Episode
23

Going from $0 to $50 Million in Revenue in 20 Months with Leila Hormozi, Gym Launch

On this episode, Leila Hormozi, Gym Launch, shares her experience as an entrepreneur, what it means to have a growth mindset, and how she has learned to turn her failures into growth.

“In sales, you have to learn that it’s a transfer of beliefs; if you believe in yourself and your product, then there’s no issue, it’s not a sale, it’s a conversation."

“In sales, you have to learn that it’s a transfer of beliefs; if you believe in yourself and your product, then there’s no issue, it’s not a sale, it’s a conversation."

About

Leila Hormozi

Leila Hormozi is the Co-Founder of Gym Launch, ALAN, and Prestige Labs. What can't she do? Leila and her husband, Alex, started Gym Launch started back in 2016 and now they've helped thousands of gym and studio owners become more profitable. They took Gym Launch from $0 to $50 million dollars in revenue in just two years.

On this episode, Leila shares her background and the lessons she learned through entrepreneurship. She dives into her daily routines, what it means to have a growth mindset, how she feels about the haters, and how she has learned to turn her failures into growth. This episode is packed full of information, so buckle up and enjoy this conversation with Leila Hormozi.

Show Notes

  • Who is Leila Hormozi? [2:52]
  • Bumble, Fro-yo, and the start of Gym Launch. [3:39]
  • Entrepreneurship: Nature vs. Nurture. [8:51]
  • Don’t listen to the haters. [10:52]
  • Break your business to grow your business. [13:33]
  • Discipline will set you free. What Leila’s day typically looks like. [17:44]
  • Look at who you want to be and what they do and then fill in the gaps. [19:54]
  • Learning to lead: It’s usually not a question of what, but who. [22:24]
  • What are Leila’s favorite podcasts? [25:18]
  • Why you need to learn to love sales. [26:57]

Full Episode Transcript

Dan Uyemura [0:05]
Welcome to The gymOS Podcast. I’m your host Dan Uyemura, CEO of PushPress. Each episode I bring the best and the brightest in the business world straight to your gym and we tease out actionable steps and strategies that you can implement immediately become a better business owner.

What is up people? Today on The gymOS Podcast from PushPress we got special guests. You may or may not have heard of her Leila Hormozi joining us from Gym Launch. In prepping for the show, I found out that Gym Launch has only been around for four years and that was remarkable to me because they should have used that time wisely. One thing I see in this gym space is a lot of gym owners kind of get into their gym, the excitement kind of wears down from opening up and then they settle into a place period of I mean plateauing they plateau. And to become a high performing business, you need to do high performing things. And in today’s episode, we kind of chat with Leila about how you go from an idea at a frozen yogurt shop, to a company that’s doing over $30 million in sales in four years. It’s absolutely astronomical growth. And that type of growth does not happen by accident. It happens by it turns out a lot of hard work, a lot of self introspection, and a lot of the ability to kind of understand where it learn from the people around you to understand where you need to grow in order to get to where you want to go. I think I’m gonna coin that phrase. That was pretty cool. So anyways, check it out. We got Leila coming on here on The gymOS podcast and I’ll catch you guys on the other side.

Alright guys, welcome back another episode of The gymOS Podcast. We have with us big guns today we have Leila Hormozi from Gym Launch, also Prestige Labs and one more just to make it a nice trifecta, and that’s ALAN, how do you pronounce that?

Leila Hormozi [2:10]
Yeah, ALAN.

Dan Uyemura [2:11]
Yeah, ALAN. So that’s the automated lead nurturing software platform they’ve put out recently. Leila and Alex, just burst on the scene. I just found out that they’ve only been around for four years. I feel like they’ve been around this industry forever. So we’re going to kind of dive into that. And we’re going to talk about high growth high being a high high growth high performer. I think that’s something that the Hormozis have dialed in and we’re gonna let Leila dive into, it’s Leila correct. Am I saying correctly? Leila? Yeah, yeah. I’m notorious for giving getting people’s name wrong once I hit the record button, so I want to make sure all right, cool. So lately, once you give us a quick background, about about you guys, and and we’ll go from there.

Leila Hormozi [2:52]
Yeah, I’ll just give you the 1000 foot overview. So my background is fitness. It always has been fitness since I was I was 13 that’s when I first got into studying and on my own. And throughout high school kind of became a hobby of mine. And I’ve really played sports, I always just went to the gym by myself, which was kind of interesting, like group classes and stuff, went to college for exercise science, became a personal trainer and did that up until we started doing more. So I did in person did online. Lots of sales, fitness sales. You know, I came from a science background, and I was I prided myself on that very much, um, and then got out into the real world and realized I have to learn how to market and sell yourself and so kind of changed my focus to that and then finding some nice, like, mesh of the two. And then I met Alex, when I think I was training at our private facility. It was maybe I moved to California, I think, two and a half years prior. And Alex owned six gyms and he had them to the point where basically he was never in them. And so we met on Bumble. And then our first date was like a fro-yo date that we met for and we didn’t really like each other at first. Like, I was like, he kind of seems rude. And then he thought, like, he saw my whole back tattoos like who is this chick and like, whatever. But we ended up talking about business the whole time. So it was like a four hour walk we went on, like in Fountain Valley, California. And we just end up talking about marketing and sales and I was just super interested and so was he and we didn’t stop talking to each other. And I think this by like the third date, he was like, you should really work for me. I was like work for you might not work at your gym. I already have like, all my clients over here, I’m doing this and I have this online thing I’m doing. And he was like, you should stop all of that. And do this thing. I have this idea for this company called Gym Launch. I was like, What is that? We would go we would go market for gyms and we would fly out and sell people into their gyms. And I was like, Well, you know, I’m thinking at the time I was 22, 23 I’m like what do I care? If I lose everything right now, I always go back to my dad’s house and hang out on the couch like I’m not ashamed. And so we start doing that. We did that for 11 months where basically we would do the marketing, you know, ourselves and then we would fly out. He’d be in like, Virginia or Florida, I’ve been Hawaii or Washington and we each be selling people into someone’s gym. We would take the upfront from that and then give them a reoccurring and the systems on how to retain members and upsell them. And we did that for about 11 months, and then we end up hiring a sales team to go do that. Mid all of this, Alex sells all of his gyms, right? One of the partners ends up taking all the money that we had in our bank account from doing all these launches, wipes it out and then filed bankruptcy. Our processor gets shut down when we have eight guys flying out selling at eight locations. So there’s a lot of bumps along the way. And so we actually got to a point when we had guys flying out to the eighth location where we’re like, man, like this is just, this is too much. It’s tons of overhead and tons of operational complexity. These gym owners are almost angry because we’re signing up so many people for their gyms, we would sign up about anywhere between 75 and 200 people, I sold 244 people into one location. And it’s just, you know, they were bursting at the seams. They thought they wanted to, they didn’t really. And so we came to a point we’re like, you know what, screw it. Leila. Alex was like, you be the face. We’re going to do online fitness, or I call it Queen transformation. I’ll do the back end, you be the face. This is what we’re going to do. But I’ve lost like 85 pounds, I had the whole story and all the pictures. And we made the change and we were making money about $1,000 a day doing that. And Alex called up all these gyms that we were supposed to have guys fly out to for the next month. He was like, Listen, I’m not doing it like this and that blah, blah. And they were all like, dude, if you don’t come out here, if you don’t help me in some way, like I will not be here next month. I remember hearing listening into the first few conversations and he was like we’ll dude like, I’m not sending someone out there and they were like, then just teach me how to do what you’re doing. And so he just threw a price out there and I was like, I’ll teach you how to do it for X amount. And then the next call was like X amount plus $2000. And then the next amount was X amount plus $4000. By the end of the day, all six people will get called up, bought this program, um, that is now called Gym Launch. Um, and from there, you know, we remember we built we basically our internal training that we had built in like a membership site for our team, we took it and we remade it and then remade it so that they could use it. And we did that over like a Friday, Saturday and Sunday and just like didn’t sleep and then launched it Monday for them. And then I remember like for three or four days in this, the testimonials rolling in to the Facebook group we created and that was really what started everything. That was the model that we have today, which is or at least one of the pieces of it, which is coaching people on how to do something and giving them the marketing systems, the sales systems, the fulfillment systems, up sell systems that work and that are tested. And that’s pretty much how we got to where we are today. You know, we it was just the two of us sitting at our coffee table and some small apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And now we have a full team and not in Albuquerque, New Mexico anymore.

Dan Uyemura [8:21]
So at what point in this entire journey Did you guys decide to go from like, in the beginning, it was probably just like, Hey, we’re gonna make enough to make a living doing this stuff. And at some point, it pivoted into an idea of like, this can be way bigger than us, right? And at what point a lot because what you just described was a mom and pop shop that went all the way from that to figuring out how to send people out and then growing even more scalable beyond that, like at what point did you figure that out?

Leila Hormozi [8:51]
As soon as we knew that we had something that worked like the full system worked, right from lead gen to retention. We could acquire people and keep them. Um, that was one it was like, let’s do it big. I think just in, honestly, I think it’s just like both me and Alex are like we’re very growth oriented. And so for either of us in anything we’ve ever done in life, we just max it out. And so it’s like, whether it’s fitness or, you know, school or business, like, I’m going to go all in on this and I’m gonna, I’m not satisfied being where I was yesterday, tomorrow.

Dan Uyemura [9:22]
So I mean, what you just described to me is what I described as a typical entrepreneur, it’s like you have OCD in a less quote, unquote, good way, right? Like, when you see something you you look 10 steps beyond it probably and you’re trying to think of like, where the max potential this can be, where you just dive headfirst. It’s the whole work hard play hard mentality, right to me that when someone tells me that I understand that they’re probably an entrepreneur at heart, right? Yeah. Do you feel that was with you your whole life, or did you develop that over time?

Leila Hormozi [9:52]
I think that I’ve developed it through. Like, I was very introverted, when I was a young kid, and then I Had some stuff that happened with my family. And after that I became a very different person, I was much more extroverted, much more self reliant, and much more growth oriented. And I think it came from if I’m being honest, like a fear of ending up like these people in my family, right ending up like as unhappy as these people, right. And I never wanted that. And so I was like, instead of like a healthy like coping mechanism, I was like, I’m gonna get as far away as possible by just like, working as hard as I can, because that’s the only thing I knew how to do was like, I’m not that not naturally like, I don’t think I have a high IQ or anything like that. I think I just know how to work really hard.

Dan Uyemura [10:36]
And I think that’s part of the key of it is just out working people, right? Like paint like learning as much as you can in the time that you have and then just outputting as much out not being afraid to fail really like just putting everything you learn out there and working on things. Speaking to that, I it’s funny because over the internet, I see a lot of people like hating on Gym Launch, and most, a lot of the reasons I see them hating on it is because like, the way I interpret it is is like the system is so successful. You’re breaking their business and it’s your fault. Right? So first I kind of wanted to like do you pay attention to or do you address those haters or how do you feel about that type of a situation first, and then second, I want to dive into the idea of actually breaking your business to grow. Right, which I’m sure you’re probably a fan and understand as well. But let’s talk about the haters first. What do you think about that?

Leila Hormozi [11:29]
Yeah. I don’t pay attention to them. Um, I, this is like a better than thou mentality. Maybe it sounds kind of bad. But I’m like, You don’t deserve my attention. Like negativity doesn’t deserve attention, unless it’s going to teach me something. And I will listen, if it’s someone who I respect, like if someone in our team or client has been with us for years has something to say. And there’s someone who I respect and admire, I will absolutely listen to their criticism, but if it’s someone that I don’t know, and it’s just like internet trolls or people that bought our program, and then don’t take self responsibility. I don’t look at it. I look at it. Like, you know, people are like, does it hurt your feelings or make you feel bad? I’m like, dude, attention is attention like, people are talking about us. Like you don’t see people making ads about other gym companies, they’re making ads about our gym company and how we stop. Like, why do you think you’re making those ads? Because we actually saw because they’re so good. They’re threatened. You know what I mean? Like, it’s, I think most people take it negatively. And I’m like, you should be worried when people stop talking about you.

Dan Uyemura [12:28]
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. So backstory, Leila, and Alex actually joined the SaaS Academy, which is the mentorship group that I’m in and that the last all hands meeting that we had in Atlanta, I went out with them to golf at Top Golf. And I got in the same cube as Nathan Latka. So we were chatting, and he brought this concept called, I forgot the name of it now, but it was basically like creating diversion. He was like, my goal is to get 50% of people to love me and 50% of people to hate me because then they’re all talking about me. Right? And I was like, that is brilliant because you know, like from our like, I could see it now I can see how it plays out. Right. But he actually manufactures that on purpose. Right?

Leila Hormozi [13:11]
I love his podcasts.

Dan Uyemura [13:12]
He’s so good. He’s so good. But it was interesting because my perception of him from the outside was he’s a total dick. Like total pompous dick, and I met him. He’s a nicest guy ever. And then when he when he kind of like, let me behind the curtain of what he was doing, I’m like, he’s fucking genius. He’s not only a really nice guy, but he’s genius, too. So it’s pretty funny. So yeah, let’s talk about breaking your business. So again, I think a lot of people including this audience, like a lot of people in this audience are they’re afraid of failing and part of failing is like breaking your business right? And what I was taught when we were starting to get some traction push press is like, from the funnel your front of your funnel to the back, you should be trying to break things like you should break your lead funnel, then you should break your sales funnel, then you should break your customer support and then your retention and you fix them as you grow. Right. What kind of like, what kind of opinions you have on that or what kind of advice you have on on that for people who are either scared of growing too fast or breaking their business?

Leila Hormozi [14:09]
You know, I before we started Gym Launch totally was like a perfectionist, I would have been horrified with some of the things that have been broken up to this point. And I realized that there’s just nobody that’s that successful that has that mentality. Um, and I think I I don’t think that a business that is growing like you can’t not you cannot if something expands, then there’s naturally going to be crevices that form and then you have to fill those crevices and then every time you fill the crevice, another crevice on the outside forms and so it’s just in his out his in his out and, and sometimes I think about in terms of like, is it internal, like team things right here is the external like customer delivery, things breaking. But I just expect it every time I think that in the beginning, it was like oh my gosh, I’m doing something wrong. It’s like you’re doing nothing. thing wrong, it’s cyclical. So it’s like you, if you insert marketing and sales to someone’s business, automatically you break delivery, because they don’t have the systems for delivery. And then when you fix delivery, you break marketing and sales. And then when you fix it, it’s just like, it always goes back. And so then you come all the way through and then the next one that you started with breaks again.

Dan Uyemura [15:20]
Yep, it’s it, I always find it funny because I’ll almost all gym owners come from a fitness background and they understand the physiology of fitness. And it’s like, you don’t grow muscle without breaking muscle, right? Like it’s just part of the process, natural process of growth is you have to put stress on things time under load creates growth, right? Yep. And, and that applies to your business too. So I see so many of the people like applying these theories in fitness and, you know, whatever, whatever they’re working on in their in their exercise or training modalities, but they’re afraid to do it in the gym side. They don’t understand that. Yeah.

Leila Hormozi [15:59]
I don’t If there’s anything you can do besides know that it’s okay and it’s the right thing and then endure it and then next time it’s easier to endure and it doesn’t mean that you are a bad person or that you don’t know how to do something that you mess something up it just means like you have a business and it’s working.

Dan Uyemura [16:14]
Yep, yeah, I think and getting your team on board with that too is kind of key because I think a split like the further down the spectrum to employee that you go people don’t like chaos or perceived chaos. So my my team here at PushPress basically understands like I’m working to break something and if it’s your thing I’m breaking then you better get like get on your feet and get ready to go. Yeah, that’s another another topic I want to talk about and this lends into the fact that you guys have been only been around for four years. And the growth that you guys have seen is astronomical and does that for years include like when you guys were in the concept stages like over fro-yo talking about Gym Launch?

Leila Hormozi [16:54]
Um, a couple months after that, so I would, probably been four years and 6 months.

Dan Uyemura [17:00]
So in four years, you’ve basically gone from like concepts of things Alex was thinking about to where you are today with three businesses that that food line Prestige Labs, and now you’re building software, which I’m sure you realize how much of a headache that is now. But I guess my point is like, that’s high performance, right? Like, every day, you’re getting up, you’re pushing yourself harder and harder. And one thing I want to combat in this industry is I feel like a lot of gym owners wake up, they go in and train they go in and coach, it’s like they’ve hit a routine that they’re comfortable with, and they haven’t, they’re not growing because of it. They’re not seeing something bigger than how do I get another 10 members or whatever it is, they’re thinking about, right? Like, what does your day look like? How do you, how are you so high performing?

Leila Hormozi [17:44]
Yeah, um, I think a lot of it has to just do discipline, which is doing the same things, you know, mostly, I would say five or six days of the week, which is, you know, I think the biggest thing is I go to bed on time every day, like, I go to bed by 9pm at the latest and then because of that, I wake up at maybe 4/430 every day, and then you know, I do my stuff. I work lightly, I journal, I drink coffee, and then I work out all by typically 7 in the morning, maybe 730 depending on if I woke up at 4 or 430. So I get all my stuff done to take care of myself, and then I go straight into, you know, working until, you know, dinnertime, um, and in terms of that, I think I keep things very regimented. And I’m very prepared so I plan my week ahead of time I take an hour every Sunday, it probably takes some days two hours to go through everything from last week, every meeting all the notes from every meeting the week prior I review and then determine what I need to what what am I holding people accountable for? What projects are we working on and what things have come up that need to be addressed? And then you know, things I need to keep top of mind as well as I always look you know, four weeks ahead in my calendar and say what’s coming, what do I have to prepare for same with like I’ll let Alex know too It’s more just like doing the little diligent things that I think in the beginning, I didn’t think were important. And I actually make fun of people that are as meticulous and organized as I am and I have become it. It’s really scary. But it’s the only way that I can get as much done as I want to get done. And then I can manage three companies with, you know, a strategic team of 10 directors, and, you know, four executives, like I can’t manage those people and hold them accountable and make sure all the projects are happening and make sure that businesses are working without acting that way without blocking, I mean, I block in my personal pocket when I walk, I walk in when I eat everything on my calendar. It’s like I just had our team start doing about two months ago, because I was like, I suggested it for so long. And then I noticed the ones who did it themselves were the highest performers and I was like, screw this. I’m gonna make it mandatory, like you all have to do it. We’ll teach you to be better.

Dan Uyemura [19:53]
Right? Do you know I’m guessing that that was like a linear progression, right? You didn’t go from non meticulous to meticulous overnight? What got you thinking along or what was kind of the mental steps that got you working that direction? Because there’s probably a lot of people listening this right now who are thinking that they’re not as organized as they could be. So like, what are some good starting points? And how, what were the blocks that you built on?

Leila Hormozi [20:18]
Self hatred? No really, I mean, I think it’s just being critical of yourself, you know, you look at who you want to be like, and then what do they do? And then it’s like, where’s the gap between what you’re doing and what they’re doing? The gap is not like, I think most times people assume that it’s a strategic issue, but it’s usually a tactical issue. It’s all the little things you’re doing every day in your business. And when you’re interacting with people in your business, and I looked at like and study the people who I want to be like, and I’ve observed, you know, any mentors I pay, people I work with, etc. I’m observing what they’re doing. And then I’m like, where’s the gap? What do I have to do to be better? And I think for myself, I think of when I stepped into owning a business and running it with Alex, I said like, I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it work, and I refuse to ever be the bottleneck. And that’s the kind of state of mind that I’ve had, which is just, I will not be the reason this company doesn’t grow. I won’t be the reason that it fails. I refuse. Like, I cannot, I have to read more books, I have to study more, I have to be better at the things I’m weak at because I feel like I would just be letting everybody down as well as myself, you know.

Dan Uyemura [21:22]
So for the typical business owner, who right now is listening and thinking to themselves, like, I know I’m weak at things. I don’t know what I’m weak at. How did you how did you go down that discovery path of understanding what you needed to actually pay attention to?

Leila Hormozi [21:36]
I mean, I think being self aware is something I’ve always been since I was a kid, which is what my parents told me. So I don’t know how to instill that in somebody. But I think being able to, like identify what doesn’t feel good to you at the end of the day, and identify, I think a lot of it’s listening in and tuning into those little voices in the back of your head that are typically suppressed. They’re suppressed by people instead of listening to that voice, they go take a nap or they go on Instagram or Facebook They work out or they eat something or they do something that’s unproductive rather than lending themselves think that thought of like, maybe I’m not that good at this, maybe this maybe that. And so for somebody who’s just starting out, and they feel like they’re not good at certain things, I think you find somebody who is good at them, and you get closer to them, and then you see what they’re doing, and then you replicate it. And then you’ll become, you’ll find your own version of what works for you.

Dan Uyemura [22:22]
Got it. Okay, cool. Let’s dive into one more topic before we wrap this up. And I think I’m sensing this is probably a pretty big topic in your life in your business. And that would be leadership, like how do you see how do you see leadership? Being a centerpiece of Gym Launch and your your suite of companies? And then how does that translate to a gym owner? Like where can they deploy some of these leadership type techniques?

Leila Hormozi [22:49]
Yeah. I think where I see it fit in is that oftentimes in business and especially in small business, people always think it’s a what? What do I need? What sales tactic, what marketing tactic? What this, what that instead I think that they’re asking the wrong question. And I think what they need to ask is who? Who do I need to become? And who do I need to surround myself with? And who is the person doing the thing that isn’t working. It’s just, it’s so much more often it’s a who it’s not a what, and the only way that you’re going to be able to know where the problem really lies, is if, you know, you can rely on certain things, which is like, you know, your team is loyal to you, you know that you have a team of people who look up to you, you know, that they that you hold them accountable, they hold themselves accountable. And those are all things that stem from leadership. And so it’s really hard to see between the lines of spreadsheets and numbers if you don’t know the people behind them. Right. And so, if I’m thinking about like a small gym, I think that that’s probably one of the biggest areas of failure that I see which is, you know, they come into our program, right. And they are cashflow negative or they don’t have money or they’re really, really slim cash flow. And they put new processes into place. And they’ve got the marketing they’ve got the sales, they’ve got the film in their attention but just it just doesn’t work for one of them. But then it works for the other one and why is that? And most of the reason is that they have a team and they have people who respect them, follow them, listen to them, and are held accountable that are executing it, versus the ones who don’t have a team of people that respect them or they’ve got you know, a shitty team honestly.

Dan Uyemura [24:29]
Right. Got it. Okay, um, as we wind this down, I like asking you know, all the guests like what are some of the podcasts and books that you highly recommend gym owners to read that can help expand their their senses on all this?

Leila Hormozi [24:44]
Hmm. Man, I don’t listen to any gym podcasts. I’m gonna be really honest.

Dan Uyemura [24:51]
Here’s the thing. I don’t either except I listened to I used to listen to like Alex’s religiously, Gym Secrets. back when I owned a gym. Yeah, everything I listened to now is about leadership. It’s about bigger than gym stuff because it all applies, right? I think, ,ike all the stuff that we learned in SaaS Academy, we could take the gyms. It’s the same stuff, right?

Leila Hormozi [25:12]
We do!

Dan Uyemura [25:14]
So do we. [laughter]

Leila Hormozi [25:16]
Yeah, I would say. So when I’m some of my top podcasts. One is the just totally tangent, The Life Coach School. It’s actually my friend Brooke. She owns that, and it’s her podcast, and she’s just a badass, like, she just gets past limiting beliefs. And she’s just like a go getter. She’s built in. She’s scaled her business in the last few years to essentially the same revenue as ours, you know, over 30 million, and she has 10 employees, like that.

Dan Uyemura [25:44]
What’s called? I’m gonna google it right now.

Leila Hormozi [25:47]
The Life Coach School Podcast. Yeah, really, really cool, super sharp woman. Aside from that, I listened to I think I listen to Ed Mylett, Tom Bilyeu, Tim Ferriss, The EntreLeadership Podcast, to name a few. I do listen to Nate Latka is I listen to yeah, in the gym space. You know, I still listen Alex’s podcast obviously. That’d be weird if I didn’t. Mike Arce has a great podcast. Yeah. Yeah, he’s really good at sales really good at sales. He’s also good at the bars, which people would probably not guess we’re like competitors, but we’re really good friends.

Dan Uyemura [26:30]
I think it’s actually good to be friends with your competitors, personally.

Leila Hormozi [26:33]
Yeah. It’s weird cuz like, we don’t even see each other’s competing. When we talk because we like give each other we’re like, yeah, we’re doing this. You should try it. But yeah, I just I like him and his wife merge on a lot of people. But I would say any podcasts that can just help you get a higher level of self awareness, I think are what that’s the biggest thing you can have just the more aware of yourself you are. Even grow your business, right.

Dan Uyemura [26:57]
I’m gonna ask you one question to kind of wrap this up in It’s actually in my opinion, probably one of the most important questions I should have asked us earlier. Somewhere along the way. I don’t know if it was if it was always known to you or not. But either Alex or you figured out that sales was important. You did, you did mention that at some point that you realized sales is important. I think that’s the one piece most gym owners miss, is they think that they’re the best coach in the region. They think they have the best programming in the region, and they don’t need to sell their services. It was a mistake that we made at PushPress. We thought if we built the best software, we wouldn’t have to sell it. And we learned really fast and really hard that it doesn’t work that way. What advice can you give to gym owners right now like to get them over this whole idea of like, I don’t wanna be a salesperson. Because I would say eight out of 10 gym owners at least are feeling like I don’t want to sell.

Leila Hormozi [27:44]
Yeah. Um, I it’s funny, because I come from being that trainer. I was like, better than this. Yeah. And I just think it was so egotistical. I mean, honestly, like, that’s, that’s how I view is it was just ego. It’s like, so I’m not willing to sit down and transfer my set of beliefs to this person? Because that’s what it is, you know. And then I think it’s just it’s it, you know, at some point you have to make the decision of, am I a trainer, and my business owner and business owners know how to sell, and trainers, you know, you can post your workouts online, you can get affiliate, whatever, and it’s not like you’re not gonna, like, I mean, I know all those people, they don’t make that much money most of our gym owners make more than they do wrapping their supplements and workout clothes and stuff. So I think when it comes to sales, like it just it’s, you have to learn that it is a transfer of beliefs. And if you believe in yourself and you believe in your product, then there’s no issue like it’s not a sale, it’s a conversation and so maybe even just positioning like that, like, you don’t have to think of it like I’m selling this person. It’s like you’re just talking to them about your business, about what you can help them do like that, is it you’re helping? And I don’t know how many times you can say if somebody before they believe it, but I think that if they have a problem with sales, and it’s actually something internal which is maybe they don’t think that they’re actually going to be able to help them. Because I don’t know what else it would be. I don’t know why, if you have what they need to solve their problem, why would you not want them to buy it?

Dan Uyemura [29:09]
I think what it is, is we’ve all been turned off so much to the like, you don’t like going somewhere and having that Nordstrom person come up and start pushing you into buying clothes, like you don’t like that interaction that makes you feel weird. So you don’t want to be that person doing for someone else. But what you said is so true. It’s like, all you that person, if that person came to you, right or replied to an ad that you put up, they are expressing interest in a service you’re providing and if you can have a conversation to help them make a decision, yes or no? Right? And no is okay. Then, then really, what you said was actually to the point and I and I want to, I want to I want to kind of put it out there is like, if you’re afraid of selling, you’re not a business owner, that like you’re just not and if you’re not a business owner and you’re trainer, you should just train at someone else’s gym and just make money as opposed to trying to run a business right? Yes, that’s a harsh reality. So I think if you are in if you want to be a business owner, you have to be okay with selling and there’s tactics to it that could make you and the customer not feel like it’s a weird transaction. That’s, that’s a hard sell. But it needs to happen and you guys need to get over that.

Leila Hormozi [30:17]
Yeah, I think it’s one of those things people say like, I don’t like selling, it’s the same thing as other people who say like, I don’t like, you know, doing my books each month, or I don’t like you know, talking having one on ones with my employees. And I’m like, well, that’s cool. But business requires that if you want a good business, do you want a bad business or a good business? If you want a bad business fine then don’t do those things but good businesses that thrive and grow and provide you with financial stability involve all those things.

Dan Uyemura [30:40]
And you know what, what else is funny is as you’re saying that it made me realize I feel like saying I don’t like to sell is akin to saying I don’t like jury duty. It’s just like everyone says it so you say it and when you say it, you believe it right? Because I use you that way too. Like I got jury duty and and then the first time actually got admitted into jury duty. It was like a murder case and was super interesting. And it was actually a ton of fun. And I was like, why does nobody like jury duty? This is actually not terrible.

Leila Hormozi [31:07]
Right? I would also say, like get around people who like selling, like our group, we, it’s cool because we’ve taught them how to like record their sales compliantly. And so it’s like, we share all our sales in there and we’re like, will you review them for me and this and that, and like, how can I get better here and here and this man, like, what could I have done better for this situation? And so it’s like, if you’re around people, and you’re talking to people who don’t like selling, then you’re probably not going to get good at you’re just feeding yourself with that subconsciously.

Dan Uyemura [31:31]
You know what I’m gonna make one last point before we jump off and hold you on here pretty long. But this is a this is actually a huge thing I learned from Alex when he got on stage and talked at the SaaS Academy. I never thought of it this way. But you should be recording or somehow reviewing every interaction you have with customers, especially sales. Because if you want to get better, I mean, again, I go back to gym owners will record the hell out of their clients doing cleans and then pick apart every little movement fault, right or whatever it is. I’ll record movement and be like, well, you, you pronated here too early or whatever it might be. But they won’t record their business activity and review it later on with themselves or their employees. Right? And it’s just such a no brainer. Like, when Alex brought that up on stage, I’m like, why have we never once reviewed a sales call post the call, you know, like, we might have talked about it, if we overheard someone on a sales call, we never actually played it back for everyone to watch and learn from. It’s insane.

Leila Hormozi [32:24]
It’s like the best thing. I mean, I remember the when we first started flying guys out and sitting on a plane listening to all their sales and just it’s like sometimes like, listen, listening to a train wreck, if that’s possible. But it’s the fastest way for you or anyone else to get better. I don’t know a faster way. I don’t, we still do it. There’s a cadence like, every week for four and a half years.

Dan Uyemura [32:45]
Yeah, yeah. So if you’re listening this right now and you want a real quick tactic on how to improve find a process that you know, you could actually review. So that could be a sales call. It could be a quarterly review with a customer or you know, any any of those types of interactions. And ask the customer if you can record them. Because you want to, you know, train and start working on getting better at that stuff by reviewing it. Alright, Lila, thank you so much for your time is pleasure speaking with you this morning, this has been a long time coming. Secretly was super stoked when I saw you guys join SaaS Academy because it just meant we get to hang out more and talk more. any parting words you want to throw at our clients? What about um, what about the food, the Prestige Labs is that something people have been kicking ass with the COVID stuff going on right now.

Leila Hormozi [33:33]
You know, honestly, like, No.

Dan Uyemura [33:35]
Really?

Leila Hormozi [33:37]
So you know, I think a lot of people right now are struggling to get that first sale. And so then the second sale which is typically food or supplements is harder for them to get. So we have people that are buying it in for other ways, but No, they haven’t been doing as well with it, which I mean, we don’t, we’re not pushing it right now because I think it’s a little overwhelming for people tell me a blast.

Dan Uyemura [33:57]
And see if I was in the program. I would push that I feel like I would push that first because…

Leila Hormozi [34:02]
Oh we are taught people pushing, but newer people and those who are struggling No, I think it’s an afterthought.

Dan Uyemura [34:10]
There’s just so many people who, you know, like if I could have meals delivered to me that were nutritious and not keeping me away from like picking up 20 pounds during this stay at home stuff. Like that would be a no brainer.

Leila Hormozi [34:21]
I, yes yes, it’s just we market through the gyms even though we don’t mark it to be. And so when they’re struggling, you know, that’ll show on on that side of it. So, but I mean, we have plenty of friends who buy it from us, because they’re like, dude, I can’t go referring now. So it evens out. But um, no, I think just party is just, you know, with everything that’s going on right now, whether whenever someone’s listening to this with everything we’ve had with COVID-19 I think people need to start looking at it, especially in the gym space as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to show what you’re made of. It’s a test. I look at it, I’m like, this is test day, like, let’s see, eight of the strong are going to survive and they’re going to eat up more market share than everyone else. So if you want more customers and you want to be better, do it now. make changes now and get better now.

Dan Uyemura [35:05]
Yep, this is this is the moment when lions come out, right? And either you’re either growing or you’re dying at this moment. And you know, it’s what you’ve done in the past however many years kind of set you up for this. But that doesn’t mean you have to be defined by that. And you can either be a lion or a sheep right at this point.

Leila Hormozi [35:21]
Yeah. Today.

Dan Uyemura [35:23]
All right, Leila, thank you for your time. And we will chat again soon. Anytime you want to come back. You’re totally welcome here.

Leila Hormozi [35:32]
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate you having me on.

Dan Uyemura [35:34]
All right. Talk to you later. Yeah. Boom, there we go. Another episode done of The gymOS Podcast. Tell me what you guys think. When you can get a guest on like Leila Hormozi, who can drop 30 minutes of knowledge on you about how to become a higher performing business person, how to run your business better, how to grow and how to be okay with some of the mistakes you make and or breaking your business. I think that’s pretty good. Listen right there. Make sure you pass this along to your friends. If you think there’s anyone who could learn from anything Layla has had to bring to the table here. I think pretty much every gym owner out there could learn a lot from the concepts of how to run a better business. In some of the ways Leila is just dropped on us. If you got anything out of this podcast, I would appreciate any shares you guys can do. I would appreciate if you guys can give this a thumbs up or like in whatever you’re listening to right now. It’ll help other gym owners and coaches find these episodes as well. That is our mission here at pushpress to try to help you guys run better businesses and become better business owners. one episode at a time. As you heard from Leila, echoing a lot of the ideas and sentiments we’ve shared on this podcast over and over again, there are a lot of fitness professionals out there who are really good at training who just don’t apply the same concepts to their businesses. And if they did, once you learn how to apply some of these concepts that you understand automatically Already with fitness to your business like recording your your sales calls and paying attention to them and reviewing them like you would record a client’s movement and review it the same. Like being obsessive about the structure of what you’re doing in your business, just like you’re obsessive about the structure of the workout or training methodology that you follow. There’s so many parallels between what you do for for the fitness or the the training methodology that you use, and how obsessed you are with that and your business that it’s insane. You just have to understand you need to make that switch. And once you do, the good things will come. Alright guys. In the meantime, give this a thumbs up on iTunes, Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you’re listening to this. Make sure you share it leave us a review five stars will be much appreciated. Maybe I’ll give me a five star review and I’ll do some tap dances next episode we’ll see. Alright guys, check you later and until then keep grinding on your business.

Ready to scale your fitness business?

Try our hassle-free Gym Management Software loved by thousand of successful Gym Owners.
Get started for $0/month
“PushPress is the reason my gym became profitable.”
—Joe M. Gym Owner

Follow along and build a better gym with us

Get actionable strategies and ideas to help you grow your gym and manage it successfully, in your inbox every week!

No Spam. Ever. Unsubscribe anytime.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.