The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Top Trainer at Crunch from EMS to Qualified #109 SUF-CPT Coach Arthiur

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 2 • Episode 93

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From the high-intensity world of emergency medical services to the energizing realm of fitness, Arthur's journey is nothing short of inspirational. As a renowned personal trainer at Crunch, he sits down with us to recount the pivotal career shift that's had him swapping ambulances for dumbbells. Our chat traverses the landscape of his personal training certifications, his adept handling of the Crunch hiring process, and how he's sculpted both his career and clients with the precision of an artist. His story isn't just sweat and weights; it's a masterclass in salesmanship and client management that could rewrite anyone's fitness narrative.

Strap on your gym shoes for an insider's look at the muscle behind a thriving coaching team. I share my takeaways from the Show Up Fitness internship, reflecting on how extended client commitments weave stability into the fabric of a fitness regimen. We then spotlight Crunch Fitness's growth spurt, spotlighting the strategic plays in social media and industry partnerships that amplify our brand. Like crafting the perfect workout, expanding a fitness empire requires the right combination of grit, innovation, and collaboration.

Navigating the varied terrains of franchise and corporate gym operations, we dissect Crunch's unique vibe in North Carolina, and I get personal about juggling the hustle with health and heart. As trainers eye avenues for a diverse income, akin to savvy medical professionals, we cast our eyes towards international horizons and the cachet of brand-name experience. Our conversation wraps with a peek into the potential fusion of Show Up Fitness CPTs and Crunch gyms—a partnership pulsing with promise and driven by the collective force of industry passion.

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Personal Trainer Book (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Personal-Trainer-Successful/dp/B08WS992F8
Show Up Fitness Internship & CPT: https://online.showupfitness.com/pages/online-show-up?utm_term=show%20up%20fitness
NASM study guide: ...

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness podcast. We're great. Personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry. One qualified trainer in time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you wanna become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness podcast. We are here with the big Viking hunk, Arthur. He is a trainer at Crunch, Started at in October, now number three nationwide, and we're just gonna talk about the life of a trainer at Crunch, where he's at, how he got there, what's next, and just have a really cool conversation. So thank you for taking your time today. Bud, you probably have a break right now between clients, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, small break right now and appreciate you inviting me onto the podcast. Man, I'm excited. I've kept up with y'all since my internship and just love everything that y'all are doing, and I really appreciate the time that you have today too.

Speaker 1:

So it's great just how social media and technology allows for the connection, because we haven't been personally on a lot of one-on-one calls. I know that you did your CPT. You got that. You got hired. You keep me up to date with your background. You sent me an intro email. I remember that you were in the medical field before. I didn't know if it was like a nurse, or it was. You know you're an EMT and you decided to make a change and then came to show up. How'd you come across us?

Speaker 2:

Probably the same way majority of people come across you. I was taking the getting ready to take the Nassim test and looking for videos and anything online that I could find that would help me study for it, and came across y'all's page, watched a few of your videos, got a good sense from you and bought the study guide and then, once I found that to be so helpful, I decided I would come into the internship and learn as much as I could from you.

Speaker 1:

That's great. And so then you went through the hiring process at Crunch and you got hired pretty quickly. What does that process look like? If you're a call, I mean, it's only six months ago, but did you have a phone interview first? Did you have an in-person? What was that process like? And then we'll go through what it's like on a daily basis for you. Now. Doing that, you brought in over $20,000 in training revenue, so that's a cool expedited process right there. So where'd it go?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 29,000 today. 29,000 today. So broke the record this month for the previous record holder and then as a club we actually broke the record for March yesterday. So pretty cool there.

Speaker 2:

But how the onboarding or the hiring process starts is, of course, like send in a resume. We've got Indeed pages, we use JazzHR for most of our calling or reaching out to people who have a bot. So I've applied, send in my resume, and then a few days later I received a phone call from the personal training manager. Just a brief phone call like hey, what's your availability? What do you do right now for a living? When would you be okay coming in for a one-on-one? So we do one-on-one interviews. So you come in face-to-face with the PTM, sit down for about 30 minutes. The interview itself isn't very difficult, like there's not a lot of difficult questions. Mine was kind of interesting. It was more about I kind of just told him one who I was, why I wanted to be a personal trainer, if I knew anything about Crutch, and then it was more about them telling us what the culture was and what was expected. So it's a 100% commission base. So you wanna make sure that you're okay with being 100% commissioned. You do start out with a small salary of brown I'm not gonna say, but it's a small salary to start out for the first five weeks. So just understanding that when you're coming in you're not gonna be making a lot of money right away. So if you're okay with that, then we can proceed to the next part.

Speaker 2:

They do give us a script, so a lot of things that we do is scripted. I think that's something that helps new trainers out that don't have a lot of experience Coming in and talking to people or have much of us like sales experience. Kind of gives you something that basically you go home, memorize it and then you also get a case study. So Receive the pitch, the scripting and then a case study to take home with me and work on. If the first interview goes well, you basically come back about a week or so later for the second part, which is more practical, where you'll basically walk, walk the PTM or the APTM through the scripts and then Show them or email them your case study of a program for just a gen pop client and then we'll take you through like an assessment. Basically they want to see if you can coach through someone through like a squat pattern, a push pattern and a pull pattern, just those three movements. You'll do the first round as if you're instructing this gen pop client how to do these things like how to coach someone through these and then you'll challenge the PTM or APTM through it just to see if you can progress those exercises.

Speaker 2:

If that goes well, then Basically they'll come back up and talk to you about when to start, when the all morning starts, and what to expect with the new hire process. So it's pretty simple and straightforward. Right now we're trying to like streamline it a little bit more, so we want to. If you're coming in for a one-on-one interview, we'll basically Shoot you like a screenshot or an email of the scripts and the case study. That way, when you come in, you've already got that out of the way and we'll just go through the whole thing and one go. But in the past, or most recently, has been two interviews. Now we're trying to just do it in one big interview, pretty much see how it goes.

Speaker 1:

And I'm sure, as you move into more positions and move up that ladder, you're going to be exposed to a lot. I have my lens of 20 years of experience. But it was easy for you because you talked the part, you looked the part and you're confident in the programming aspect. Super easy, because that's what we test you on. But I'm sure you see a lot of trainers struggle with that initial interview because they don't know how to program.

Speaker 1:

You're given a case example. You got Linda the lawyer, and she wears high heels and she has overactive this, underactive this, like you have to speak that language and, as you know, it's not intimidating. So, okay, well, all right, let's take you through her workout and let's show you how to squat. And okay, they're gonna show compensation. She's going on her toes. Okay, well, try this out, try this. And they just want to see that confidence, because that's ultimately what you're working with. You're working with a population who is Able to afford training and they, they want a confident trainer and so they brought you on and you know, you just started getting rolling right away. And and now?

Speaker 1:

Number three overall in the company, not just three at your gym three overall in the company and maybe even number one overall.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so number three overall year today, number one overall month to date, and I've been the top coach at this facility the past three months in a row and it's just based on how much revenue are you making the company, but it's kind of just like a side effect of are you pushing yourself and helping as many people as you can. This is just the value and the revenue that you're bringing in with that. So Started out kind of slow, I'm still kind of got. You had to get used to it. But, um, man, I was here all the time. I took a lot of things that were from your book and I implemented them into my Daily routine.

Speaker 2:

Like it's, even if I didn't have clients that day, I was still showing up, taking the classes, talking to as many people as I could, get to know as many of the members as I could, and I started just training people for free. You know, I mean, there's nothing wrong with training people for free. I think that's something that they were trainers Don't take advantage of is Marketing for themselves. A big part of that is having people see you train people like how are you working with others? So I just started training anyone and everyone. Man, I was. I was training the front desk staff. One of my first clients was one of the front desk staff managers, so that was pretty cool. And then started training the house cleaning or the house cleaning staff, for free. I was, I was training everybody and a lot of the vet coaches were like Talking bad about it, like they're they're getting kind of pissed off that I was taking all these people through workouts, complaining about it on me. And now here I am, six months later, top coach.

Speaker 1:

So it's an important thing to really analyze because from the perspective perspective of the clients and the members now we don't give a shit up with other coaches, think, because you know, essentially it's it's kind of a dog eat dog world. You're out there to get as many opportunities as you can and members see a new person and go, okay, well, how long does no jackass going to make it? Because they're gonna come up to me and tell me, oh, have you had your kickoff or have you had your equal fit or whatever it is that we're doing? And they try to pitch training and there's no sincerity behind it. Versus a newer face comes in. They're like what the hell? They're always training, they're busy, what the heck? The clients having fun clients you know that client kind of looks like me and they're having a great conversation and the clients also get their ass kicked. That's what I need. And then it kind of through fruition, the stars online. The next thing you know the roles have changed and and now, how many sessions a week are you doing?

Speaker 2:

Oh, man, I am and I'm doing you. I think I'm doing 13 a day, six days a week. So whatever that is, it's a lot 1878 sessions.

Speaker 1:

that's a good amount per week, but the thing is you have to look at it as the career capital that you're building. So you're doing over 200 sessions a month.

Speaker 1:

If you were to continue that, for I use actually a podcast I do with Kyle Dobbs and he's a stud out of New York and he actually started out as crunches as well and he cranked out all these sessions. Now he's kind of like semi-retired because he's in the Midwest, st Louis, everything is remote. He has like five, six streams of revenue. He's a mentor for one of the instructors on show up and it's just so cool to see what the work ethic. You look the part, you talk the part. The sky is the limit. People bitch about all the time. Oh my God, it's so hard to make it as a trainer.

Speaker 1:

What did you? You left a career that was. You know, you're an EMT, you're working with people and, for whatever reason, you didn't want to continue down with that. You wanted to get into training and then you're there all the time and you're still passionate. You're not burnt out Now.

Speaker 1:

If you were to do this for 20 more years, yeah, you're probably going to burn out. You're betting on yourself right now, gaining that experience, learning so much where all these victim trainers? In my opinion, they're trying to specialize in some bullshit stupid certification that does nothing for their career. You had the foundation. You go out there, you train, you've learned so much and you probably have people you can ask questions to and you're learning from those around you, and the six months representation being number one, it's like the equivalent of a trainer who's been around for four or five years. So it's really neat to see that you're taking that timeframe. And, as I interviewed with Tony Gentlecore, in my book he said get into a gym, do that for three to five years. You're at the point, already going into management, that you've cut that into a third and who knows where you're going to be one year from now. So let's talk about some of those next steps. So what do you want to do next and where does your trajectory land you with crunch?

Speaker 2:

So the next part is assistant personal training manager, which could happen next week or next month. So just getting ready for that and they we have a district meeting on Thursday so hopefully we talk a little bit about what those transitions are going to look like. We're still opening up a lot of facilities so in the next, probably in the next year, I could be a personal training manager at one of these facilities in North Carolina and just really star over the next three years, have coaches that are qualified. You know, I mean we're trying to hire or we're trying to have about 30 coaches per facility and I would like for the majority of them to be qualified coaches. I mean I'm not trying to have people out here that don't know what they're doing or running around with their heads cut off, doing weird exercises and having clients deactivate right away. I want people that are going to sustain their clients for hopefully a year.

Speaker 2:

I mean right now we're I was just talking to my personal training manager before this month started and we're like why don't we just I know we're doing like three month agreements, but like what if we could start sending people up for a whole year and just buy all these sessions? So this month we've had a few few clients do that, which is awesome. So just kind of developing coaches and getting them as much experience as we can, but also sending them possibly to do a show up fitness internship and become more qualified and more confident. I think that's what helped me out the most is having that education through y'all, and I felt more confident whenever I was talking to people about personal training.

Speaker 1:

So I want to and I want to just dissect that real quickly, because people think how many times have we worked out together?

Speaker 2:

You and I zero.

Speaker 1:

How many times we met zero.

Speaker 1:

This is the first of zoom we've had and people have this fear over learning online. I just don't learn like that. It's different. It's like you know. This is almost like if I were to see you. It's like we've already hung out before and so you get to ask questions to instructors. You don't have some old dude who's out of his prime with telling you how to you know stretch just muscle, and it's not applicable to working with clients. Like the stuff that you learn in the program and a lot of it was on demand, so you're watching it after the fact because you know you have a fiance and you have a life and you're able to do this up at your leisure, but you can pick from it what you can see that would apply towards the need and working with that client.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So my big goals right now are those three things, you know managing a team that's wanting to be, to be better and do better, and have the top club in North Carolina.

Speaker 1:

I got a cool reach out the other day and follow us and I always will respond back like hey, you're doing great, Thanks for the follow. How'd you come across us and who was your co-worker?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. She was asking me a little bit about, like, who do I follow on Instagram and all this, and I was like, well, if you're looking for? Or she was asking if I knew of any Instagram pages that had like cool exercises or unique exercises. I was like, well, I heard of show up, fitness is where I did my internship. I showed them your page. I was like, oh, and they have like an apparel on too, you might want to check that out. And she was like, yeah, all that stuff looks really good. I was like, yeah, it does, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

And so I appreciate that and the serendipity of the online. We were able to get our partnership with Lifetime because the students set us up with managers, and I'm going to be out in Dallas next week talking to some big wigs at Equinox as we continue to get partnerships and grow the brand. Next up is going to be Crunch. We've had people go through Crunch and do well. Now you're going to have to start pulling those chains and do you know the history behind Crunch and where the ownership and everything kind of began?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was in Florida, I believe in 1989. And it was really like a group fitness culture, like that's what crunches. The bread and butter of crunch is group fitness and I don't recall when they started implementing more personal training or having that as a service, but I know that it's growing. Personal training and crunch is growing rapidly. I mean we're expanding clubs. We want 25 to 30 coaches in each club. Group fitness will always be a big aspect of it, which also gives you a lot of opportunity as a coach. I mean, take all the classes that you can and then as far as where they want to go, I mean they want to be nationwide and all that. So that's about the crunch history as I know.

Speaker 1:

You have to double check on. I'm trying to get the exact, but it was the. I believe it was the Mastroff brothers and they ended up being the owners, for part owners of the Kings, but they were one of the original founders of 24. And then they went to Crunch and then Crunch was formed, essentially very similar to how 24 built its empire. Crunch is following because of the owners and then switched over. So I mean, there's how many gyms are there?

Speaker 2:

Right now there's 85. We're opening up a new one here in Mecklenburg County. So that would be five in Mecklenburg County.

Speaker 1:

Unique thing about crunch is there's also like franchisees, like there's, some of them are corporate owned, some of them are franchise owned Cause I'll have students that will reach out and like, oh, I work at this one and it's 30 minute sessions. It's completely different. I'm like, oh, they're not all the same.

Speaker 2:

No, they're not. So the one that I'm at, the ones in North Carolina, are franchise, so it's a little bit different than corporate, but I like the franchise a lot more From what I've heard. I haven't been to one of the corporate locations, but I know that the franchise locations are just doing much better than corporate is right now.

Speaker 1:

And so all of your sessions that you render hour long 30 minutes or an hour?

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, but I do have some clients that would just stack their 30 minute sessions together and make it an hour.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, With those long days. What are some of those headaches? You know everything is in a. You know, simple as it seems, you seem like a very easy going dude and you got a great smile and you got. You're all jacked up. You look like a Viking. But you know, some days are probably harder than others. And how do you manage? You have a fiance. Now, what they say, that quote unquote work, life balance. Do you find yourself, you know, beat up after the week? Or how do you recharge yourself and what keeps you sane?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I still get my workouts in throughout the week. So that's a big part of my lifestyle and something that I need about every day. And then, as far as work life balance me and my fiance we basically our schedule sync up so we both work Tuesday through Sunday and we have Mondays off. So we'll spend the day on Mondays to do whatever we need to do around the apartment or work out together. That's one big thing that we do Go to our grocery, shopping and everything. And it's starting to get to the point now where I'm transitioning clients out to other coaches. I just I don't have any more space or time in the afternoons or in the mornings anymore, so I'm just having transitioning some of my later evening clients, so some of the newer coaches who are here all the time. So that's going to help out a lot. And then, yeah, just just having that support from my fiance is very important. I mean, she knows what I'm trying to do, she supports it and it goes a long way.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely does that compliment one another and your guys is going. I do see a lot of trainers fall down the trap of they'll allow for the quote unquote, long days to become a victim.

Speaker 1:

And next thing you know is you're a top trainer, but you're also overweight and you're losing your hair. You don't look like a trainer anymore, and so it's like it's so important to remember your foundation and we got in this to help people but at the same time, if you're not helping yourself and moving the needle for you whether if it's mentally, physically, financially, spiritually then you're going to hit rock bottom. And so you got to find that balance within reason and you're doing that. So I'm super proud of you at everything you're doing. Do you have any questions for me before we call our day?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean last I saw y'all were looking at expanding to London. Why London?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we are always. Any of everything's an opportunity. You know, I had a call earlier and some of the largest emerging markets in the world Malaysia, india and Brazil and we had a couple of students who are in India, one of our first CPT's over there, so chatting with them, just learning about the markets and wherever there's an opportunity I'm willing to go and so we originally had on my wall that I wanted to have the 60, 30, 10 split where trainers can generate the majority of their income coming from whether it's small group or in person or online.

Speaker 1:

But whatever that main thing that you enjoy, 60% of your revenue comes in 30%. A second stream 10% because, as you know a lot of trainers, they work 50, 60 hours a week and then they get burnt out, so then they go on vacation for two weeks. They don't get paid. It's a very, very toxic cycle. So if you have 60% of your revenue in one stream and you take a week off, you still have streams two and three that are still bringing in some revenue and you're not going to have this crazy dip.

Speaker 1:

As you know, in the medical industry, if you're working as an EMT, nurse, a doctor, your monthly income is fairly consistent. But with training you can have really big highs and really low lows, and we're not taught the business side of building those streams of revenue. And so one of the things I wanted to have is top trainers go out there and, as we fine tune the vision for show up, if you want to work at show up one of the mistakes I had in the past we would just take anyone and everyone, and so we were developing newer trainers and it was taking a lot of our time. Where why not have those trainers go out, get their feet wet in the trenches at corporate gyms like a crunch? A lifetime equinox and we just use lifetime equinox because they're recognized as the big four and they have the higher end training Nothing you know.

Speaker 1:

You have to go there, you just need to go. Gain at least a year of experience, just knowing how to work with people, the professionalism, little things like. Imagine if you were to show up five minutes late regularly to your clients they're not going to be working with you. If you put on 40 pounds, your clients aren't going to be working with you. If you don't know how to train and get them results, they're not going to be working with you. So you need to go out there and gain an experience. And so Megan. She went through our program three, four years ago and she went. Equinox became number one at Santa Monica. She came over and started teaching for us and she has her BHAG, which is big Hunkette and her case.

Speaker 2:

Audacious.

Speaker 1:

Gold. She wants to move to London and because London is like the halfway point for her family is out in Africa, and so if she's able to go over there, I said, well, hey, I remember she took me to quote unquote picture training. I quote unquote, picked my brain and so we went to the Huntley, which is a high end bar in Santa Monica. We were having a couple drinks and she's like I want you know, I'll potentially like to go to London. I remember I was talking to her and this is how I am. I'm just my mind is move fast, don't have fear and just do it. And I was looking at flights to London, like, while we're talking, like I love to go to London.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's just so strength, and if we're able to open up locations in different markets, that just shows that you know we're making a difference, getting the best trainers out there, we have the best certification, and I'm 100% biased, but I don't think there's anything out there that holds a candle to gaining experience and asking professionals how to program, how to build that confidence, whereas textbooks don't do that, and so we are in a sea of blue sea. Just the ability for growth is endless, and so she wants to go there and say, hey, let's, let's get you, let's open up a gym in London and we can optimize our locations here in San Diego and and also Santa Monica as we bring on more therapists and make it more medical based, because that's how we can really separate ourselves amongst the higher end gym so we can charge more, and so that's just going to allow for us to get into those markets and I think London will be a great one. Do you have some interest to go to London?

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't say no, but.

Speaker 1:

I like it. I like it. So I think, realistically we would get into a Texas market. Get into, because that would be like your halfway point to the East Coast and then, as those come to fruition and you fine tune each one to show case, to growth and you're able to scale, then you're able to open up a lot more than you know a couple of years. It's exciting because we're at that tipping point and we're almost beyond that, where you have the resources available that will cover free expenses, because the biggest not problem, but the visit, the big, yeah, the biggest expense is the overhead for the gyms and so if you have a stream of revenue that's covering it, then you're able to take those profits, put into marketing and and get in front of more people, and that's the best. Marketing is what you're doing talking to your co-workers saying, hey, here's a program, so now there's someone who's aware of show up fitness.

Speaker 1:

And you know I got to send her some leggings, I got to send you some stuff and we appreciate you taking time on your busy schedule and fitness in here. So just wanted to end out by saying thank you, proud of you and keep showing up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, Hopefully we can get some show up fitness CPT's in crunch. I'm working on it. Working on it. We've sent an email to our vice president about linking up with you. So if I see him on Thursday, I'm going to. I'm going to ask him about it. See what's up.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Let me know how I can help if you want to hop on a call. I love the chat. More strategy. I appreciate that. It's huge man, Thank you.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome. You're welcome. Well, thank y'all, thank y'all I hope we can get some more show up fitness interns and then get some CPT's from you know, so I'm going to.