Jake Steinfeld - "Just Take A Shot - The Worst That Can Happen Is They Tell You No"

Unknown Speaker
Please join me in welcoming to the stage men finalists number four. Linda Behrens macola and Andrew Behrens.

Andrew Behrens-Macaulay
Most of you here tonight, we entered the fitness industry because we were passionate about helping people. But it took us a lot longer to realize we also had to have a successful business. We all have journeys. We all have lots of stories to tell, especially from the fitness industry. So thank you so much for listening to us tonight. November last year, Andrew and I were married, actually, this weekend is our first wedding anniversary. And all I can say is what a fantastic way to actually celebrate our first wedding anniversary. And this is the first time I’ve actually stood on stage with my husband isn’t it

Mel Behrens-Macaulay
we have four boys as photo 15 we’ve got Gabriel four Zanna six, Elijah eight and diverse 15. And they will have their own very busy school and social lives. So we run around town a lot after boys. We love the outdoors we really do. And we love mountain bike racing. We freakin we go why racing, whether it’s just a short for our in southeast Queensland, or multi day epic in the Victorian Alps. One of the firefighters in this one is the bottom left photo diver eldest. Whenever we go racing with Mel, she always seems to pick races that are frickin freezing cold.

So that was trying to keep warm.

So it’s only reds, we had some we knew we needed to set some joint goals between 12. So he spent any civil celebration here in Melbourne at a goal setting workshop. And what we came up with was we wanted to finish our first house renovation and get started. And our second one, we want to make sure that Mel was training at least 20 hours a week on the mountain bike, getting ready for the world’s 24 hour solo championships in Canada. And we want to spend more time together and with our boys, we didn’t want to be working so much. And we do want to be traveling so much. So really, at the heart of everything we knew we had to build our business into a sustainable, self sufficient business so we can achieve everything else.

Andrew Behrens-Macaulay
But that’s where we had a massive problem. You see, I was actually working in excess of 60 hours in the business. Andrew, he has a full time job. He was working before work, after work and lunchtime actually in the business. Angel has even taken days off work to work in the gym, because I was too unwell to go to work. So that meant there was no way did we have time for me to train. We didn’t have time to do a house renovations to finish those. The boys was spending too much time in daycare. There was no way we could have a holiday. In fact, we’ve actually never had a holiday together.

Our staff

we knew we needed more often, but purely and simply we couldn’t afford to pay their wages. So we actually had been disappointed in the past as well. We’ve had underperforming staff. systems in the business. We had some they just didn’t work. Lots of loose ends. I don’t know. They just I’m sure you’ve all been me. So I was actually doing the marketing systems totally from scratch. I loved it. Problem was it took me too long. And so most of the marketing didn’t actually get out. For me, Cashman finances, headaches and stress, constantly worrying about how to make ends meet. In 2008, a new business opened across the road, another gym. I’d eight months later another one opened. So here we are in a small regional area of Miramar three gyms in one block competing against each other. Is it any wonder that our members started losing us to go to the newer and the cheaper gyms. So we started boot camps. We started weight loss programs. We went to a 24 hour facility we were first and actually still the only 24 Hour Fitness Center in the town. We started up a contract with a local Correctional Center so that we could do group exercise sessions for the inmates. They think that that was enough. We were working harder than ever believe me, we were problem was that our profit margins were smaller than ever. And so as much as we love their business, we were actually seeking a purchaser to buy the business before we had to close the doors. Things were pretty grim.

So I bought the business in 2005.

What’s the passion? Absolutely no advice. After seven years of frustration either side of that didn’t matter what I did. It didn’t matter how hard I work, it didn’t matter what niche I tried, didn’t matter what campaign all rolled out, it didn’t matter what business coach we used. It didn’t even matter how many gym members we had. At the end of the day, we just couldn’t write free to live the life that Andrew and I had actually envisioned.

Mel Behrens-Macaulay
So what else favorite sayings is it’s always too soon to quit. So we gathered our last thread and drew me through everything we had FFP February this year, we mainly began implementing what a closer decor duplicator controller, we completely tore the business apart. And we installed and refined processes for absolutely everything, researched and found professionals to help us professionals like Joe, the bookkeeping lady and absolute Maya whiz, the new accountant. And we began marketing consistently with easy to write FFP campaigns, campaigns like icing on the cake, but in beauty makeover, corporate body balance, body balance. 3030 new movers bring a friend boy up and the list goes on. And like all of you, I’m sick of writing DNA law on letters. We began using Rainmaker sent out a bimonthly newsletter and a host of our marketing landing pages and a manager campaign emails. We began using Facebook and paid Facebook ads which have been fantastic. And we expanded our use of websites and we’ve done a lot of public speaking gigs. We form strategic alliances with a physio and exercise physiologist, hairdressers terrorists, beauticians, lots of real estate agents, sports stores, gift store, massage therapists, and a fitness training college. The results were we began to see big results immediately. Rick’s expert guidance without early and shorter return on investment on early campaigns brought in sufficient improvement in cash flow that we could actually feel further development and implementation of the FFP business systems as well as client generating campaigns. By May we had completely reordered the business and overhauled all our systems. And by July duplicator was bringing in quality new staff we can afford to pay. We are now servicing a new clients brought in by the systemized marketing. And more importantly, the campaigns we’re bringing in steady, consistent numbers of new leads who are willing to pay for our services give you an idea of how we’ve grown in the 10 months, we’ve gone from myself a male trainer to now we have four trainers plus a lead trainer, we’ve got a dedicated admin assistant, and we’ve got a cleaner level cleaning tool, it’s a lot of the and now we have four trainers versa. So, you know, both our roles now very much focused on working on the business rather so much in the business. We’ve had a 33% increase in our memberships. And that’s been simply treat the fact that for the first time in four years, we’ve actually had growth in a membership base. And that’s been true to all the FFP campaigns we’ve been steadily rolling out. We don’t offer cheap budget discounted memberships. We’re after clients who actually value our services. And that’s added about 80 grand additional income to Baltimore. So it’s been really good. boot camps are an asset to our business and under FFP guidance they’ve grown since February this year to add about $45,000 additional to our bottom line. And we’ve gone from three boot camps awake of 24 participants and now we’re running five boot camps a week of 41 regular participants. So I’ve gotten quite big. similar story for a personal training services. So in February, we were running 64 pt sessions. And now we’ve gone to 104 pt sessions. So we’ve almost doubled the number of sessions delivered. But most importantly, our net profit on those has increased by 320%. And that’s due to a few different campaigns but most especially raising the rights campaign. Evidence of a newfound professionalism emerged when corporate businesses began requesting offsite services. So now we are delivering weight loss programs and in office boot camps to a variety of clients.

Like moment

caveman. Yep. So this is essentially added additional 35,000 to a bottom line. with improved cash flow coming into the business because the FFP business systems and our systemized marketing we’ve actually been able to fund silly renovations This year, we just completed replacing some 300 square meters of flooring. And we’ve bought a whole bunch of new commercial grade treadmills, a very nice power cage, some dumbbells, racks, and torslanda, which we haven’t actually played with yet, but I’m looking forward to that. Last year, we were struggling to fund pushing pastures to keep our old treadmills running. So far, the business has far exceeded expectations, and we now have a sustainable business asset goals for 2013. Nothing like we ever thought possible. We’re going to aggressively pursue regional expansion with personal training and boot camps in the hobby Bay. from our experience with our exercise, physiologist, blots, we’re going to employ an EP to live our services which complement our personal training activities in both cities, and leases drew for nurlan 2015. And we plan to relocate to new, larger premises.

Andrew Behrens-Macaulay
So if we have a look at our revenue for next year, what we’re forecasting is without additional expansion and growth into Harvey Bay, included with our consistent growth in mehrerer, we forecast our revenue to be in excess of half a million dollars next year. Now I know for a lot of you that actually isn’t that exciting. But let me tell you about us. We come from an area in Queensland, we are not proud to have the highest unemployment in the state, and the lowest average household income in the state. If we can achieve this in this area, we believe we can replicate it anywhere in Australia. So what does this mean was he no longer works in the business? Since July, I have dedicated dedicated training time so that I could actually race in the world championships in Canada in September and October this year. That was why we went on holidays. We had five weeks overseas, we’re talking my 15 year old son and had a fantastic time with him. Unfortunately for me, the race was cancelled at short notice heartbreaking for all of us athletes who had trained for such a long time to get to that level, and then have it pulled out from underneath us. But you know what? gave us a great opportunity to see how our business was working five weeks without us. So our staff when we returned, didn’t need us. We had a body balance campaign participants paid ready to roll out a corporate body balance campaign participants paid ready to roll out we had more boot campers than ever. We had new personal training clients, the largest gym member base that we’ve ever had. I need now Jose, the gym works better without me.

When there’s something I’m not telling you.

You see about 10 years ago, I was in a doctor’s office. I was a single mom. And that doctor said to me, Melinda, you need to quit your job. You need to move to a city like Brisbane, you need to learn to read Braille. You need to prepare your life for a blind person. I had been diagnosed with a debilitating disease called muscular dystrophy, excuse me.

No one can tell the rider progression.

But I can also tell me what’s going to happen.

You know that doctor he gave me the best piece of advice and the worst piece of advice. Luckily for me, like Andrew said before, I always say it’s always too soon to quit. I refuse to quit.

He also said prepare.

So I guess what?

I positioned myself to purchase a business, in an industry always passionate about so that no matter what happened to my health, see my degeneration. I could give back to the community. I could earn an income and not a disability handicaps so thank you to Rick and Andre and all the fit for profit team. You’ve not only rescued my business,

but you’ve given me back my future.

I have a business which is sustainable. No matter what happens to my health. I have an income.

Thank you.

Unknown Speaker
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