please do me a favor, share with me your name,
name of your business and where you're located.
So I'm Devin Gonzalez and my business is Strive
11 International or Strive 11 Fitness, you know,
for the local business. And I'm located in Los
Angeles, California. All right. Well, thank you
again. Strive 11 Fitness. Tell me more about
it. So it's a bootcamp style model gym, right?
And I launched in... June of 2021, but we launched
the franchise aspect of it last year, but it's
a bootcamp style fitness concept that has no
class times, right? So traditional models, you
have to book a class, you show up at a scheduled
time. Whereas we've kind of got rid of all that
and over booking classes, you can't get the schedule
that you want coming at your own time. You still
get that same experience that you would at a
bootcamp. Oh, wow. Okay. So no times. And then
you just come in and you just work out. Exactly.
And then, I mean, each, each day there's a workout
of the day, essentially that every day is a different
muscle split. Each week has different muscle
splits, but when you come in, you're essentially
getting the feeling, the energy from a group
like bootcamp, but then you're getting the customization
and tailored workouts. Like you would have a
personal trainer. Nice. I like that. So it started
in 2021 and then currently going, and then you
became a franchisable business again in when?
Last year. Last year. Okay. How many have opened?
So we have Tampa, Florida, which will be opening
in two weeks. And then we have Mansfield, Texas.
I know Texas is huge, but at least it's in your
home state. And, you know, they'll be opening
roughly around July this year. Oh, that's exciting.
I love that for you. So when you first started
all of this, tell me about your vision. you know,
a decade and a half, you know, 15 -ish years.
And I would have my clients go to these boot
camps in between our sessions because, you know,
to be honest, a lot of clients wouldn't follow
the homeworks that I would write out. I was like,
that's fine. Go to these group classes in between.
And over the course of, you know, those 10, 15
years, members were coming back and complaining
about different, you know, problems that they
had with their boot camps. And they're all the
same problems with different companies. So my
vision for it was like, why are all these different
models? when you break it down running pretty
much the same business model and there's no variation
like they all have the same core problems i was
like are these core problems not solvable which
is not likely in my you know from what i've understood
about problems there's always a solution you
know and or is it just that this model works
we can do it too and so forth and that's what
it turned out to be but it did take you know
a year and a half two years before even opening
our first location of testing and trying and
testing and trying um i mean luckily we had And
I know I say luckily, but it sounds bad. But,
you know, when COVID happens, right, I actually
ran the program in the park on the tail end of
COVID for a year. And I utilized the park. I
was like, I have unlimited square footage, essentially.
If I can't get this model to work here, there's
no way I can bring this into a 2 ,000 square
foot, you know, location. Yeah. So that's crazy
because you're right. I think I always tell everybody
COVID either made you or broke you. And I love
the fact that I get to talk to people such as
yourself that own a business that says it gave
me the opportunity to sit back, reflect and see
what I can do without all the tools that I had
prior to. And you utilize the park. It's like,
hey, I'm going to make this work. And so from
there. you decided to go ahead and open up, open
up the 2000 square foot building. And then what,
what did it take for you to actually move forward?
You've already did the trial and error. So what
now? So, I mean, I definitely bootstrapped a
lot in the beginning and I had, you know, a former
business partner that started with me and it
was just us two. Right. And so we pretty much
tested and tried a lot of things. Once we. got
into the location, you also had to make some
adjustments. And that's the main thing with like
running a business is you could have a business
plan, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's
going to go according to plan. I can almost guarantee
it probably won't go according to plan. But you
adjust and you adapt and you keep moving forward.
And so we adjusted some things, move some things
around, adjust where the equipment was stationed
and so forth and got it to kind of go. The next
big step was essentially hiring. you know, a
team hiring staff, which is that biggest hurdle,
in my opinion, of being an entrepreneur. Because
before my gym, I had a personal training company
that I mean, I was making six figures as a personal
trainer, all in person, not no online. And that
I was a solopreneur, right. And so all of a sudden,
you hire a team and you have to, you know, give
over the reins a little bit. I think that was
one of the biggest black adjustments. But I wonder
what's your why? Honestly, it's one of my core
values in the gym, too. And this is what when
I hire people, even with franchisees, like if
this doesn't isn't part of your core values,
then look, I just don't think it's going to be
a good fit. But it's to have a positive impact
on as many lives as I can while I can. Right.
So if a new business venture or a new, you know,
event or something to attend doesn't have that
intertwined into it, then I just don't do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when it comes to trying
to get others to franchise the business and your
business, what does that process even look like?
They reach out to you, you reach out to them?
So they reach out to us and we have basically
two different PowerPoint presentations that we
go through. My whole thing is a level of transparency.
When I was a personal trainer and looking to
open a business, I was going to open a franchise.
And now being on the other side and being the
franchisor, I realized that there's a lot of
stuff that franchises hide in the fine print.
And so. When we even we get a lead, I tell them
all the information that they should know, whether
they go with us or they don't go with us. Like,
hey, make sure you ask these questions. Right.
I'll give you our answers. But make sure you
also ask these questions to whoever, whatever
franchise you're you're going into, because these
are like numbers that affect your business and
affect your income. Right. So but they reach
out to us and we do the first one, show them
what the model is. And then they submit a form
that kind of shows us their. like unofficial
financials, you know, so that if we need to refer
them to a financial expert to kind of, and a
financial strategist to help them, you know,
get, get aligned with that, they do so alongside
what we're doing. Cause I mean, the worst thing
is, and I learned this right in the beginning
of franchising is I had someone get all the way
to the end. They're like, all right, perfect.
Let's do it. How do I afford this? wait what
do you mean and then so we we do that in the
beginning just in case um and then the next presentation
just goes into essentially you know what does
the franchise onboarding process look like what
does it look like with our real estate team that
helps you find a location negotiate all that
stuff and then you know we come out there for
your grand opening we actually are there for
a week and we actually help your team train your
team we're working in your business um with you
And then we have attractor earnings, which is
weekly calls after the fact, you know, getting
you up and running and make sure everything's
going smooth. So it's a fairly easy process.
The biggest step for people, though, is like
the presentations are awesome. But the last step
before any contract is signed is like you have
to come out to our headquarters so we can meet
face to face. But I want you to I want you to
do the business model. Right. I feel it. We don't
sign agreements that day. I know a lot of franchises
like to use their discovery days, what they call
it, to sign agreements, get you all hyped up.
And for us, I let them know ahead of time, no
agreements will be signed that day. Don't be
waiting for a pitch. Nothing's coming. I want
this day to be all about you. Just feel it out.
We'll reconnect once you get back home and all
the emotions have kind of like settled down a
little bit. Yeah. Yeah. That's I like that because
it's no pressure, no pressure whatsoever. Just
come meet me. And then I do believe that there's
something different when you meet someone face
to face. You get a like an emotional feeling
or if that's truly what they desire to do. And,
you know, I know that you've been a fitness instructor.
Now you own a business. But there's a story.
There's a story. And I want to hear the story
behind your why. How did you end up a fitness
instructor? I mean, I was a martial arts instructor
at the age of 13. And when I went into college,
it was, you know, I was going for business management.
And I think that was just my undeclared, you
know, instead of actually marking undeclared.
But then I learned about kinesiology and I was
like, wait, I can get a degree in this is way
more fun. And at the time I had just became a
personal trainer at, you know, a big corporate
gym. And I was like, this is this is so much
more cool and fun than accounting. So I did that.
And the whole time my parents were telling me,
like, to get a career and stuff. So I was working
at becoming a firefighter. But I didn't really
have a passion or really a drive for it. I was
just kind of going through the steps. And by
the time I graduated, I was already making six
figures. And I was like, why am I going to quit
doing this to start working minimum wage, to
build my resume, to make six figures again, doing
something I don't like? Or not that I don't like,
but that I don't have a passion for it. It just
didn't make sense to me. So I was like, you know
what? I'm just going to bet on myself. and dive
all in on this and seeing my clients have success
in their transformations just filled my cup like
it didn't feel like work yeah yeah and what's
that saying um do something that you love so
you don't feel like you work a day in your life
And that's actually what you're doing. Interesting
enough, this is just a random thought. Do you
still work out now that you have all these gyms?
Yeah, no, I do. I mean, I will say that it's
just as hard for me as it is for every single
member to get their workout in. I mean, being
at the gym all day long, you know, even though
I'm in the back offices or working on the gyms
and stuff, it's still just as hard. There's a
million other things that I could do. And don't
get me wrong, I've been guilty of it. especially
with launching the franchise where all of a sudden
everyone's like, man, are you leaning out? And
I was like, no, I'm, I'm deteriorating, but I,
you know, I didn't tell anyone that, you know,
but it was that realization for my, even for
myself is you can get wrapped up in, you know,
building something or wrapped up in, let's say
a new relationship and put what's really important
on the back burner. And once I started, you know,
getting, putting, making it just as important
to work out for myself, I realized everything
else started falling in line because for me,
that was always my outlet. And so I took away
my outlet to build and it was, you know, every
little thing just seems like a bigger fire than
it was. Does this also come with products as
well? Or is it just, is it just. So, I mean,
we do have a meal plans, a meal plan software,
but you know, we have the merch and supplements
and, you know, body composition scans and heart
rate technologies and all the other little, you
know, bells and whistles as well. We really try
to keep. the the model of a whole encompassing
aspect of fitness not just hey get a great workout
you feel good you look good your clothes fit
better it's like no i want to know the numbers
i want you to know the numbers because if you
know the numbers and i know the numbers we can
adjust the program to make sure that you continue
to see results Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.