Fitness Business School – Ideal Business Evolution with Justin Yule

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode, I’m sitting down with my good friend and longtime colleague on so many different projects, Justin Yule. And we’re just going to dive deep on kind of what’s happening now in our businesses and how this whole ideal business thing has evolved. Cause boy, it’s been a while. Let’s get to it.

Welcome to the Fitness Business School podcast, the show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen to the end of this episode because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

Justin, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me once again. I wanted to just sit down and chat. I know, gosh, it has been fast approaching nine years since we restarted this whole approach to business and introduced the idea of an ideal business. You worked with me to introduce the initial. Mastermind the initial coaching group.

We held the ideal business workshop. We did the ideal business blueprint. So we really hit the ground running all the way back in 2015, 2016. And man, it’s. It’s been fun. It’s been such a strange and winding road. Your business has evolved like so many with integrating challenges, going through the pandemic and now the direction that you’re taking.

And so really what I want to do is just talk about how your thoughts on your ideal business have evolved over the past handful of years. Yeah, absolutely. And part of it has to do, let’s face it, it has to do with getting older. So some of the things in terms of life are changing. There’s a time when you’re younger and you don’t mind living in the gym from opening till closing.

Interestingly enough that the pandemic obviously closed the gym. We were closed for a total of five months when you combine the two closings. And obviously we had to make the very quick within 12 hours transition to the online training. And that online piece. Has, it’s still going, I’d say probably about 30 percent of my clients have stuck with that version.

So I’ve been spending more time over there. And also within the process, one of the advantages or wins, if we want to look at put the silver lining on the pandemic, as things slowed down a little bit, it gave my wife, Janelle, an opportunity to go and get a couple of advanced certifications and change the direction of what.

It leaned in the direction of where she was going in terms of her passion, her interest around gut health and hormone and mindset, the kind of combination of those three pieces in working primarily with women who, as she said, has tried all the things to heal and she works with them on a much deeper level to do holistic healing.

So that. Obviously started locally with our clients that we had at the gym. Cause that’s where you start. You start with your local network, right? Then you start to branch out, right? So you have your clients or your former clients or your, just your passionate newsletter readers. They become clients, right?

And then eventually they refer their sister in Arizona or somebody over in Maine, right? So you start to branch out a little bit, but gets to a point where it’s okay. Now, how do we branch? How do we get more clientele? Because this online piece is a little bit different, right? Yes. And I’ve, I talked about this all the time.

If you want to build an online business, which kind of answers your question of the direction I’m starting to become more passionate about is online. People are humans who live in the real world. So if you want to start an online business, start locally, join your local chamber of commerce, join your local BNI.

If you have a, if you have a brick and mortar business, that’s where you’re going to get your first online clients from. But when you want to start to go beyond that, now you have to start getting into the core equip. online marketing world. And that’s really where, for me in the last year, especially year or two, I’ve gotten back into.

So as we’ve talked about, I’ve gotten back to my copywriting roots, gotten back into studying Dan Kennedy again. So I’m, that’s where I’m spending a lot of my time right now. The AI is a big piece, which we talked about recently on an episode. So that’s where I’m. At right now with my brick and mortar transition to some online stuff.

And then I don’t know if we’re going to get into some of the other projects that you and I are working on too, which I’m having a blast with. I think what’s so interesting, but instructive too, with all of this is so when you and I initially connected, you were a very successful trainer in a leadership role in lifetime fitness.

And you wanted to move out and do your own thing. So at that point, ideal to you was owning your own business a hundred percent. And it looked great at the Lake Bootcamp. Yeah. And a bootcamp with low overhead that used resistance spans. And quick shout out to Dave Schmitz. To Dave Schmitz and resistance band training.

And then. Then you moved into the first location, like in a strip center that was Chipotle, all that, and It’s a hut, too. Yeah, and you had version 1. 0 of the facility, and that was a big leap, and that was an exciting time in you guys life. And then the next step was the, this bigger kind of showpiece facility.

And if you’ve never been to Justin’s gym, it’s gorgeous. It’s this really cool venue and your vision for that business evolved over time. And then it is things moved on. And it should be noted. You guys built a new gorgeous house. You started to get involved in short term rentals real estate as an investment property since we talked so often about this type of business being a cash flow business more so than a cash out business.

So going and taking some of that money and investing in assets that have a cash out component. And so now the next step is taking your passion, your talents into something that’s maybe more flexible that doesn’t tether you geographically to, to one spot. It doesn’t require you to necessarily be in the gym.

You’re still working. That’s the thing that I always am. And to remind people of like your ideal business still is a business and you still play a role in it. Now, the role you may play is different. Yeah. It may evolve. And in your case, you’re talking about, Hey, my role is going to ascent around these passions that are tied to marketing and strategy.

And yeah, you’re building this online component that Janelle is. Just an incredible practitioner and you can drive people in and then you’re taking the same expertise and Driving the growth of nutrition. Oh one of those collaborative projects the that we talked about and Not only are you growing that, but you’re empowering all the people who are nutritionist licensees to grow their business.

And then we have some of these other projects we can dive into in a moment, but I wanted to track this whole thing and just point this out to the listeners because the ideal business and in the way, and I guess, We get to define what that, what that is, right? Because we’re the ones who coined that phrase, the trade market.

And I want to bring something up real quick before I forget. Cause you, you mentioned the whole work thing. Like I want to make it clear, like right now I’m actually working a lot more than I had previously and it’s ideal because I’m working most weeks, six, sometimes six and a half days because we’ve got some really fun stuff in the works.

And. I’m not going to say it’s not work. If you love what you do, it’s not where I’m not going to go there, but there’s a lot of things to be passionate about right now and excited about, and there’s a balancing act too, between all the different businesses, but yeah, like the hours, if you look at it, some people, that’s not ideal.

You’re not working a four hour work week. You’re not working a four day work week. No, I’m working like six, six and a half days a week. And I’m working on some pretty long days right now. And it’s great. Yeah. You’re there, there’s a 15. component. And I’ve had this wonderful opportunity to see this grow for you and what ideal is for you and With each kind of turn of the dial, it’s designed to mirror your stage of life, what’s important to you, what you’re excited about, and to help you achieve your goals.

We’re both close with Doug Sperling, and we’ve watched him go through the same thing, where in the beginning it was like, hey, I’ve got a facility, and then I’m getting in, I’m making the facility something that operates largely without me being inside it and then I’m getting in to some local real estate by doing that and then short term real estate, but I know we’re about to host a mastermind and Doug’s going to come just hang out.

Doug’s in. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee right now, checking on a cabin and then driving up here. That is not, Hey, I’m just sitting back with my real estate empire and just watching the bank account climb. It’s no, he’s going to go check on it. But he’s excited about it. He gets fulfillment from it. I can tell you from my end, there was a window of time.

Where I was very travel averse, there, I felt like I was, I didn’t want to work quite as much because I knew our older one, Tyler, was about to leave the house and go into college. Alex was young and still at that stage of life where parents were relatively cool and he wanted to spend time with us. And so I wanted to be there for that moment, but now Tyler’s at college.

Alex is far more independent. And so working a little bit more. Is a fulfilling way to spend my time. And Holly’s gotten more involved in the things that we would do. And so it’s been enjoyable and the new and fulfilling experience to do that. And I’m using that word fulfilling a lot because we each have.

The time that we have, and if we’re investing that in things that we’re enjoying,

they’re helping us reach our goals. To me, that’s ideal because if somebody says, Hey, you only need to work 10 hours a week or whatever, I’ve had plenty of weeks where I’ve only worked 10 hours. I’ve taken more vacations in the last eight years than most people would take in two lifetimes.

I’ve been able to do a lot of that, but right now in the season of life I’m in, I’m really excited about some of the projects we’re working on, some of the things we’re building. It’s that time of year where we have clients coming in for meetings, and I don’t want my business to be a hundred percent online.

I want It to be flexible, but I love spending time. I love when you get to come to town. I enjoy hosting these meetings and getting to spend time with people. These are my people. These are the people that I enjoy as much as anybody. And I think I wanted to just dig into this a little bit because The idea of building an ideal business is what’s ideal for you is always evolving.

That’s a key point right there. Cause you mentioned seasons of life. You talked about the idea of business evolving, and I know you’re someone who would say, I’m not real big on doing five and 10 year business plans because there’s so much is going to change. And I look back, I’m like, yeah, like what I thought.

My business is going to look like five years ago. You throw the pandemic in there and forget about it, as they say. But even without that, it’s yeah. So there’s a vision for where I want the transformation club to go. Janelle’s coaching business to go nutrition OS, some of these other projects that we’re working on that we’re not putting out there yet.

So yeah, it’s okay. This is what we’re here to talk about. We have some meetings today about 2024, but we’re not talking about. 2030. Yes. And I would love to be able to predict the future, but it’s, that’s just not part of my skill set. And yeah, you have the ability to shape things in the direction you want to go.

And if you’re doing it the right way, it creates more opportunities for you down the line. That’s one of the keys. If you’re actually building Your ideal business the better you do it building today the more opportunities it creates for you Tomorrow the things that you’re talking about doing with Janelle the projects that we have in motion are all largely a result of The good work that you had done leading up to that.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting too because I look at Vision for the future and something that kind of hit me a little bit last year at 47 or 48 now, like looking at that marker of 50 and what, where I want to be at 50 and having a vision. And part of that is you mentioned the flexibility. I mentioned not being locked into one location.

For those who don’t know, I live in Minnesota and it’s cold in the winter time and I don’t want to be there in the winter time. So it’s part of my vision to not be there. Being open and flexible to the vehicle is very important because Nutrition OS didn’t exist when I was 47 thinking about being 50. I wasn’t part of it until earlier this year when you and Dr.

Mike brought me in. Something else you and I and Dr. Mike are working on. That was not an opportunity. Something else we’re working on was not an opportunity. The AI stuff that we’re talking about was not an opportunity. So there’s four things, four projects we’re working on right now that didn’t exist 12 months ago in my world.

And, but the vision for where I want to be, and these are vehicles to help me get to that vision. So I’m looking at the vision picture of Walt Disney right behind you. I think that’s a key point in your ideal business. Yeah, it’s funny when you talk about this didn’t exist or that didn’t exist. I was having a conversation with somebody yesterday.

I said, this was not one of the options the guidance counselor would have given me when I was in high school, right? This wasn’t that thing. And it’s, I could have never, foresaw being able to have a career in a business like I’ve had, but yeah, I think that if you do good work where you’re at, and this was something I learned long ago as a college baseball coach, they would say, make the big time where you are, right?

Do good work where you are. Check the boxes. Don’t always be chasing the next shiny object. We talk about this with clients all the time in various ways. And it’s, Hey, I go get the clients that you need to get. Go employ a financial system that allows you to pay yourself first and put some money away.

Build a good reputation in the community. Deliver on your promises that 10 X value that will, that we talked about. Build something good. And then you have the opportunity to do the next thing. We just had the boardroom group in last week, which is a lot of the people that Justin and I have seen ascend through the ranks and build successful businesses.

Many of them that had the opportunity, Hey, I’m going to hire more people or I want to invest in this thing or that thing. People were talking about acquiring other businesses or investing in real estate while we were there. These are all results of the good work they did in building the original business.

I’ve had clients along the way, like Vince Gabriel, who had built successful local businesses that provided the opportunity to go coach other people. It all starts with that first domino of doing good work where you are, and then it creates those opportunities for you to do things moving forward. Yeah.

Bob Proctor used to say something along the lines of do far more than you’re paid for, and you’ll get paid more than you can. Ever imagined something to that effect, do put in the work and deliver. You talked about 10 X delivering a 10 X back and it’ll show up a hundred times later. Yeah. That, I think that’s the part that the people who, who kind of struggle or get stuck miss is.

They want the things that those people that maybe I hesitate to use the word admire because I don’t know that’s right But they look at and they at least admire certain parts of their life, right? Sir, they want the things that those people have they want the financial security the ability to take vacations the they want the bigger Jim the number of clients the top line revenue the personal income they want all those things And they tend to skirt past.

How did they get there? Yeah, it’s like they’re looking at the goal line play. They forgot about the other 99 yards. Yep. That, all those things, all the people that were here Last week for the boardroom event that they’re doing so well. And we had people like Levi Memmer and Shelby Turcott talking about, Hey, I’m going to invest in this thing or that thing.

And there, and it is all a product of building really solid foundations. And those are guys that not only have I had the good fortune to coach, but I admire because Man, they’ve done it. They’re just living, breathing role models that they may not be the people who spend tons of time on social media touting what they’re doing here or there, but they’re the people that are often more successful, significantly more successful than a lot of people.

That are on stage or running Facebook ads talking about their success. And Levi’s that classic quiet guy who’s super successful and you would, he’s just a regular cool dude who he’s does no flash. Yeah. It’s like the old millionaire next door book. They just spending time around those guys. It’s man, it makes me better.

And in fact, one of my. One of my goals for the upcoming year, like we run these meetings separately and only once, right? Coming right out of the pandemic, did we overlap the meeting for the kind of up and comers with the people who are a little bit more advanced? I want to do at least one of those annually moving forward for that reason.

It’s man, they need to rub shoulders with these people and see, man, look, this guy’s done, this guy’s done that, and this is how they did it. Not just that they’re here, not just that they’ve achieved these things, but you can trace back to the work that they did, the effort they put in, because when you do it now, the conversations we’re having, the things that they’re looking to do, and the ability for them to actually go make these decisions, that they’re things That you probably only dream about when you’re in that early stage of business, not it’s fun.

I’m glad we got to go through and unpack a little bit of your journey and it’s probably beyond the scope of what we can cover in the This episode to dive into all the things that we’re talking about. It scratched the surface, right? We have nutrition OS There’s a retail component the kind of piggybacks on that, that we’re really excited about.

It appears we, we get to turn back the clock and do some work with our old buddy, BJ Gador, right? Yeah. Looking forward to that. That’d be fun. Yeah. That’s one of the other kind of. Talk about full circle though. Yeah. If you go back to my ideal business, like when I. I was still at Lifetime when I met you, and when I joined the Boot Camp Blueprint, which you and BJ were founders of, I was actually still working for Lifetime, because I was like, at that point, it was for me, it was like, I just want the education, and I want the connections.

What is happening outside of these four walls that I’m locked inside of? And was doing great, but what else is out there? And I think it’s funny, and here we are a couple hours from now, we’ll be having a pretty deep dive with BJ about another project. Yeah. Yeah. It’s That’s another piece of this whole ideal business, right?

Like you, you want to work with people who make you better, people that you enjoy working with, and I think over time you call that group of people. And it’s fascinating too, when you think about it, two of the people who had the most impact, two of the three people who had the most

impact, and I’ve said this before, you, BJ Gaddour and band man, Dave Schmitz, three biggest impacts of people of me starting my business all for different reasons, and you, me, and BJ are working on a project together.

I’ll talk about when, here we are and how many years later, 14 years later from when I first started, and I’m in contact with Dave still. We’ve talked about a few different things. So yeah, it’s just, it’s cool to talk about. There’s that side of the ideal business, right? There’s a social side, there’s a connection side that I think maybe a lot of people don’t think about.

Yeah. I think that you get to choose a lot of these things. It, your business is going to involve work. Your business is going to involve people. Your business is going to require you to. Have an impact and actually deliver solutions and value to others. But you get to decide what a lot of those things are.

And I’m still in pretty regular contact with the band man, Dave Schmitz as well. You choose. You have the ability to choose some of who you’re spending your time with, what type of impact you’re having the type of work, the role you’re playing in many cases. And for me, that’s ideal. That’s the what we’re trying to accomplish.

It’s not the absence of work. It’s the quality of work, the enjoyment you derive from work, the impact you’re having. And I’ll just maybe throw a plug in there for, Getting to live events, joining mastermind groups, going to doing, getting involved in workshops because that’s where you make the connections and build the relationships.

Yeah, it’s, it is one of those kind of springboards that allow you to go faster, further than all the court. And we talked about this. I listened to a course on my drive yesterday that I was going, I’ll study and learn in as many different ways as I can. All of that goes faster when you get to spend time together.

All of that it just has more impact. If you’re not putting that on your calendar for the upcoming year, I would change that in a hurry if I were you. Yeah, just go and absorb and get involved and give, right? Don’t go with the, maybe one day I’ll get to work with this guy. That’s not how it, that’s not how it evolves.

Yeah. Did I will say, did I at one point go, God it would be awesome to work with this guy one day. I did and I obviously been working with you for a long time. BJ and I used to do stuff together back in the workout muse days. I used to write for him. Now we’re back together. I’ve done stuff with Dan Man.

So it’s like you develop these relationships with Fred Zoller and with Doug. To be able to, if I got an STR question, to have a relationship, to be able to call Doug and ask him a question or shoot him an email, that doesn’t come Without relationships and you need to have those relationships and you get those in these in person meetings for sure.

And it goes without saying that Paul is here managing this podcast extravaganza that we have gone on and that’s another good example, you find people you enjoy working with, that there’s some collaborative benefit and. That’s part of having your ideal Bennett or I came to Minnesota a few years back Did a whole bunch of filming for a couple days for me and we still use that stuff.

So that’s relationships. Paul’s a legend All right, that seems like the perfect thing to end this episode on Paul’s a legend, right? So guys, hopefully you tolerate and even enjoyed are unpacking and backtracking a little bit through history because I think it’s really important. I think it’s critical even to understand that this ideal business isn’t some finish line that you get across.

It’s this continual evolution. Of what you want out of your professional life, what kind of impact you want to have, what kind of role you want to play, what kind of people you want to work with. And you’re building this, you’re continually building it and evolving it so that ultimately you can have the best possible career that gives you the income, the impact, and the lifestyle you want. So with that, Justin, thank you. Paul, thank you. And until next time, we’ll see you soon.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School.

Before you go, I have a quick announcement:

One of of the things that we’ve been doing with our current clients is taking them through this Ideal Business diagnostic and really what it is, this checklist that allows you to pinpoint exactly what your business needs next so you can keep improving, keep growing, and build a business that you love to own, one that pays you well, one that allows you to have the impact you wanna have and one that allows you to have a lifestyle that you truly enjoy.

In this diagnostic, we walk through everything and we do an evaluation and can instantly pinpoint what you need to do next to build that business that you want. I’m going to extend this opportunity to get on with either me or my team and take you through this evaluation and fix your business’s most vital needs fast.

So if we take you through this, you’re gonna be able to make those vital changes that you need to finally have what I call your Ideal Business. If you’d be interested in going through this entirely free, risk-free diagnostic with us and learn what you already have in place, what you’re doing well and where are your greatest opportunities for rapid improvement are just shoot me an email with diagnostic in the subject line to [email protected].

Again, an email to [email protected] with diagnostic in the subject line will get
you scheduled and take you through this evaluation to help you build the business you want.