Chapter 4 - Actual Ownership
So, I pick this up after the departure from 1908. The new landlord for the 1908 Building, Redds Ferris decided that he wasn't going to return the security deposit over some ticky tack bullshit. I realize now that he realized he could keep it because, I wouldn't know how to fight it. To this day I still think he's a shitbag.
I opened 1450 the first week of January 2017. I remember checking the income from the final month at 1908 and only grossing $10,500 for the month...I had just signed a lease that was a total of $5500 per month, no other expenses included, with a Personal Guarantee (which I also didn't fully understand) and that was all before I had signed up anyone. My ignorance was definitely bliss but I fully believed in myself so failure was never something that could have happened. On the first day, the first thing that happened was, someone came in and cancelled...It didn't rattle me, but I was so young and dumb that I felt like each client was a friend so, when someone quit, I always took it so personal when I had no right to do so. After the person quit...things improved, and they improved very quickly. The end of the first week I had signed up 7 new members. And by the end of the first month, I had raised revenue from $10,500 to $13,900. I didn't dare pay myself. Not that week, not the week after that.... I didn't pay myself until roughly June of 2017. By that time the gym was consistently grossing between $18,000 - 21,000 with an all-in budget of $9,500 per month. A healthy margin by any standard and in any business that's for sure. I was doing everything...the classes and 90% of the private sessions. Tim was still with me, but I knew he would be leaving at some point in the near future and, he did. It was time for him to move on, he had found himself a woman up in Jersey and the day that he left was the last day I ever saw him (to my knowledge he's doing well enough, but I don't maintain contact. I'm terrible at maintaining relationships).
I rotated between trainers that would help out but, as I said earlier, it was 90% me. On top of the training duties, I was also trying to navigate the blossoming world of social media and google ad words advertising. The different types of advertising campaigns, strategies to use etc. would eat up a sizeable amount of time. I can't tell you if any of what I did was effective or not. I knew that what I was doing, was getting people in the doors and that's all that mattered to me at that moment.
Skipping over some of the hilarious training stories from back then, the guerilla marketing stuff I tried, I was having a blast. I was doing what I loved to do, never feeling like I was working, and I was making/building something I could be proud of. Halfway through my lease there at 1450, I had a trial personal training client that came through. Her name was Lauren, she was the Executive Director for DSADE. I didn't really care; all I knew was she was this little white girl that wanted to "box". I was used to the college sorority crowd coming through so, I figured she would be no different. I started training her, and after a few months she and I were talking one day and she asked me, "would you be willing to do a class for individuals with Down syndrome?" If you know me, I never back down so I said of course. We worked on start date and Lauren put it out to her families and we ended up having our very first boxing class for the DSADE. Needless to say, the feedback was stellar, and we decided to extend it from a single one-time class to 3 months of 1x per week. The class grew and grew, up to 30-40 people at its peak all in a 2800 sq/ft space. But everyone loved it. The parents loved it, the participants loved it.
The end of the class came, and we announced that it was the final class for a while, to a tidal wave of tears and dismay. Lauren and I talked and decided that rolling it into an official program offered by Knockout would be beneficial for everyone. This decision along with some help from pleading parents and participants, is what spawned one of my greatest creations, Down to Box Inc.
I was pulling daily 6 am to 8pm workdays Monday - Friday and then 7 am - 12pm on Saturday...And you know what, it never once felt like work to me. I loved every second of it. The freedom, the ownership of something that was mine, and every single day, I was able to help people. Regardless of not paying myself and pulling 70-90 hr weeks I was having the time of my life. Times were good, and the gym just continued to grow.
