After sustaining multiple low back issues the past year, and coming off a terrible showing at the XPC Bench Bash, I'm now I can do what's best for my body. I've recently opened up a new training facility, THIRST, so I'm trying to balance life and training the best I can, with hopes that I can compete in some capacity by the end of 2018.
For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com
For those that have followed me or known me for any length of time with my tenure of Elitefts, you've likely known my dream to open up my own training facility. I'm fortunate enough to have been able to do so at the tail-end of May 2018, and during arguably the busiest time of my life (marriage, full-time job, purchasing a house). I have many people that I'm lucky enough to call friends and mentors give me free advice for years on how to operate my facility and how to streamline things. Even with that, we've had some major hiccups along the way, so it's time for me to share my experiences (and my wife's) for the past three months.
You'll Really Learn Who Your Friends Are
This seems like kind of an obvious fact, but as I've gotten older, my friends list has dwindled down to maybe two dozen. When you start a gym (or probably any business for that matter), you can expect to see that shrink in size.
Running a business is incredibly hard. Most people just don't have the pure desire to dump all their effort into one thing, let alone two or three (business, training, family, etc.). It's probably why so many businesses fail within the first year. Most of the people these days are sitting and binge watching Netflix or Hulu in their spare time. Now that my wife and I have opened THIRST, we literally don't have a day that we aren't working in some capacity, and unfortunately that means our relationships with friends and family are taking a hit. Those that truly support you will understand and do their best to work around your schedule, and the ones that won't, just don't understand the difference you're trying to make in the community. Even while we've got friends that don't train, they still support our business by helping with marketing, advertising, ideas, discounts on things we might need for the gym, etc.
You'll Make Changes
While I had an ideal idea of what the gym would look and run like, we've had to make many changes already at the three month mark. We've added new equipment, moved things, changed how we sell beverages, updated our contracts already, and modified our hours to name a few.
Quite simply, even though we've had our systems in place and knew what was going to happen, we had to refine them and adjust based upon our market and consumers. I'm really pleased that not a single person has had a negative thing to say about our gym (except competitors of course). Our members have been very understanding and appreciative of the environment and space we provide them to train and get better in the gym and in life. I wish we didn't have to make changes already, but as we have, it's ended up benefiting us in the long run.
You'll Screw Up
We've already had a big issue at the three month mark: we've got to make facility changes to meet code. Now, luckily for us, the building owners I've known personally, and our contract is written that anything code wise must be maintained by ownership, not by us. But we've already ran into political issues (our business has highly disturbed the status quo in our area) which has had the city come down on our space for fire codes and occupancy things. We now have to build out another bathroom facility, add an additional exit door, add fire extinguishers and alarms, and there will likely be a new furnace in the facility before the cold hits.
These are all things that we probably should have had made sure was good to go, but I'll admit, I don't know anything about codes and if things are correct or not. I just assumed my landlords had everything in order as this building is nearly 80 years old and has dozens of occupants in that time. But like I said, our business has already pissed off competitors and politics, and that's already caused shots to come our way.
"I Can't Wait Until We Get A Real Gym"
If I had half the people that said this as members, we'd be killing our profit margin.
You're going to get a plethora of people that will tell you they will come to your gym, and they'll either never step foot in your facility or they'll come one time and never come back. I would be willing to be that I've had over 30 people tell me they would join my gym once it opened, and I'll be lucky to say that 10 of those people have.
Our town has a huge ego, we're just big enough that people can do some cool things, but we're also just small enough that it creates a big fish, small pond scenario. Everyone wants to be the man.
For us, my wife and I have busted our butts to provide Terre Haute, Indiana the best training facility you'll find until you get to Indy (which is probably two to three times more wealthy than where we are). We get people that drive over an hour to come train. But we've also got people that powerlift competitively that won't step foot in our gym purely off ego.
The thing is, don't take anyone's word for what they will do, until they bust out that credit card and they are on your books. Money talks. And quite frankly, the people that love your facility and what you're trying to do, will do everything they can to help you get people in your doors (what's good for the goose is good for the gander). So if you've got people with egos that won't come train at your facility, just shrug it off. They will hurt your environment and don't have the same attitude towards training and education that your facility, coaching staff, and members appreciate. This used to bother me a lot the first four to six weeks, but I'm over it.
Time Management
If there is anything I've learned over these three months, it's time management. I used to be rather decent at it, but now I've got to be good at it. Between working a 40-50 hour a week job, running the gym nearly 30 hours a week, helping clients online, and trying to have a marriage with my beautiful bride, my free time involves sleeping, eating, and training. Dave has talked numerous times about having your priorities, and unfortunately mine have had to make massive shifts, and they have to shift even daily sometimes depending on what might need to get done. While I would love to not have to work a steady job, it's what I feel is best for my wife and I to ensure that we have no issues with our own house, car, bills, etc. Training can't be optimal anymore, it has to be when it can be done, and that's it. While I would love to try to compete by the end of 2018, right now I just don't believe it will happen due to all these factors.
In Closing
Basically, I've learned that I know next to nothing about running a training facility and that I am making strides every day to do a better job to provide a world-class training atmosphere to a community that needs it. The good news is the lights are on, the internet works, our members are getting better, and at the end of the day I'm working hard at a dream that I've had for a long time. My wife and I couldn't be happier to see this come to life, and know that the hours we are sacrificing now will be hours we gain later as we get to work together every day to better our community through strength.
If you would like to follow our journey, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram (@team.thirst).
We'll report back in three months and see how the six month mark looks!