Reflections Of A Five Year Old: One Family, One Home, One Voice
In April of 2010, Bryan and I sat down at Café 976 to write a business plan for a gym. We kind of knew what we were supposed to be writing about, but we quickly learned that we slept through way too many classes in college. Sooner or later, all those bad decisions come back to get you.
In the middle of fumbling around the internet looking for templates, my phone rang. The property manager at 1277 Garnet Ave. called to inform us we had two weeks to negotiate and put a down payment on the space or he would move on to the next candidate. I came back in the room, and the mood changed very quickly. Things got very businesslike and we had some work to do. In two weeks, we raised enough money to make the down payment, hang a very cheap sign out front, and paint “Free CrossFit Classes” with soap on the windows. For some reason, none of my business classes in college ever told us about soap marketing, but we were open for business.
Our first equipment order pieced together seven barbells, ten kettlebells, bumper plates, and a pull up structure that screamed, “We are inexperienced and underfunded.” At the time, I could clean 245 pounds, and on day one I wanted to break the gym in the right way by lifting a lot of weight. I got good and warmed up, started throwing some weights around, and then the nurse from PB Urgent Care came running over as if we had started an earthquake. The relationship developed this way, progressively getting worse and worse by the day. We changed the iHome out for a real stereo system and this basically sealed our fate.
The owner of the building, Dr. Rose, also the owner of the Urgent Care, called a meeting. Bryan and I knew this was not going to be a good meeting and as he walked in, we stood to shake his hand. He reaches out, shakes Bryan’s hand and as I leaned in he turns to me and says, “I will not shake your hand, you are an asshole.” For the next two hours, with an eviction notice on the table, we sat there, helplessly defending ourselves and fighting to stay in business. The meeting ended with him kidnapping me, taking me to his house to meet his two, 100 pound German Shepards, and further fighting for our lives. He was really friendly once I got to his house by offering me a Bud Ice while he sipped on a Corona – I really cherished us having that moment. Just stay away from PB Urgent Care.
We woke up the next morning, unsure of our fate, so we hit the streets. We did everything to find a new location. We must have called every single building in town before we randomly drove by this beautiful warehouse in North PB. With our fate still uncertain, we raised a little more money, paid the deposit, and 15 days later we were up and running two locations. We never really planned on things happening this way, but this was the hand we were dealt and we were grinding just to stay alive.
As the gym and the membership continued to grow, the noise became unbearable for the Urgent Care once again. At the time of the first eviction attempt, we had to call the city in to run noise tests. If we stayed below a certain level, we were legal. Anything above and the landlord could legally evict us. We became masters of volume. It was an incredibly unfriendly time, constantly stressing the nurses, the noise, the property manager, and the landlord. We needed out and we needed a place that we could call home for long time.
In the summer of 2013, we started creeping around town. Living with an eviction notice over your head is the worst claustrophobia you can imagine. You are just waiting, and waiting, and waiting for something terrible to happen. So we start negotiating for our current lease at 1019 Garnet Ave. With some shady negotiating on the old lease, a property manager playing both sides of the fence, and some crafty dealings with a new landlord, we secured the future with a ten year lease on life. We had a home – oh and another one still in North PB.
In two weeks, starting June 29th, we will be united under one roof again. The lease on our space in North PB is up and we will not be renewing. After three years of running seven blocks from one gym to the other, we will finally have a unified home; a place for everyone, with tons of space, equipment, facilities and finally a sense of long term security with a lease negotiated through 2024. Both bodybuilding and conditioning classes will run simultaneously to create an experience that allows you to do the workout that best suits you on any given day. Two coaches will be in every class to ensure everyone is doing a workout that is scaled and designed specifically for them. We are finally one big family again.
Most importantly, Bryan and I get to coach again. When you have two locations, you spend a lot of time managing things. Guess what, managing sucks. When we started, every thought we had was, “Man, I hope people come.” Well, people came, and then we had a business to run. So we stopped coaching as much so we could learn how to run a business. Five years later, we kind of know how to run the business. But, we have also learned that we do not like doing all of the business things, so we have hired an entire back end staff to do the things we are not that great at doing ourselves. We hired a PR team at ZM Communications. Justin Fields is not only becoming a head coach but he is also taking on a General Manager role and will be handling the majority of the day to day things that keep SDA going. Greg Pitts will be taking a larger role developing our website and creating technology things that I barely understand. Hilary is expanding her role creating valuable pieces regarding the fitness industry as a whole.
The point of reflection is to look back, learn from your actions, and put the best plan in place to move forward. In the past, the gym grew and we hired coaches. By hiring coaches, we put ourselves out of coaching jobs. The first five years were spent learning everything. The next five, and our new business model, allow for us to add significant depth our program and the gym. Are there still lessons to be learned? Endless. Are we excited about having everyone under one roof again? Unbelievably excited. And what about coaching again? It is the reason we started the gym in the first place. We are united again under one roof, it is a fresh start of sorts, and it is the family vibe we sought out five years ago.
