Barbell Shrugged - This Gym Owner Lost ZERO Members to Social Distancing and Gym Closures: Here is How w/ CrossFit Surmount Owner Nick Magnini and Anders Varner - Barbell Shrugged #455

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

“Bodyweight Bundle” Last Day to Save 66% using code “bodyweight” - START TODAY   In today’s episode the crew discusses:   Community and culture before Coronavirus   How quick was the transition to Online Classes   How quickly did you train your coaching staff   What have been the ups and down of going online   How has the community rallied around the gym   How do you keep members engaged for the next 30-60 days   What is the long term strategy to reopening   How has the relationship with the government been   And more…   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Nick Mangini on Instagram   TRAINING PROGRAMS   Host the One Ton Challenge at your gym: http://shruggedstrengthgym.com   One Ton Challenge   One Ton Strong - 8 Weeks to PR your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press   20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM - Giant Legs and a Barrel Core   8 Week Snatch Cycle - 8 Weeks to PR you Snatch   Aerobic Monster - 12 week conditioning, long metcons, and pacing strategy   Please Support Our Sponsors   Paleo Valley  - Save 15% at http://paleovalley.com/shrugged   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   PRx Performance - http://prxperformance.com use code “shrugged” to save 5%   http://kenergize.com/shrugged use Shrugged10 to save 10%   Masszymes http://masszymes.com/shrugged use Shrugged to save 20%

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the highest quality protein you can possibly put in your body go to barbells or paleo valley.com forward slash shrugged automatically save 15 on your order today's show is from the gym that i go to in apex north carolina crossfit sur. And they've been crushing it through coronavirus with Zoom classes. The owner has built like a community that is unlike any other. There's zero regional athletes. There's sanctional athletes. There's zero ego. It's all a bunch of people that love working out together.

And I was lucky enough to sit down with the owner because I found out that I just assumed that most gyms kept all their members and everybody just transitioned online until I started talking to people and realizing that some gym owners have lost 50 to 70% of their members, which is just an insane number to me because rebuilding that is going to be so hard 50 to 70 percent of their members on top of like regular rent regular bills regular coaching staff it was just super impressive to hear that he has lost zero members and i wanted to sit down with him in my garage doug is not on the show because he's in Memphis. And I invited Nick over to my house so we could shoot this show. It's also up on YouTube if you want to see Nick as well. But it was really cool.

I'm really, really amped to get him on the podcast so everybody can learn from this. If you have a gym owner, please forward this to the gym owner. Take a screenshot. Tell me about your gym and what they are doing in your Instagram stories. You can tag me at Anders Varner and they are at CrossFit underscore Surmount. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbell Strugged. I'm Anders Varner. We're in my garage. We're hanging out with Nick Mangini. He is the owner of CrossFit Surmount, which is my home gym. And as far as I can see, I have not really noticed any other gym owners doing this coronavirus shutdown as well as what CrossFit

Surmount's been doing. I've been a member for about eight months now. It's been awesome. The number one thing that I've noticed really has just been the community that you guys have built. And what we want to learn or what we're gonna talk about really is just the story of the gym how you can build a community because what I've noticed in the people that are struggling right now specifically the gym owners it's not really the coronavirus thing that is putting people behind it's kind of the the work that has led up in the community that people have built leading into what is now this

massive community driven piece of shifting from a brick and mortar to an online business and keeping everybody, um, tied together. So, uh, just a little bit of background on you of like, when you bought the gym, what it, what the gym was like and kind of, we'll, we'll get into moving forward on how you've built it. Yeah. Um. So we've been down here in North Carolina almost five years now. Started CrossFit up in Buffalo, New York, like, I don't know, nine years ago, ten years ago. Yeah. CrossFit Williamsville and then went to CrossFit Amherst and was coaching there and moved down here to CrossFit Surmount.

And about four years ago, we had the opportunity, my wife and I married it, to buy it and it was kind of always a dream of ours and it worked out really well. So we took that opportunity to buy it. Culture was really good already. We had a great group of people but then we took it from there and added some systems to it and I think we've really grown with it. You know, making a family atmosphere um obviously safety is always number one but we've we've really after safety it's like fun and that's kind of been like

the driving thing is like having fun at the gym making it a fun place to come to where you want to come to the gym instead of have to come to the gym yeah um because i think like i'm a big believer like if you're having fun you're going to keep wanting to do it if you're not having fun like any training program or nutrition diet or anything you're going to just fall off the wagon a little bit so so we instilled fun we learned a lot as we got into it what's really prepped us for this is just the systems we had in place already just like a lot of things we just systemize systemize so the gym can run so smoothly um but then the culture just hammering at home and it's all about people like yeah that's what it's boiled down to through this and like before and going forward that's made us

successful um and hopefully continue to it's just like human connection you know like we're there a lot my wife's there a lot um and connecting with people and just being upfront and honest and, you know, taking care of people. Like, they're humans, not like they're a member or, you know, a check or a credit card payment. They're real people that we care about. And I think they feel that. And we've got that with our coaches, too. Like, when we get our coaches in, they have to subscribe to that. Like, you know, yeah, it's your job, but it's more than that here.

And, you know, I think that has made this a little bit bit easier for us. And yeah. When did you guys start to when did the coronavirus thing kind of like start to get some traction where you realize this might be something you're going to have to deal with? Yeah, probably. You know, the days are just like all like. It's all one day right now.

It's all one day, yeah. So like today is Thursday. Maybe like two weeks ago, I think, you know, kind of caught wind and like a few people were like, yeah, I'm just going to like chill out a little bit for a day or two at home. And that's when Meredith and i just started like hey you know we saw like the news and like hey what is what's like our contingency plan like yeah let's not wait till we're forced to do something um to figure out a plan let's figure it out now

then when it happens we're ready to go yeah um so we got so probably two weeks ago and then we slowly started getting into formulating our plan and obviously it's like uncharted territory for everybody. Um, so we're like, you know, we're, we're going to learn on the fly. Um, and I think what's helped like with this and then with everything is like, we just, we're just transparent. Like, Hey, here, here guys, here's what we're going to do. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else. And like, bear with us and just, you know being honest with everyone like hey we tried and we're always kind of guided by like the best what we

think is best for our members our coaches our family and you know we make mistakes i feel like that transparency thing it's really easy especially in the crossfit world and one thing i've noticed just being at the gym was like especially from my gym that I owned when we were like so focused on competition. And it was like the era of CrossFit when it was like very, very focused on regionals, the local competitions. But I was talking about if I could go back and do it again, it would look so much more like your gym in that none of that is part of the conversation. And it really does feel like this this big family but kind of as you started to realize we have to deal with this where were you looking for answers was there already some sort of business plan or were you reaching out to other gyms other coaches finding out like what was

the community of gym owners looking like yeah because I imagine not everybody was just on their own figuring it out right right we've uh you know we've benefited from uh being with working with two brain and chris cooper before so we had a lot of those ideas um obviously no one had like templates for coronavirus but we had the pen yeah there's a pandemic but we just had like we had an idea of like how to do goal setting you know we've talked about like let's work with our members to do like one-on-one goal setting let's work with them like one-on-one you know personal training so we kind of had like a template for that and we were like all right we need to start maybe switching towards that you know a lot of it honestly was just like

grabbing stuff from instagram facebook members groups and like seeing stuff um and we're like hey that's a good idea let's take a little bit of that and tailor it to us yeah um knowing that like all right these zoom workouts like zoom classes like let's take that but make it more crossfit surmounty if that makes sense like let's see you know we've got coaching we, we can't just spit out information and say like, take it on your own. Like, yeah, we kind of looked at ourselves in the mirror, like, Hey, if I'm the athlete and I am like, you know, I was joking yesterday. It's like that old hair club for men. Like I'm the owner, but I'm also a member. Yeah. So it was like, I'm the owner. And so is my wife, but we also work out with the class and like,

what would we want? Like, what would we want? Like, would we want just like a, here's your workout, tell me how you did. Or like, we want to be coached, you know? So a little of that. I think that that is a really, so me being purely in the online world, I'm learning a ton from watching the gyms because there's a, I shouldn't say this on my own platform but I feel like you guys are doing online coaching better than every online coach because the majority of us an overwhelming majority I would even go as far as say

like 100% of us are writing programs people are doing them then they report things back and there isn't that real-time relationship and whether that is what some people want or some people don't want is purely a personal thing. But when I look at the landscape of online training and online coaching, I feel like we're at a big transition. And the way that the brick-and-mortar facilities have turned into online, but bringing that same personal touch, the same laughs, the same kind of communication structure that the brick and mortar piece does has, is going to radically shift the way that we have to do things. Right. Yeah. How long did it take for the first coaches meeting saying, Hey, this is real to developing some sort of structure and system to i mean this thing happened fast yeah you guys

probably went from hey this is real to shut down in 10 days yeah right so what did the coaches meeting to implementation look like yeah and then yeah we had a coach's like zoom meeting of course too because it was like yeah can't even get them together so it was like a first i sent out a couple emails and like hey guys here's what's happening i i think and then let's get a zoom meeting and it was you know a little chaotic um just because they're like hey this is what i think this is what i think and i had to rein in a little bit um but it went from yeah zoom meeting to with the coaches of um here's what we got to transition quick um and then we formulated a game plan quickly of we got all

our members put them in a big spreadsheet and then divvied them up to our coaches and we've been you know you talk about like what it's looked like it changed it's changing every like 10 minutes like we're like our coach text thread is like enormously long right now because it's like, hey, I learned this. Let's switch to this. You know, like we're changing our link for Zooms to make it easier. We're changing how we're communicating with our clients and members. And I think like what's helped is we've allowed our coaches to, you know, do what works for them. Yeah.

Email, text, and then video, a video, like, text message too. But taking it to that personal level and going from there. But, yeah, it started off just like, all right, we're going to do, you know, send out an email in the morning and in the afternoon. And then we're like, that's not good enough. Yeah. You know, we've got to do more than that. Because the response rate was

maybe 50% initially and we're like, that's going to die off quick. So then we're like, let's get some text messages, let's get some video messages, Facebook obviously, Instagram, shoot that stuff out and just have fun with it. When you

sat down with the coaches was there any like immediate oh no I'm not good at the internet yeah because you guys don't have like a massive social media presence it's a very local family to the point where I've even made comments where you're like yeah we're not really like trying to grow like yeah we want to know everyone's name it's not some national brand it's a very local family feel when you go in there which is awesome because it's created what you guys are doing right now but in that without having a big social media presence without having like coaches that are constantly talking on the phone you're kind of make forcing them to create a brand new skillset that many people aren't used

to that, like performing online when they're also very, when their main skillset is being in front of real live people and coaching. Yeah. Was that a bit of a transition? Was there any pushback on like, ah, it's just not for me? Yeah. Yeah. So I put, I mean, like going back to transparency, I think my first, one of my first emails to my team was, like, here's what we're going to do, guys. If it's not for you, let me know now, you know, and it might not be for you, you know, getting on calls and texting people and, like, you know, that might not be, let me know now. We're going to learn as we go, and it's still going that way, but, yeah, like, technology, like, the Zoom stuff, you know, even to, like, 10 minutes before I got here, we're just, like, going back and forth and, like, our coaches learning, you know, even to like 10 minutes before I got here, we're just like going back and forth. And like our coaches learning, you know, tips of the trade, like turn off the sound for everybody or, you know, how you can see everybody on there. There wasn't too much pushback, which was awesome.

You know, everyone's like, hey, you know, again, like our coaches, all our members, too, obviously. And they're in it, too. So they have that buy-in and they're like our family family as well so they're like what can we do to make it work yeah i'll try it out if it doesn't work it doesn't work but i'll try it out yeah um so you know the technical aspects we still like there's hurdles every day and like uh you know if the link doesn't work today all of a sudden it's like oh find a new link create the meeting quick um this guy's computer doesn't work or this you know so and it's like oh find a new link create the meeting quick uh this guy's computer doesn't work or this you know so i think like that's going to be ongoing and

maybe and like our video quality we're trying to improve that and sound and everything but you know i personally learned how to like to set up a youtube channel and i was super proud of that um and then to learn to like put a link on our website to direct you right to the zoom thing so just trying to simplify it's like every day learn a new thing. Like it's definitely, you know, extra for everybody involved. But I think like businesses in general that can come out of this are going to be stronger because you're like we can do it. Like we learn this. We can make it through this.

Yeah. And now we have like some new systems that we can roll into, you know, crisis or not that are effective. Well, that's like another thing that is very interesting because everybody's having to transition out of brick and mortar right now and into the online space. And now you've built this system and this entire, the ability to scale infinitely, really. I mean, that's why people go online, but are there pieces of this that you feel like you'll continue through? Is it like, I guess it's impossible for everything not to grow in a direction. So what pieces of it do you feel like are worth keeping? Does it not fit the vibe that you want to have? Have you thought about kind of three, four down the road yeah so i thought about like i think i think a lot of it um will spur into you know um you know the vibe of the vibe of our gym is

obviously in person like this missed tremendously like you said that right before we got on and me too like working out with people that's crossfit that's just like in general it's just more fun that way you your your intensity's up you can only be in the garage so much. So that'll always be our core. But I think like a lot of people, you know, after we get through this, they're gonna be like, hey man, Nick's not talking to me every morning with the text message. Like, where's my video message? It's like, well, we're back in the gym. So I think people might miss that and be like, hey, can I get in on some of that one-on-one coaching? Like, yeah, and that might be. Or it's like, you know what? Hey, maybe I just come once a week and two times a week I'm at home

because I'm sure there's going to be more changes worldwide just on how we operate. So I think that platform is going to go on. And then same with our YouTube channel. People all over can kind of look on that and bring it almost as a marketing thing because we're just spitting out little bits of the work out there. Um, it's like, Hey, here's what they're doing. Um, let me get more of that. And then our kids' classes like exploded in the last two weeks, big time. Um, obviously parents need things to do. So we, we were running like two kids' classes a week. Um, and now we're at three and they're like each zoom class

is just like 10 12 kids and the parents get to do it the parents get to do it with them yeah so it's like it's perfect 11 o'clock and um so i mean that might be an option to continue too for homeschooling is kind of big around here or track out um you know kids are kids are off of school um can hit more people and then and then get into you know I've thought about even like recording those things it's not the same that you you don't have you know that live feedback but you've got you know almost like a DVD you pop in for the kid that's a hundred percent what I was I wanted to ask next of the fact that you can create a database of three months of

workouts specifically for a kids group group or whatever mom's group pregnant group whatever it is your ability to go and have this skill of recording workouts having that feedback um it i really feel like there's just so many opportunities that the gym owners have been forced into this world and it's kind of been our world of content creation and yep showing people what we're doing it's not that we're in trouble by any means but we have a whole group of people that are coming in with like an already dedicated following it's been so wild to me to watch how quickly everybody was able to move online. When you set up, I don't actually, I haven't been to any of the workouts because I'm trying to do our own thing here. But what's the, what is kind of like

the setup and flow? How are warmups run? Like what are the actual coaches delivering in those classes? Yeah. So we're trying to keep them as much like our regular class as usual. You know, still like an hour long. We do the warm-up. Probably we might go a little bit over because the first five minutes is a little bit like an athlete check-in. So it's like, Anders, what kind of equipment do you got in your home? So I coached one yesterday morning bright and early. And I went through and we were doing some snatches. And it's like two of the ladies had barbells two had dumbbells three had nothing so the three had nothing we grabbed broom

sticks so it's kind of like a little check-in first like all right yeah get your equipment you're going to use a broomstick and work on technique you got your barbell um I don't and the one girl didn't have a jump rope um or she's in the third floor apartment so she's like I can't go jump rope so we you know uh that's the first part but then we're going through the same thing you know the coach is there able to swipe through um leads them through the warm-up sets a timer up um music-wise has been like one of the things we learned on so we're like oh the coach will play music and it's just like crazy just too loud yeah so we'll have all the athletes mute them and meet their own speaker and they can mute their own speaker and

they can play their own music a little bit. But she's still she he the coach is still coaching through it, like swiping through and seeing who's doing what. And, you know, similar class, like, all right, that's our strength. I'm going to give you two, three minutes for a water break. Go to the bathroom. But it's been fun. Like you see everyone's garage, like, you know, you get candid moments like the dog runs in front the baby cries or whatever it's like um and in a way it's like brought everyone closer like i was doing it yesterday and i was like saw people's garages and homes i'm like that's a nice home you got you know nice house oh you got a new puppy that's super cool so it's like

we come back and i and you get to see the puppy and everything. So it's kind of neat. You get a side of your members that you don't normally see. And everyone's a little more vulnerable, like just rolling out of bed. Since they're at home, they're just whatever. Have you guys added on any services? So one thing that I was thinking that would be like a massive opportunity, and we talked about it on our show that we released on Monday, is how much nutrition coaching would go along

or like the mindset of training. Because in CrossFit, people lose their minds if they can't do their like super intense 12-minute Metcon every day. So like, how am I going to do that? Like, what am I paying for if I don't feel like crap every day when I'm done working out? Like, I need it, I need it.

And it radically shifts the mentality and when they're not burning those calories or they're not getting that fix every day or it's just different they're snatching a broomstick instead of a barbell the nutrition piece changes so there's like so many opportunities for coaching have you guys gotten into a lot of that the nutrition stuff we're just starting to roll out obviously obviously my wife meredith is a dietician so she hosted a little lunch zoom meeting the other day and she's got one for tomorrow and just kind of helping people through that um hey like i'm home all the time like one thing yeah it's good so you're not going to do you're eating out and junk food as much but you're also home and you get into that habit of snacks all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So today we had a cool challenge that we put on too with snacks. Anytime that you open the fridge, even if you're just looking there or you grab something, you've got to take that orange juice, donut, whatever, over your head and do 10 overhead squats. So kind of like you go to the fridge like 20 times a day or just 200 overhead squats even though it's just maybe like an egg or something it adds up quick so um but yeah we're leading into that and and you know i'll just it's starting with meredith doing just some uh group

calls and fielding questions and you know that probably leads into more as we go down the road like hey you know you really helped me through this. Um, can I get with, meet with you? And we take that to the next level. But right now we're, you know, we're, we're sensitive. Obviously everyone's in a tight spot, um, not knowing what's going on. So we're, uh, we're including all that to our members and, and given that as, you know, as their membership. Well, I think Wake County, which is the county that we live in, just went on like basically house arrest that's what the real supposed to be coming we're all gonna get like our ankle bracelet buzz if you go to the gym I just went to Target for the last time today probably the next four months yeah

but like how do we how do you go about um keeping morale up and i personally i feel like in our industry i even wrote a blog about it and sent it out to our mailing list the other day about like if everybody goes into this thinking about like this is a strength cycle that's 12 weeks long yeah and we've all been a part of it we're like week one and two everybody's happy we're all squatting volumes up everybody's sore because it's this new thing and then week six rolls around here like dude this sucks like i can't keep doing this um do you guys have plans for like monthly challenges just kind of like what what is month two month month three?

Because this may be a six-month thing. We have no idea. Right. Yeah, we've got that planned out. And like I said, we've got to be like able to change on the fly and not have, you know, we've got like a framework, but we're also like that could change tomorrow and we've got to be able to go.

But, yeah, we've got daily challenges, and those are just meant to be really fun with moving it a little um we're talking about as if this you know is like hey this is going to be 12 weeks we're almost like an open style where at our at our gym the open is like the the super bowl we break everyone into intramural teams and just really have a ton of fun with it and maybe we do that um because that's real like you know that that's there's no like history to look back at but you know um a lot of people in the industry with the zoom stuff and online stuff you're right like after two weeks the novelty probably is going to wear off of that garage workout and like i haven't touched a barbell and i'm sick of this one dumbbell i got and i can't

get equipment and how to change it up. And part of it's going to be like, what can we do? Can we get outside to parks or probably not, but it's got to be constantly changing and trying to stay ahead of it. And it goes back to just kind of like that thing I said at the beginning of being transparent and talking to people and just asking members like, hey, what do you guys want? Like, we can deliver it. Let us know. Like, if these Zoom workouts suck after two weeks, tell us, and we'll change it up and, you know, use that programming that we got.

And maybe it's, who knows, something else. But the challenges help. We're going to do next week some Zoom happy hours where it's just like there's no working out. We just sit here in a long chair? Yeah, just get together and see your fellow members. Zoom coffee hour. That's what we like to work out the most. Yeah, there you go.

You'll sign in for that. Yeah, the joke is like we'll get like 80 people sign in for that class. Zoom happy hour. I did that with a couple of high school buddies last week, and it awesome because like hey we're sitting here you gotta have a beer you gotta have an old funny story that was the requirement to get on the call so um stuff like that just to keep engagement up yeah um our facebook page you know is super active um people share like yesterday lady's having a baby she posted she's like i'm at home i gotta tell somebody i's having a baby. She posted, she's like, I'm at home. I got to tell somebody I'm having a girl. And, you know, one of our members posted this goofy thing today. It was like, Google your name and glamour shots.

You know, it's just like has nothing to do with CrossFit, but it's super funny. Like the ridiculous pictures that come up and it keeps everyone engaged. And we all need that right now. Just like a goofy thing to have fun with. So it's changing all the time what's the relationship with kind of the government and how you guys are finding out information I actually have no idea how the word gets even passed to you yeah it's just like do you find out what I yeah yeah the the government thing is

like I would try to find out the other day I was trying to like there's not an email that comes through there's not like a crossfit box message from you know the governor it's just like I have to like kind of dissect and be like I think that applies to us or all right gyms yeah that's us we're a gym but now we're talking about like a central and you can travel to I saw like maybe you can travel to do online sales and maybe you can travel to do so we're kind of in travel to do so. We're kind of in that boat, you know, and, um, you know, if I could travel to the gym to film a video and a workout, you know, we've jumped ahead to, we've, you know,

we've changed our garage at home, my personal garage. So we can film some stuff there if we need to, um, just in case and we've got equipment there at home. But yeah, there's like, the stuff I hear from the government is what I hear on the news or you know it's just like everyone else and it's a surprise or or it's been cool like I have members whose head's like hey here's what I heard I work at here I work here my friend's a lawyer this is happening and it's kind of just like that's you know that's how we digest our news I guess in general now yeah because I was actually wondering like what's stopping us all from going to the gym? Yeah, right.

How are they going to find out? Yeah, I don't know. Because the shutdown order goes in, and one of the things that I've struggled with so much is this, is I walk outside, and I'm like, this is my neighborhood. Looks normal. Nobody looks sick.

Right, right. Nothing's happening, yet our entire county just goes on shutdown yeah and all the gyms are closed and you're like no those are the healthy people that i want to be around right now why can't i go hang out with them and it there's pieces of it that i like last week i was like okay i'm in i'm in i'm like bought into this and then there's times like this week where I'm just like I don't get it why um knowing that you are playing in like a almost like a game that you have no control over the rules right now like how do you as the owner kind of stay mentally engaged I know

that like the financial piece you obviously have to pay rent. You have to keep your members to keep the business going. But at some point, even on your side, the way that an athlete's motivation dies, like your motivation and kind of feeling like the lack of control of the situation, it's really easy for that to slip away as well. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like from motivationally right now, like I'm getting it from our members. Yeah, from motivationally right now, I'm getting it from our members and athletes, the messages they send, it's just super inspirational. They're like, we got you, keep going. Like, yeah, knowing that everyone's behind us and they're working out and seeing their videos. Yeah, the hard, yeah, it's like there's no finish line.

That's the hard part, I think, for everybody in this. Like, all right, I can get to there, but you you gotta tell me it's like starting a metcon and you're like all right here's the rep scheme well how long i don't know just keep going and i'll tell you when to stop yeah all three months yeah you're like i don't know how long to pace myself like do i do i do this first 400 meter like balls to the wall or do i pace myself? Like, I don't know either. You just run and I'll tell you. Yeah. Totally. Pick up the barbell,

do 20 reps. And if you're on 20, I might tell you to do 20 more. So it's kind of like that. Like we don't know. So, um, yeah,

I mean, I just, you know, wake up every day and see what happens. See what happens. Yeah. That's, that's kind of like,

you know, my general like outlook on life is like control what you can control and don't worry about what you can't and it's a little harder sometimes than others but you know day by day if you try and start thinking about like months down the road it's like then you might get overwhelmed so it's like hey let's wake up tomorrow uh see see what it's like try and make the best of it plan for the next day a little bit and do it again and you know it's like yeah we're what maybe i don't know 10 7 10 days into it and just like i think sometimes i send it to my coaches at the end i'm like another one down guys yeah you know that's just like another tally on the wall like you're the jail cell like one more

yeah yeah keep swimming right dory um when you so when, so when I own my gym, I think a lot, I got a lot of credit for doing everything that I do, and you own the gym with your wife. Yeah. Nobody ever really thinks about what the gym owner is doing when they go home at night. Yeah. Because no one cares. Yeah. We just, they just only care about the hour and making sure that's their favorite hour. Yeah, yeah.

You also have three kids yep and you have another job yeah are you sleeping yeah yeah this is like a quite like meredith emailed you and like hey make sure you you tee it up for me right no like i couldn't do it without her she's like yeah i get too much of the credit um the little credit that um most of it you know i always say it's like the people like oh thanks for helping with the pr i'm like i you guys got the pr and say yeah like you did the work um but yeah meredith is like the backbone um obviously she's with the kids most of the time running all the back stuff she's much better with systems i'm kind of like winging it type

guys so she puts that in place um but yeah you, sleep is – I've never been a guy that needs a ton of sleep. Wake up, go to the coffee shop, our favorite coffee shop, get a little coffee and go. But, yeah, you know, go home. Sports has always been a big thing for me to watch. I think we just lost this. Hold on one second. We're going again all right cool um yeah you go home and uh you know I got a full-time day job too so go home and you know catch up

with Meredith on what what we can I can help her out with with the business and um you know try and have a good dinner and decompress a little bit and right now watching tiger king is like the best ever right they came out of that at the perfect time all these people tiger king is incredible and i'm like man i'm so depressed though we only have two episodes left to watch so it's like after tiger king what now they need a tiger king 2 or something um but we're just gonna all play the music videos on repeat. Yeah, there's probably not a lot on YouTube to find. But, yeah, I mean, and, you know, my kids are 9, 6, and 3, so they, like, the 9-year-old kind of, like, he kind of gets what's going on,

but they're just having fun. So they're actually, you know, doing their thing at home and playing in the yard, so they're tired. So it's a team effort, but i mean again just kind of keep going day by day and um i don't know i love it i mean it's if we weren't solving problems yeah yeah it's like it's fun like i i i you know i picked it up probably from my dad a long time ago. It's just like his attitude. And it's like sometimes my wife gets annoyed with it because I'm just like probably too stress-free.

And just like, you know, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. She's like, it's not going to be fine. Like, it'll be all right. She's like, turn on the end. I'm like, it'll be all right. And that's just kind of how I am now. It's like maybe it's too positive and I get, you know, stung for that sometimes.

But that's just like my general, like, like it'll be all right that's a massive skill yeah gym ownership because you've got 100 200 whatever the membership is that's a lot of opinions yeah about what you're doing yeah on a daily basis and every little piece of it so the ability to like not let every comment bother you and let things flow um it still bothers me yeah but if they if those if the negativity stays around a couple weeks there's a problem if it's a day or a person um it's nice to be able to let that stuff slide a little bit yeah that's what i learned early when we bought the business is like um you can't be everything to everyone and like you know you you're gonna get opinions from everyone and you know you gotta have like stick to your core values um and what you are because like you said you know

you could you could otherwise you're gonna be shooting in different directions like trying to do that like mcdonald's they don't sell pizza they're like we're hamburgers you know it's like if we try to be everything to everyone, you know, so, you know, our core value is kind of like, do what we do the best, take care of our people. We're going to be hardworking,

upfront, honest, and always have like our members best interest in mind. And I think everyone, you know, if, you know, I still like, if we lose a member, it's like breaking up with a girlfriend or something like you get broken like if we lose a member it's like breaking up with a girlfriend or something like you get broken up with yeah like you know it's like oh it still

hurts yeah no matter what it is because you know we think they're part of the family um so that like you never get over that but it's um well how many people like what how many people have stuck around i don't really need to know how many less but is it in the 90% yeah so everybody is yes so we've had one person out of 140 members that is said and they're like I'm gonna put it on hold and you know and and I don't even know if it's really due to the coronavirus because they're like I got family coming in from out of town and I just I just don't have the time right now. I mean, I guess root cause would be the coronavirus, but I got to take care of them and, you know,

keep my kind of house under control right now. That's crazy. But we haven't lost anyone. Yeah, the majority of the time when something like this happens, what you end up losing is all the people that were on the fence that were like, I could stay, I could leave. But the fact that you lose one person out of 140 means that every month you're, you're inside like 99% happiness rate and in recurring memberships and billing like that, that is the sign of having a incredibly good community. I remember when we were like inside 97 for like multiple years in a row when

crossfit was just like booming and everybody was jumping in yeah and just being like and we're in the middle of san diego where like the average average life expectancy in pacific beach is like two years so to be able to kind of like carry that i was so fired up about that and the community was so tight um i guess in keeping all the people together like the zoom stuff works um are they in communication with each other outside of the facebook group is there a lot of just i don't know how much you even have control over stuff like that yeah um so i think like part part of the benefit we have here is like just the nature of like the town we're in.

So many people have moved from out of state here. Yeah. Um, and don't necessarily have a ton of family here. Like if you find someone that was like born and raised in Raleigh or Apex, you're like, Whoa, that's crazy. Like no one's from around here. So everyone kind of like, and that's how we got it hooked on the, on, on the gym too, is just like everyone just like comes like, I don't know anyone, but I know CrossFit.

And that's how you walked in the door. Like, I want to go to CrossFit. And, like, I know those people kind of have like values in mind. And a lot of our members are like that. And then they've become really good families. Yeah. So they've, like, you know, I feel like maybe we've, like, helped cultivate that a little bit. But then they've taken it to the next level.

And I saw the other day there's all these subgroups of text messages that our coaches have created during this, and they're coming up with team names. And it spirals out of control, and it has nothing to do with CrossFit, but they're staying connected. Yeah, and it's super cool. And the things we've gone through as a gym, we've had babies and bloodings unfortunately deaths everything um but it's just like strengthens and it's like people like i don't have family around and this is like truly more than just the cliche

like that's their family and and like they take care you know go out of town they take care of their dogs they have like members help out in there and it's just like incredible like if someone needs something so yeah it spawned off like i've seen a lot of almost every of our coaches groups that we gave like everyone got about 10 to 12 athletes and some have more um that they're checking in on have created these little groups of text messages so people are meeting each other too like hey i saw last night like whose number is that like oh cool and then they start talking yeah um so it's drawing people closer too and i you know i keep telling everybody like fingers crossed like that we're back and running for murph it's gonna be just a freaking epic blowout we always do that big but we're gonna have just a monster

party and like people just like looking forward to that. What has the like small business community around here been up to? I know that like you've been going around, dude, I went into the Thai restaurant, Bon Thai the other night. Yeah. And it was, it was super sad because there was like a 15 year old girl that's clearly the daughter of the owners. Yeah.

I was there. I went there too. Yeah. A couple nights ago. Yeah. She kind kind of gave me that like we eat there enough it's like our favorite little spot on sunday night yeah and she's always checking you out mom's always there and you could just see she was like thank you so much it wasn't the normal thank you it was like we like really need this please come back yep and it tore me up because there's some 15 16 year old girl that like clearly understands balance sheets yeah she clearly understands what a busy restaurant looks like and feels like and it's not like that right now right has there been a pretty good

community outreach from other local businesses. I know you and Paul, who owns our coffee shop, we call it ours. That's a good business when you call it yours. You have nothing to do with it. I know you guys have been going around. You're probably the only two real business owners that I know in town. Has it been a pretty good community effort on the business side? Yeah, it really has. Between Paul with the coffee shop uh one of our members derrick he owns a food truck as well um buoy bowls food truck and um but so like us three have kind of been bouncing ideas off each other and then just kind of supporting each other too um in any way

we can whether it's just like going to buy, you know, a couple beers from the local brewery, coffee shop. Um, and then a lot of social media, um, posts, you know, just like, Hey, don't forget they're still open. Um, they still need you to, um, both those businesses, like, it just been super impressed with them. Um, you know, Paul's got the drive-through, which helps a lot. Um, and he's been like, like, hitting other local businesses and getting the word out. And then, you know, Derek's been fortunate that it's a food truck. So he hadn't, you know, he's mobile anyways. But still, like, it has to, you know, there's an impact. The company he probably goes to during the week.

Yeah. Everyone's at home. Exactly. So he would hit, you know, an office building. Now no one's there. Yeah. Exactly. So he would hit an office building. Now no one's there. So we've all just kind of just been like, you know, Instagram sharing, repost, repost. Like, you know, get the word out like these guys need you. Taco truck to an apex.

Another like one of my favorite meal restaurants is pancakes and chicken. Chicken put in the pancakes pancakes this is the best ever um very on brand paleo yes keto all of it at once yes yes nothing fried nothing fried yeah local local husband wife um yeah they put chicken tenders inside of it it's a food truck too it's called hot chicks yeah it's amazing. I've never even heard of it. Spicy chicken inside a waffle. It's like a taco.

It's the best. It's so awesome. Kids love it too. So we support them. Yeah. But it's been really good from a local business. You know, like from terms of like an SBA, there's been, you know, super quiet. And that's kind of been frustrating from a small business

association like maybe we're just missing it and i don't know but it hasn't been vocal enough for or reach out enough to where i'm like oh that's awesome they're they're helping out with resources but um every other business is just helping each other out doing what they can um you know we're going to do like uh some gift cards um to those local businesses for our members for those weekly challenges. Instead of just like we used to do some challenges and we're like, hey, have a fit aid. People like that. We're like, hey, why don't we put that towards the coffee shop, the food truck, so they can keep rolling too. Yeah.

What have the coaches been doing? I know that you have a general manager that runs the gym yep and then five or six coaches yeah um that kind of I don't know how many maybe eight to ten classes a week for each of them yeah um how have they kind of rallied uh outside of your leadership because I feel like you do have another full-time job and family and rely heavily on just their leadership skills yep um I'm assuming you're very happy with that seeing how much stuff has happened but like what has been kind of the process of you standing on the outside and looking at how they've rallied together yeah um that's really kind of impressed

you or that you've seen yeah it's really impressed me you know the way our coaches have like come together and um you know it's a two-way street like i've given them the freedom to you know express themselves and coach how they want to and they know like that they have the the ability to do that and i'm not gonna be like yeah yeah don't do that again and like we will talk through stuff um but yeah they get together like i love like i'll get a pick up my phone um at night and there's like fifth last night 73 text messages yeah which is on one hand like i'm muting all of the coaches yeah i'm like whoa that's a lot of text messages but then i go through it i'm like this is awesome like one of them had a question one of them had an issue and they solved it themselves and um they're all like buying in

and just helping out so much because um yeah it's just been awesome and you know that freedom like with the with the daily challenges i was like you guys come up with the challenges like you're more creative than i am and um so they're just they're coming up with the challenges every day giving them the freedom to do that they're coming up with new ideas like i've i've tried to create a coaching team where um they have no qualms about coming to me with an idea and they're not going to get you know feel stupid with it and i might say no but i might be like more times than not i'm like let's try it yeah you know you're passionate about it let's try it like you want to do that? Yeah. Like, we added kids' classes this week, and it's been a hit.

The yoga classes are coming, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We got yoga. Yeah, we're doing yoga. Online yoga classes. Yeah. I think everybody needs to be doing that.

Yeah. Online yoga. Yep. The only thing, like, with the online yoga, so, like, I clicked into online yoga yesterday, and, like, pro tip that we learned. Like, you got to set your camera up right because I clicked on that I was like let me just check out how the yoga class is going with everybody and it's just like everyone in downward dog and

it was just like 15 butts in there you know I was like all right we gotta like we're gonna you gotta like spin your game around so you like downward dog facing yeah so but it's funny like yeah yeah yeah learning on the fly about how to do your yoga at least everybody is in downward dog and there's not like two people yeah just staring yeah that one guy who's like whoa nice oh that's awesome yeah and then there's been like i've heard rumors of zoom bombing too so we learned like we have to add a password to our um to our zoom classes which is like new because like people are at home and they're like i noticed that today what happened well like no like we haven't had it but i've heard like zoom bombing so you're like some hackers at home like tries to find a random zoom class zoom

like meeting or class whatever and then just like pop up and like hey guys you know it's Vlad from Russia and he just like wreaks havoc in the class so you can't kick him out yeah so add a password even if it's just like you know number three or something but that way your members so you don't get any zoom bombs yeah That's wild. Yeah. Rad, man. This is awesome. I posted up, and just so everybody at home, I posted up just letting our members community know. And if they had any questions or comments, and it was just like comment after comment after comment. I really don't think anybody is, I don't know every gym owner in the world, but you guys are smashing it. The engagement is super high. So I hope, uh, any gym owner that's listening to this,

please like all the takeaways that you can really do. I mean, I, I, I know friends that are losing members left and right. Um, and that's crushing me. So to see these guys and the community you guys have built has been, um, incredible. Appreciate it. The fact that you guys have lost a single member, not even lost them, just on hold. Yeah, she's coming back in a month. Yeah, yeah. Is really wild to me. And I love, like, you know, the community as a whole, like, don't think of me as, you know, a business tycoon or anything.

Like, just, you know know treat people like humans and like if you go to our website crossfitstermount.com our email is on there if you got questions i'd love to help people just like whatever it's like we're not uh open book that's the whole secret yeah that's the secret but don't let anybody know yeah right no not. Just tell the truth and be nice, you know, be human, be more human, right? So, Rad, I'm Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. We're going to break all the rules here.

Uh-oh. Shake hands. Hand sanitizer after. That's a wrap, friends. Remember, today is the last day to save 66% on five programs in the Bodyweight Bundle using the code BOD code bodyweight at barbellshrug.com forward slash bodyweight. Also want to thank Nick for coming on the podcast today and our sponsors for the show paleovalley.com forward slash shrug. You could save 15% on all the grass-fed beef sticks because the snacks you're eating in captivity aren't good enough. paleovalley.com forward slash shr track. Next week we're coming back.

We've got how to make it in the online fitness space with your boy Trap Smash, Doug Larson, and myself. Have a great weekend friends.