How I Turned Coaching Into A Career: Part 2

If you haven’t read Part 1, make sure to do that first: Part 1 here

The smell of freshly made pasta in a small Italian countryside village.

Vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows creating the most beautiful sunset off the coast of Puerto Escondido in Mexico.

An explosion of flavor on your tongue of acid, tang, and freshness from a Greek salad at a local hole-in-the-wall estiatório in Greece.

These are memories that I think about daily from traveling with Maria. It’s one of our favorite things to do together. This urge to travel and be mobile has bled into our daily lives in picking where we want to eventually settle down.

When we met, we lived in Cincinnati. We had our favorite go-to restaurants, our coffee shops we’d hang out at on the weekends, and built some of our closest friendships there.

But we knew there was more to see and started looking for the next place we’d call home. We had friends who just moved to Southern California and we went to visit them. The pro-California propaganda you see and hear was true. Palm trees everywhere, the weather was perfect every single day, and I had In-N-Out for the first time.

We were sold.

This is where we wanted to live next. Owning a gym, I wasn’t able to just pick up and move. And the network I built over the previous 5 years to make my first gym a sustainable business was arguably the most valuable part of it. But I couldn’t take it with me.

With that said, we agreed that moving was the right choice for us so I said goodbye to my first gym and moved to San Jose.

After getting settled in, the entrepreneur in me began searching for the next thing. What did I want to do? I gave myself 2 weeks to read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and spend all the time brainstorming what I wanted to do next.

And after this intensive 2 weeks of researching, I landed on what I thought was the next right step…

Oops, I Did It Again

And that was opening another gym. If this doesn’t tell you my level of business-savvy, I don’t know what will.

Now, I just told you I gave up my most valuable asset - my network - and then I starting decided to start a business without one. The only people I knew in San Jose was my wife and our two dogs. Even better, I decided I would open this second gym in my garage.

Because what 40, 50, or 60 year old woman (who I specialized in working with) wouldn’t want to come work out in some random guy’s garage?

But from everything I learned in owning a gym for the previous 5 years, I did one big thing that would make this time different. I started with a marketing strategy.

I hired a marketing agency to run Facebook ads for me and within the first month, I was profitable. By month 6, I was making 5-figures per month and only coaching 10 hours per week [I’ll share this as a separate story soon because it’s a good one].

I built a strong skillset of sales, delivering a great member experience, and running a solid business before. But the biggest thing I lacked was lead generation. So rather than struggling along, feeling the weight of not getting leads early on in this second venture, I decided to outsource it to an expert. and it turned out to be by far the best business decision I’d ever made.

Over the next 2 years, I built my ideal gym business:

• I worked with members who I wanted to…women 40+ who hated the gym

• I worked the schedule I wanted to work…no more 50 hours weeks

• And I made the amount of money I wanted to make

In my previous business, I was working myself into the ground. I was on a straight shot to burn out. This second gym felt like a do-over. An opportunity to build the business that I truly wanted…so I did it.

Only scheduling classes when I wanted allowed me to dive deeper into some of my interests like spirituality, meditation, and martial arts. As amazing as it was to spend time doing the things I wanted to, it felt weird.

Coming up, the common business advice was all about #hardwork. It was supposed to feel hard and full of grit. Business was a grind and only those with the most perserverance and sacrifice made it.

But here I was - running a business that was - dare I say - easy. While having time for my interests and building a stronger relationship with Maria. Like I said, it felt a little weird. Like I had found a cheat code.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Over the next year, the garage gym ran on autopilot. As long as I coached my 10-12 classes per week and overdelivered for my members, nobody left. To the point where I was able to turn off ads and the business continued to operate at very healthy profit margins.

Things truly couldn’t have been better. I was living what I thought was my ideal life. But I have this interesting way of getting bored very quickly. Even with things that I wanted for the longest time. And I began feeling this slow creep of dissatisfaction. Thoughts of “what’s next?” and “is this all you’re going to do for the rest of your life?” began working their way into my head.

What was once my ideal business quickly turned into a nuisance. Something that was standing in my way between where I was and what I wanted to do next. And what I wanted to do next was yet another move away. Not quite across the country…but still would require me starting over yet again.

Let’s quickly go back in time to when I was running my first gym to help set the stage for what I felt was the right next step.

On the come-up as a gym owner, I loved being a coach and helping others. But I loved the business side even more. Business felt (and still feels) like a game to me. Where I’m testing different strategies to level up and beat the next boss. And the implementation of those strategies whether it’s sales, marketing, or client experience are always something I enjoyed testing to see what worked and what didn’t.

While playing this game, I started looking for someone who ran a gym business - and did it well - to learn from. And by some weird luck of the internet, I came across a guy who was running a gym unlike most.

Most gym owners run a gym… as you might expect. Like a meathead. Tracking how much weight they lifted rather than their revenue. But this guy was actually running his gym like a business. Crazy idea, right?

His coaches were salaried, had health benefits, and didn’t have to coach 60 hours per week to support themselves. The gym was DEUCE Gym in Los Angeles.

For the next few years, I tried to learn as much as I could from the owner, Logan. He led continuing education seminars that I attended, had online courses I dove into, and in 2022, I came to LA and shadowed at the gym for a week to see behind the curtain of how things ran.

After being there for a week, I knew there was something special happening inside the gates of 110 Lincoln Boulevard. Maybe it was the endorphins from the ice bath? Who knows…But that feeling stuck with me over the next few years.

When I began asking myself, “what’s next” while running the garage gym, being a part of DEUCE felt more and more like the next right step. Even though, based on the made-up criteria I set for myself, going from a business owner to an employee would be a step back…but for some reason, it still felt like the right thing to do.

And then it happened…

While at one of Logan’s events last year over a weekend in August, I shared with him what was going on and my desire to move to LA to be a part of DEUCE. He jokingly shared to pack up all our things and head down to LA. Little did he know this joke would come true.

The following Tuesday (yes, 2 days later) we found a house in a sleepy beach town near LA. It was a short 8-minute walk to the beach and had everything we wanted. 3 days later on Friday we signed the lease. And moved in October 1st.

Fast forward to today, I’m right where I want to be with DEUCE. Coaching and helping with marketing/sales to impact more students (this is what we call our members) in our local community.

My “WHY”

If you made it this far over the past 2 newsletters, you must be bored…

But in all seriousness, I wanted to share this with you because there’s a stat that’s burned a spot in my mind forever.

Research has shown that 80% of personal trainers and coaches leave the field to get a “real” job in the first 2 years. This was the latest numbers I could find but I think I remember seeing a number more extreme than that. Closer to 90 or 95%.

On top of that, the average salary is about $40,000 per year. Barely enough to live on today. 

And the ever growing field of online fitness coaching…yeah, that’s even worse.

Most online coaches barely make any money. Even those with huge followings. I’m talking, I know several people with accounts over 100,000 followers and they can barely get a client. 

Throughout the past 9 years, I’ve been fortunate to experience a lot as a fitness coach and business owner. From working 80 hour weeks as a personal trainer, barely scraping by. To struggling as a first-time gym owner. To building a few [mildly] successful gyms in opposite ends of the country. And now working to grow the DEUCE brand.

I’ve been able to turn being a fitness coach into a career. And along the way, I’ve learned a loooooot. 

My goal with this newsletter moving forward is to share what worked and what didn’t work then…and what is and isn’t working now. So that I can help make a positive impact on this startling stat around fitness coaches. And help you turn it into a “real” job.

I appreciate you,

Ben