don't even know what you don't know, yeah, and you start to understand that, like you have an idea in your head, but it's like the X's and O's on how to create that process, like and just knowing what is accurate and what is not, is sometimes, like you said, a little bit more of a longer journey. But then once you sort of refine that it's, it's like executing on that right and execute on those decisions that you decided were worth it. And you know, with, with the help of books, with the help of people that have been in small business before, I think we were able to pinpoint those specific processes a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but something that I see very common in the industry is you know a lot of studio owners. They're owner operators and for them to be able to kind of let go of somewhat of the operations is a first good kind of delegation on kind of going back to why they started the studio to begin with and it's kind of a it's kind of a mindset shift, to be like oh, now I have to focus on tasks that I didn't even realize would move the needle, try to find, like you said, like you don't know what you don't know. How do you get to the point where, like, for instance and I don't know if this happened to you, but did you get to a point where you were like I don't, I own a studio and I don't even work out anymore because I'm so focused on operations that realizing that bringing the working out back actually helped you grow the business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, I think, like knowing your strengths and your weaknesses are key. Um, and a lot of times gym owners sort of, you know, in studio owners, I it could. I mean there's a hodgepodge of types of people, but you know, and I think a lot of people are really good at the specific thing that that gym service is all about, or the business's service, right, like, the accountant is probably a really good accountant. Right, the plumber is probably a really good plumber. The gym owner is probably a really good gym or coach.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, and that's often what happens is you have that tactical, technician type person that knows the tasks and the duties of that person or that of the business, but it's the entrepreneurial or the managerial or the operational type responsibilities that a gym owner or any business owner maybe doesn't have that as a strength. And they start to. They start to try and use their technical, their tactical skills to hopefully overcome what's going on in the business, right, and that's that can be an issue where you know businesses start to stall out as a result of that. And then you know cause I was for me it was all in on the coaching part of my business and I was really good with coaching and tactical stuff within that, but I left all the busy work and the entrepreneurial spirit within the business sort of on the side because I was just so busy, right, and I think once we start to do, you use this technique, but this is something that I've continued to use myself, no matter what stage of growth I've been in, is the delegation chart.
Speaker 1:You know, finding out what you love, finding out what you don't love, finding out what you hate what you don't hate and I'll throw a link in the comments for anyone who wants to see that chart and utilize that chart. But just kind of sitting down every week and just saying, hey, like what am I doing this week and just chart it down as you're doing it and then start writing down like I don't necessarily like doing this or I need to do this because I don't have the expertise to be able to bring someone in right now. Did you use any sort of uh, any sort of um system for yourself to kind of sit down and be like, all right, how do I know what to delegate out? How do I know what to start to move away from?
Speaker 2:Sure, yes, I did. A primary thing first off was just again like sort of the knowledge to know that I have a problem, so to speak. Right, I have to recognize that there's an issue in my business and I need to do something about it. My brother was that person. He helped me understand that, hey, this is this, this is not working, all these things. It was that outside perspective that sort of knocked me into place a little bit to understand what's happening, to get me the book Traction. The book was a game changer. That was essentially the thing that said here's what, here's who you are, this is what you need to work on. And it sort of gave me that template, those resources and the information to sort of make those changes. And I mean, we loosely followed it. We weren't hardcore Traction, but it was at least the opportunity for us to recognize we have something we need to do. And it gave us that sort of pathway to go to the things and the resources that could get us to the place where we need to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, traction is a great book. It's definitely something that you know. I'm a big advocate of EOS myself and so I utilize Traction quite a bit with what I do and I just see it. And it's funny because it really doesn't really matter what industry you're in, right? I think the same flow happens with every business where it's like you have to kind of move away from operations unless that's what you're good at, unless that's what you want to do, and if that's the case, then you need to bring someone in. That's going to be more of the face and the CEO of the company to do that entrepreneur stuff, right, it's going to be more of the face and the CEO of the company to do that entrepreneur stuff, right. But I highly recommend Traction for anyone who's watching this. It's a great book.
Speaker 1:Now, when you kind of got through that phase and you started working on operations, let's talk a little bit about and I know this is a big thing in the industry we talk about retention versus marketing and pre-sale, like how many, how much effort you put into your marketing, how much effort you put in what were kind of the staples that you started to look at internally. Um, because, honestly, you know us being a marketing company. We've noticed a lot of studio owners. They they try to operate the marketing a little too much and have a little bit too much control and from my perspective, it takes them away from the entrepreneur tasks. And so what did you see when you started delegating out and figuring out a good system for your marketing that would be beneficial for anyone who's listening.
Speaker 2:Well, like I mentioned earlier, it was just sort of getting the people in the place. That allowed me to sort of give me the space to think about that type of stuff. To begin with, you know, and once I had that, I realized that, you know, especially in the very early adopter phase of my business, it was a very much a word of mouth type business in the beginning, right, because we were so new, we had such a low budget, those types of things sort of give us, you know, our free marketing, so to speak. But what I realized was that the free like the people that were wanting to come in, right, there was not really necessarily this game plan in which there was a process from, you know, this happens after this, and then something happens after that. Right, it's, it's, I get a lead. That lead is, you know, there's a certain point of contact that we have to have the things that we want to say, the sales process Right, to tell them, hey, this is what we're all about, and and then eventually to make the sale Right. So we could get as many leads as we could possibly get from word of mouth, but if we didn't have the things to back up those people that were coming in the gym.
Speaker 2:We felt that it was just sort of this revolving door and it was when I started thinking about the onboarding processes for, or in the sales process, excuse me, that sort of everything started to come into place where not only it was the word of mouth, still it was working really well. We were converting that word of mouth, we were converting those leads that were coming into the gym, right, and as that sort of wore off as time went on in the business, um, after that early adopter phase, we started kind of getting that that growth, high growth phase. That process really came into play when we started to have to market real like in spending dollars and or creating systems to be able to get people in the gym, you know. And then I think that's where, when, when, when that was sort of ironed out at the beginning we started to see hyper growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it's really take off yeah, you were able a long story short. It usually comes down to this right, it's, it's, uh, it's uh. Find something that works, systematize what works and then expand that system. If you're going to expand, or or blah, blah, blah, blah. And so trying to figure out where your marketing dollars are going, and I and funny enough, I still see this with a lot of studios um, is that they get to a point where you know they, they do the referral stuff, they do the referral stuff and they're spending just a little bit of budget and then, once they start systematizing, they're so afraid to do advertising, they're so afraid to spend two $3,000 a month and I'm not, that's just an average number. I mean smaller gyms. I'd say, start with a thousand. But that's besides the point, like saying hey, like this is an investment towards starting to find those leads and honestly trying to learn the process.
Speaker 1:Back to what you said with the sales. Is that just because you're going to get 45 people in the door doesn't mean that 45 people are going to self? Sure, so how did you go through that transition? Start to come to the mindset of understanding that and really like diving into when you built the system. Because here's the thing, every single human being is different. So even with the sales process, I know there was probably a plethora of kinks that continued to happen like, oh, this person isn't following the sales process, this person's not following the sale. So how did you let go of control to allow yourself to step outside that sales process a little bit and allow for things to happen a little bit more naturally?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was kind of a proof of concept situation where, like I mentioned earlier, with this, people coming into the gym with a free word of mouth or referral process, like it allowed that process to sort of develop and harden to a place where it was time tested with just regular people, right, and it wasn't.
Speaker 2:It was an opportunity for me to just use that as as a practice scenario over and over and over to refine it, because it then allowed us to say you know what, after even free people that are the free leads that are coming in, or the, just the people that walk in the doors, we're converting this really, really well. Right, we're doing great, but if we start to pour gasoline on this thing, we start to actually spend some money on advertising. Like it freed me up and it gave me a sense of confidence and relaxation to say you know, I'm good with what we did with everybody else. I know this works if we just get more. It just gave us more confidence and freedom to sort of run with with what we needed to do next, and that was because of the, the, the time tested process that we've refined.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. So what, moving forward once you started getting the operations and you started getting the systems, you reached, got past your first plateau period, what was around the time? When? Was there a time when you started realizing that like hey, we have to start working on internal experiences, we have to start working on customer service, to also focus on retention, or was that part of your initial system setup?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question, to be honest. No, it wasn't part of it. I think it was sort of when we started really pouring that gasoline on the fire, we started having the customers come in in mass, that the experience afterwards mattered. So it was a little again kind of that catch up thing. I didn't have all the answers when this was starting right, but it was okay. We have 50 more people this month or we have 100 more people over the course of this year. Whatever it was, it was. We wanted to make sure that this customer, we had some sort of retention process to maintain this relationship as long as possible, and it was. It was when that was happening, when we had a lot of people, that we started to have to develop that system.
Speaker 1:It was one that was happening when we had a lot of people that we started to have to develop that system. Yeah, yeah, did you start to like dive into your values more, your mission and your vision when you started working on the customer service? Is that kind of something that you felt kind of helped move the needle to the next stage For sure it was also because, internally, I needed my staff to believe in it right.
Speaker 2:Because, internally, I needed my staff to believe in it Right. And if they didn't believe in the process and the vision, the mission of what we were doing like I mean, all the processes and systems in the world wouldn't have mattered. They wouldn't have executed them, because I'm only one man and I can only do so many things. Right Back to what we were talking about delegating those specific tasks. I was focused on the entrepreneurial side. I needed my operational people to do the job, operational people to do the job, yeah, and so it was very important. So it was kind of again a catch-up situation. We, back in 2016, had to develop mission and vision I wish.
Speaker 2:I would have done that earlier, right, but you know it is what it is. And once we started getting people in my business to start to believe this system, believe the gym, believe the process, excuse me then they could believe the system. And that's when you know, getting this thing to be believed and executed by my, my staff was was critical, right, because now we had, we had the retention process, we had the, the nurturing process of the client and the customer, and everything started just kind of spiraling in a great way. Yeah, yeah, absolutely as well. In a great way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting because I feel like there's uh, and I know you sold your gym you sold your gym before AI really started to take huge effect. Uh, huge effect, and now it's like exploding. Um, I'm seeing this trend in the industry right now where people are relying a little bit too much on AI, getting away from the customer service, and so how do you see, how do you see, with the experiences that you had, and what your future journey looks like? Ai kind of playing a role within the studio environment.
Speaker 2:Well, I absolutely think it has a place. You know, it's one of those things that I I'm not like sort of against any sort of technology or, you know, new things. I guess that's out there on the market and you know, obviously AI has kind of been around for a little bit, but it's really starting to blow up now. Like you mentioned, I see it as a tool as just as one of many a very powerful tool. At that conjunction with a caring business owner or a caring studio owner or a caring, caring employee, it can become a really powerful weapon to to grow your business and also keep customers. I don't necessarily believe, depending on your type of business or studio or jam or whatever you have, that it will entire, entirely replace a lot of things, but I do believe that, again, it will help. But the person who's behind everything definitely needs to still maintain that caring connection. You know people seek connection and the gym is one of those places where it's like you're they call it your third space. Probably people have heard about this. They call it other things, but it's you have your house, you have your, and then you have this other third space. Right, and other third space can be like a, you know, a club or it could be, you know, whatever it is that we were.
Speaker 2:You connect with people and the gym is very often especially my business. It was a place where everybody connected and for that to sort of be in an, in an automated fashion or an AI fashion, would take away some of that care. And you know, again, it's hard to determine these days because AI is getting so good, but I mean the smile and the handshake and the high five and, as you see, this person cannot be revocated right, fake it Right, and you have to still show that care and concern for your customer, whether it's a text or a phone call. You know, and again, those are tools that you could use, ai for no doubt. But you know, with an in-person business, that my business was, it mattered a lot to the to iterate, interface and interact with the customer and that was a human being connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's funny enough. I think what we're kind of what we're, we have to kind of look back to move forward a little bit. I think that you know, I'll use and I just use this example recently on another cast, you know the retail market, for instance, of that nature where it's like hey, you go here, we have a restaurant, we're selling bikes, we're selling this, we have a Ferris wheel. You know, we have a place where you can buy furniture.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying you have to go full service at your studio, but what I'm saying is like they are providing something that the online atmosphere is not, which is an experience, and I think community and building a connection with people involves a lot of that experience. And it could come down to something as simple as set of setting out an you know an email to say happy birthday. You have a trigger that sets forth with AI for the trainer to say hey, this person's in your class today and it's his birthday, so go up to him personally and say happy birthday to him in the class, because that provides that one-on-one connection, more so than the common email thread that goes out that just says happy birthday. That everyone sees now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, absolutely. Happy birthday that everyone sees now. Yeah, exactly, absolutely, and that's, I think that's a good way of just like you mentioned, or using those processes or those, those technology tools to make the experience better, right, like I mean, we have triggers that say um, and whether it's AI or just systems in general, right, that say that's this person's birthday Cool, well, that triggers the person who's responsible to write them a note and a happy birthday card and email it to them. You know, as opposed to a automated text or a automated email, right, it triggers the human process just as much.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think too, just going back to what you were talking about with AI and having that personal experience, something that you know the smaller studios have, that a lot of these big box you know, you see a lot of studios come in and be like I can't compete with you know, these large big box studios, I don't know what to do, and it's like you're not supposed to compete with them. You're supposed to, you're supposed to not, not going to say compliment, but you're supposed to differentiate yourself from them. And something these big box studios don't really have is accountability. You know it's meant to. It's volume based, it's meant to say come in, have an experience by yourself, which is great for some, but, as you are aware, accountability is a huge accountability, especially in the boutique studio, and that personal experience is what separates from the big box.
Speaker 1:And so being able to come in and really be able to say, hey, like our differentiating factor is that accountability is that we have someone there that can be there for you, not just at the studio, but maybe you're at home and you're having a bad workout, it's having a day where you're fatigued and you don't really wanna work out. Being able to have an accountability coach and be like hey, what's wrong with you today? Do we need to pivot your? If you're doing personal training, for instance, or semi-personal, are you pivoting that to the next day workout or things of that nature? And I think that that's what people are wanting and craving these days, because we're all behind a computer.
Speaker 2:So true, yeah, and I think it's understanding the unique, yeah, your unique sales proposition I call it the USP.
Speaker 2:That was always kind of at the forefront of our discussions on monthly, quarterly meeting basis.
Speaker 2:You know, again, making sure that what we were offering was, like you mentioned, not as necessarily a competition to the big box, because there are so many things that big box just provides that we're just not in the business of right, like it's convenient, it has an amazing, amazing amenities.
Speaker 2:What it didn't have was, like you said, the accountability factor or the care factor or the community factor, and it was, you know, a very personalized touch and and I think gym owners still need to maintain their usp and put it at the forefront of their discussions and then what they're trying to achieve because it can create a lot of problems and in their marketing as they go forward, because what they're trying to do is they're trying to attain or attract a customer that really is not the type of customer that is wanting what you offer. Right, the customer who wants to go in at 2 am, for example, at the 24-hour fitness gym and do their own program is not my customer. I mean, I would love to have them, but I have to understand that. You know I'm not going to market that as as something that I'm looking to like attract. I want to attract the people that will see the value.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I and funny enough, I think that goes back to back to what I, what I preach a lot, which is, you know, putting a larger emphasis on, emphasis on branding. You know, I look at value, value development, leadership development, all that stuff. That's. It's basically branding practices in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:And I think that really having an understanding of like, moving away from hey, we provide everything for everyone I mean, how many studio owners I talked to, they're like hey, we focus on 16 year olds all the way to 50 year olds, man and male and female I'm like, okay, it makes sense when you're starting to go a little broader so that you can start to build your systems, understand certain things.
Speaker 1:But there is a point when you need to be like hey, who is our ideal member? Like how we can only bring the best customer service, best accountability, to a certain type of individual. And so when you start to preach out certain things and attract and I think that's a huge one attract the right type of people, you're probably gonna be doing that through understanding your mission and your vision and allowing the team to adapt those branding principles to be able to attract the right audience, and then the sales process is easier, right? Because then you're already putting them through a process. They understand what they want, they understand what they need and they're like, hey, I'm all for this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I think, a big part of the. That was a big moment for us when we started actually marketing. We didn't identify the right type of customer and we didn't explicitly state that to the company that we were working with, and so we sort of got this huge net thrown out there of, hey, this is who we're marketing to, this is the dollars we're going to spend, and we just ended up spinning our wheels and making our internal staff just very frustrated with everything because we were not getting those types of people that we were really looking for, and that's a big problem.
Speaker 1:What I think. I love how you said that, because you know, I, I own a marketing agency and you say who is that? Who's to blame for that? Would it be you, would it be? Would it be? Would it be you and your team? Would it be the marketing agency?
Speaker 1:And of course I I always say it's both ends the marketing agency should have kind of came in and said, hey, like well, if you really want to market, we need to identify who your market, audit, your target audiences, or you're going to be throwing dollars at a wall until something six.
Speaker 1:And you, on the other note, should have, you know, been able to go in and be like, figure out, oh, this is our target audience, like let's, let's do this, and I think that that's. That's a common misconception. Uh, not to get off topic here, but that's a common misconception around when you bring in a marketing agency. Remember, the marketing agency is supposed to help leverage what you've already kind of developed and created to get you in front of the right audience and just diminish those man hours to help you not think, but you still have to, as an entrepreneur or visionary, sit down and give yourself that space and time to work with the team and the culture to be able to develop that stuff, or have an agency that works with you on that to get and get you through that process.
Speaker 2:Yep, and the one that we ended up working with was not necessarily working with us to identify that certain person. I mean, we knew it after the fact, but they had their own template in which they thought that was the best thing for us, right and it. They did it with their messaging and their uh type of copy and their type of photos and videos or whatever you want to call it right, and they had this thing. That was a kind of a proof of concept for them, but it really was not personalized for for what we were looking for and that, just again, it created a problem, but I get it was on us too, like I take full responsibility for not developing the customer that we needed to have in the gym.
Speaker 1:Well, and back to what you were saying with learning, right Like the I, I see this all the time, right Like usually.
Speaker 1:You know, especially in this, this industry and I love to dive into this a little bit, since we're on the call you know the different types of agencies that you've seen throughout, because I come at it from the expert of the marketer, right Like I see, I see, hey, you have these, these. It's not your fault for not understanding marketing agencies that's not what you do, that's not what you're in but understanding that there's different size and different experiences of marketing agencies. And you know, in this industry, right now, it's you see it all the time. Hey, we have a system and a template that works on Facebook. Let's just take that and we'll give it all to you and that's what will work. Pay us, you know, and it doesn't matter if they're niche, doesn't matter if not, but every studio is going to be different and you want to be different because that's what separate, especially right now. You want to be separate from the saturation of all the other competitors out there.
Speaker 1:True yeah exactly, and that's that is. It's a good thing to find someone that understands that you know and it gives you that opportunity to, like you mentioned, do the things that you're not strong at. And that's why we hire experts like marketing companies or whoever sales was. I was talking to another studio owner the other day and we were kind of having a conversation and I just told them I'm like I own a marketing agency and I hire a marketing agency to do our own stuff Like I could. I could do it all myself, but I can't. And when you're in it so much and you're, you just have so much more passion for what you do. You need that. Like you said earlier, you need that outside perspective of different people, if they're in the industry or not, because it helps. It helps unrelease that emotional tie to some of those things that you may be like no, this is how we're doing it, this is what I want, when in reality, it's like maybe it isn't what's going to work.
Speaker 2:Sure, and it's the same thing with myself. Like, as I was a is and what's going to work. Sure, and it's the same thing with myself, like I was a, I was a business owner, I was an athletic person, I did all these things. I would hire an athletic coach to do my stuff, for my athletic stuff, but I also I was a business coach as well. So I hired a business coach and I was a business coach, you know, and it's, I needed a person.
Speaker 2:Also to, you know, coaches need coaches, business owners need other business owners, business owners need other experts and um, it just allows us to continually be better and be pushed. You know, just like in anything you know, especially in business, it's easy for, uh, for us to coach a lot of people, but we always forget that, look, we also need to be coached. We need to be coached in areas that we're just not strong at. And um, look, we also need to be coached. We need to be coached in areas that we're just not strong at. And those are things that I've learned over the years that, again, I coached hundreds of business owners across the world and it made me also a better coach. It made me also a better business owner, because I would help these other people and it would make me realize I'm not doing these things either. So I needed to improve myself in order to improve myself, to be better at that service, you know. So again, coaches need coaches, business owners need business owners. People helping people.
Speaker 1:What I, what I hear from this whole conversation so far, is that and I came up with this the other day and I probably heard it somewhere, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but chaos breeds, um, um, clarification, you know.
Speaker 1:So you're like understanding that the the chaos there's going to be chaos, being able to let go of control and allow the chaos to breed, that simplicity, and that that organization is is going to be something that I think, uh, we all have to embrace, because every business owner I talk to is the same thing. It doesn't just happen overnight. It's not just this, this magical bullet that gets you to a million to like, get you to sell it's. You know, you're going to have to test, you're going to have to spend money. Hopefully a coach or bringing in someone with operations helps you make less mistake, less risky mistakes, or spend a lot less on those mistakes than normal. But I think that's always going to be there and we're all just going to have to embrace that. Hey, like this is part of the growth cycle of any business. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean it's it takes. It takes time and you know, money to accelerate. I should say, I should rephrase that it takes money to when you hire someone to accelerate the process, right To accelerate. To hire a coach costs money, but that person is going to help accelerate everything you know. It's going to help you grow, it's going to get you from a to b quicker. Right, it's just what journey do you want to take for yourself? Do you want to take a to b a little slower or do you want to go a to b a little faster and with a little in those processes and those things that go inside that a to b? Like it, it'll accelerate if you do it right.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's finish off the cast by talking a little bit about that. Towards the end of your uh, of your tenure at your studio, like, what was your kind of deciding factor of like, hey, I want to sell this to me? That's more courage than it is, than it is, you know, copping out, because it's hard to, especially once you build something up so much to be able to be like, hey, I'm ready to sell or do I expand? So kind of tell me, give me through a little bit of your thought process and your journey through that selling process. So any other studio owner that's like, hey, I eventually want to sell this thing, kind of has an idea of I'm not going to say the steps they can take, but some of the mental clarity that they're going to have to go through to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a. It was a long decision of back and forth, obviously, um, internally, with just what am I looking for in the next phase of my life? Um, for me it was. You know, covid was that turning point for myself where I was leading it up to COVID in a great way and it was, the business was doing wonderful, and then COVID sort of took all of those goals that I had for myself and just knocked them out right. It just took everything off the table again.
Speaker 2:But leading up to 2020, for me personally was a. I either said I'm going to either expand this thing or I'm going to sell it, and I I came to that conclusion. I did that internal dialogue up to 2020 with, and I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go, I want to go hard, I wanted to expand, I wanted to be, I wanted a location of my business within 10 to 15 minutes of every spot in this city. And there was that huge 10 year vision that I laid out prior, a couple of years prior to 2020, that I had on the table. I had a whole thing leading up to it and everything came to full haul. And after that, 2020, it was just let's just get this thing back to, to operations, right? Like, let's not get this thing. I don't want this thing to be shut down because of this thing. I want to grow it back to what I know it could have been Right. And so the last four years from 2020 to 2024, I was grinding hard just as much as I was in the very beginning, although a little differently, because it wasn't systems, it wasn't people, it was just delivering the service excellently every single day, and that eventually led to revigoration of the business, to get back to where it was prior to 2020.
Speaker 2:But in that process, inside my brain was I'm starting to fall a lot of love with the thing with growing my business the gym business, specifically the environment and the customer changed drastically in 2020. And it became much more difficult and a little bit different and something that I didn't really like as much, and I started to not like things more than I liked things and I started to get to that point in my head where I'm like this is not where I foresee my business or myself, and it's not fair to the customer, it's not fair to my employees to make this decision because I'm or I'm sorry to continue forward if I'm going to not enjoy it and love it. And there's a mentor of mine that said it's either hell yes or hell no and I it's like I was leaning on the more of the hell no stuff and I think it came to that point where I asked my the sold it to who was my head coach in my business. She and I had those discussions and I told her about it and I said, look, I'm thinking about this thing. It might not be right now because I'm still building this thing up, but I just want to let you know I'm possibly willing to entertain this. She said cool, obviously right now is not a good time and we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:So as time went on, we things started to become better. She started to realize that she started to become also interested in in expanding her career and her, what she wanted to do and the business of running a business again for her. She ran one prior, she wanted to start it and she wanted to take it on. So we had those discussions, talked about everything, all the details and things, and we came to the conclusion to sell. So I think it all lined up perfectly. I had those thoughts, she had those desires and it worked out really well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think that that's just proof that even if you're going to sell like, you had to have your financials in place. You had to have the structure in place you have. So you still had to create the system. So anyone out there thinking, hey, I'm just going to sell this thing, just put a little cautious to the wind. You're probably not going to make as much if you don't get your financials in order. And so so, uh, you probably had a.
Speaker 1:The fact that you even, uh, contemplated the sell showed that you were like, hey, I'm kind of committing. You know, I hear all the time like you need to have a goal in mind and realize, hey, are you going to sell, are you going to expand? And so you gave yourself a couple of years to get all that priority and all that stuff in place so that you could sell properly and probably make a good chunk change to what you're doing now. And so why don't you explain to everyone, like, now that you're out, um, did you take a hiatus? Did you take like a year off? Um, and what are the kind of thought process that I know you talked to me before about your guys kind of feeling out what you want to do next, but not that, any thought processes on the types of direction you want to go. Are you going to stay in the studio space? Are you going to fitness space? I know it's hard to get out of, but what are you planning on doing now?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, like kind of like, when I talked about the very beginning of this conversation, yeah, I, I really I love coaching, I love people. It's always been a part of me. I think just the combination of it all just started to kind of add up a little bit, which allowed for a very successful sale. You know, I, I I'm very glad I did what I did. I'm glad I'm out, though, as well. It was one of those I don't want to regret it situations and, as one year has now passed, I have not regretted it because I think all these internal thoughts and conversations and discussing this with my wife, discussing things with my buyer, you know it allowed us to sort of set the table for sort of what to cut, what's to come, and it got all the fears and it got all the things out out there in the open. But because I sold it last year and I had a business coach that in a mentor of mine that said hey, look, you know, don't do anything for the next six months minimum, it gave me the freedom to say I don't need to push on right away. It gave me the freedom to say let me just sit back a bit and let my afterburners cool down, you know, because when you're been a business owner gym owner, whatever, I don't care any owner you're grinding right and you are going hard and it's very emotional and physically draining. And so I just needed that, that um, that permission, so to speak, to say, all right, let's just relax a little bit for the next six months and then figure out what's going on.
Speaker 2:Well, six months has now turned into a year because, um, I've sort of busied myself with, um, you know, some things in the family side.
Speaker 2:So I've been doing more of like coaching my daughter's basketball team, and I still do a lot of corporate training, I still do a lot of private training. So those sort of things have just gave me the scratch, the itch, so to speak, still without feeling like I needed to have to rush into the next thing. And I'm still enjoying it right now. I'm enjoying not having to do anything inside my business or a business, excuse me and it gives me the freedom to make decisions on the fly. And I'm really enjoying this right now because I've never been able to do that for the last 14 years of running my business, and so that's kind of where I sit right now. I'm just. I have the ability to pick and choose what I want to do. I have the freedom to go hard, I have the freedom to relax and I'm kind of looking for just and being selective with the opportunities that present themselves and come my way.
Speaker 1:I think that's beautiful, because I think that the one thing that as any entrepreneur has is is that concept of you know, especially for anyone going into wanting to become an entrepreneur, I think understanding that's where I'm not going to say trap, but that's, that's everyone's like it's freedom, it's freedom. I'm not going to say trap, but everyone's like it's freedom, it's freedom. But I think that that's the mindset that we all tend to fall into is how hard do we push? How much do we have to pay employees? We have to pay rent, we have to bring in clients, we have to serve.
Speaker 1:Take a what I would call more of a lifestyle business, which which is sounds like you're kind of in right now. Is you're kind of thinking about that? Next step is that it's okay. It's okay you don't have to follow the, the trends of hey, if you're going to make, don't make it to a million dollars tomorrow you're going to, you're going to die. Like. It's okay to stay home with your family. It's okay to to do a basketball game. It's okay to do a podcast because you enjoy it, Speak because you enjoy it, without necessarily feeling like you have to have the grind. So I give you courage and I give you props for allowing yourself to do that, because I know it's a very hard.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot of um you know there's mental gymnastics, that you go back and forth. You know, sometimes I I think I should be working harder right now, you know, or I should be sacrificing a little bit more right now, but I I think back to what my, my uh mentor said and he's just like, just it's. You know, you, you've worked your butt off for so long. Give yourself permission, you know, and you know businesses are meant to serve us right, in whatever capacity that is, Could be financially, could be with your time, where it gives you more time to spend on the things that you really want to spend time on. I mean, it's not meant to consume you and I think that's an important aspect to running a business and having an entrepreneur to say you know, what is this thing doing for us and doing for my family or doing for me, and making sure that it lines up with that, yeah, man, proud of you, proud of you.
Speaker 1:No, we barely know each other, but I'm proud of you. It's a hard thing to do. I've contemplated that myself multiple times when you have them, and I think it's funny because I think a lot of people are like, hey, I just need to get safe with money, I just need to get safe with money. And then you get to a point where you're then safe with money and then you're like, oh well, all that certain stuff that was pushing me before is no longer pushing me now, and so you have to find realize that it's not necessarily the money that was pushing you, it was the vision and the goals, and so trying to trying to define that, and so I you know it was a real pleasure having you on, real pleasure having you on I'm. You know I know we're talking after this to talk about having you on on further, on more episodes, and so why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself, where they can find you, and? And yeah, we'll leave those down in the comments below.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm still. Everything's available on the socials, of course, Tyler Sullivan, or my Instagram is BCF Tyler I I'm still found in my gym in in Milwaukee and I'm there often still training clients and having fun and intermingling with the people. And so, yeah, if you want to reach out to me, it's hyler at badgercrossfitcom and I'm available for anything.
Speaker 1:Thanks for jumping on this cast. This is another episode of the Fit the Grit cast with Zach Coleman, and I hope you all have a good day.
