The two Brain Summit is guaranteed to help you get bigger, better arms, right, Val ?
Yes, sir. So , side effects, .
I'm Mike working , and this is Run of Profitable. Jim , my guest today is Val Bates. He's the owner of 3D Fitness in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We met for the first time 20 22 2 Brain Summit Summit in Chicago. Vel was there to check it out. So what did he see that made him get a business mentor? You're going to find out today, and I hope that you will join us in Chicago on June 7th and eighth.
You can get your tickets via the link in the show notes. They are $300 off until January 31st. The next day they go up. So get them today. Don't put it off. Val , do you remember , uh, meeting in Chicago first ? We were having a drink at the bar, I think, and talking about , uh, Instagram and Biceps, if I'm not mistaken. Oh,
Yes, yes, yes. That is a core memory for me, man. I , I'll never forget that day. Lifechanging .
Yeah, I thought it was cool too. We had that social event. We hadn't done that in the summit for a bit, but we , there was actually to organize every year we taxed something on, and that was the first year that I think we had , uh, it was sponsored by a couple of vendors and there was some drinks at the bar afterwards and we up chatting.
It was a great time and I met a ton, a ton of awesome people that I've still stayed in connect in , uh, connection with. And you were , you were one of them . And the cool part about is you've been on this show before as one of our leaders in some , I think it was a sales leader at that point, which is really cool to see where your gym has been going.
So I'm gonna ask you a few things to help you help other gym owners out there through the summit. So why did you choose to come to the summit in 2022? You weren't a two brain client. Why did you come?
Yeah, so yeah, that's the thing. I wasn't a client, so I kind of felt like a , uh, you know, I was sticking out like a sore thumb. Uh , the day . Soon as I got there, people were immediately like, who are you? You've never seen me before, you know, . But , uh, but it wasn't in a bad way. It was very, you know, very welcoming.
But , uh, what got me to come was , uh, I was a part of the Gym Owners United group. Um, so I kind of was looking for, you know, like-minded individuals that are doing what I'm doing. It was very hard to find, you know, locally for me. So I just kind of hopped on Facebook and I ran into the group, subscribe to the emails, and started to get coop's emails, which was a big plus. You know, people see those emails.
So just finally feeling like, oh my gosh, like I have a place that I can kind of get information on how to navigate this storm, how to put this fire out. And then I seen the post about the summit. Um, that was a big thing for me. I've seen that. I'm like, wow, I've never known of anything. I still don't really know to this day of any other gym owners.
I mean , so it was nice to be like, okay, that's a massive community of people that are , uh, gym owners. So, you know, I'm, I'm new to this kind of just came in winging it, so why not just come check it out and see if I can meet some good people and collect some information and knowledge so I can be better at what I'm doing.
Yeah. And thank you for mentioning gym Owners United listeners. If you wanna go right now and join that group. Chris Cooper is posting stuff in there daily, free stuff that's gonna help you. He leads people through all sorts of activities and workshops. We have a ton of opportunity in there for you to learn.
And just like Val did , see what's going on, you'll gonna find announcement about two events and other things like that. So you're at the summit, you're seeing the speakers, you're kind of getting the feel of things. Why did you choose to sign up for mentorship after that?
Honestly, the, the welcoming community for one , um, it was an emotional connection right away. Like I said, a lot of people were welcoming Rich , uh, Borg Gotti, I'll never forget, you know , uh, he was a gym owner and , and within the group as well . And , um, he kind of introduced himself to me and kind of like showed me the ropes man . Yeah .
After that we were like, I was with him the entire time I was there alone. So he kind of was introducing me to everybody and it was just awesome to, you know, like I said, just be like, wow, like these people are doing what I'm doing. They're gym owners, they've been through this, they've hired employees, all these things. So , uh, after that it was , uh, talking with you , uh, talking with Chris.
And then last I got to talk with , uh, Peter, which is actually who's my mentor now. So , uh, still to this day, hey , still to this day. Yeah, I met Peter and we had a very good conversation. Uh, Peter was able to kind of just show me, you know, as someone who's owned a gym in the past, you know, how, what it feels like.
And we kind of just talked about some things and kind of told him where I was now , where , and you know, he kind of gave me like a , like a little interview. He kind of just , you know, gave me some tips and some advice right away. It was a no-brainer for me. It was like this guy just answered questions that I haven't been able to get answered anywhere.
You know, I don't wanna just go to Reddit or Google to ask these things . I wanted to ask someone who actually experienced. So , um, we talked about it and he told me, he's like, well, if you decide to sign up, but you should tell , mention my name and , and , and I'll see what happens, you know?
And , uh, I think I talked to you one more time before I left, and uh , I did, it took me like a week, you know, I really was hesitant, you know, not because of the value of the program, but just 'cause of my own, you know, limiting beliefs. And I really just had to tell myself, man, you really just were in an area where there's a lot of people who are much further than you are.
And it really showed me like that for being in this industry a lot higher. So I that I took that leap of faith, man . I said , I'm not going back. .
Yeah . And it's so interesting 'cause I remember back in the day when I was a very new gym owner, you'd meet people at like, it was fitness competitions back in the day, and you'd kinda start talking and you'd be , Hey, how many members do you have? And how do you solve this problem? Yeah , you actually, it was these incredible things.
You have these fitness events going on over there, and then the bleachers, you'd be solving all these gym problems, but it was just like random and it was one person here and there that you might have a connection with, but you really felt like the business got better because you realized you weren't in a vacuum.
Then later on, when Two Brain and other things existed like that, like gym Owners United, you could actually hang out with people. Now you can just ask a question and like 20 people will respond and 10 of them have hard data and say, don't do this because of this, or do this because of that. And then you've got the mentorship program where a mentor says, I did it.
I'm gonna tell you how to do it, do it like this, and then say, did you do it? You know? So that's kind of the cool evolution of this thing. Before we would've just bumped into each other fitness event and been like, Hey, how is it going, Val ? What's business like? Yeah , .
Exactly. Yeah. So it's exciting . There's no value.
So tell me this, like three to six months after you sign up for mentorship, after the summit, what happens to your business?
Oh , well, well first off , there's a lot of cleanup. You know , there's a lot of cleanup . I didn't have any like systems , so there was a lot of cleanup, but we immediately like kind of dove into, okay , hey, you don't have a system for this. You don't have a system for this.
I got right to work on those things that were , uh, you know, everything that was falling through the cracks, you know, not really having a funnel system set , not knowing how to run ads. So yeah, that first three to six months was definitely a lot of cleanup. It was hard work, you know, I will tell people that are wanting to join, don't get into it just .
You gotta , you're only gonna get what you put into it, you know what I mean? But after that, man, yeah, after that, once things were applied, once the knowledge was absorbed and filled up and then it started to be applied, we immediately seen a return , man. Um , the revenue went up. Um, highest loans we've ever had, you know, oh , we , we were, yeah, it was like just do , do , do , do from there.
Oh, that's awesome. As long as I kept applying the things that needed to be applied. So yeah, right away, right away you'll see a benefit. And like I tell , it's not even just financial. Like I don't want everybody to sign up just 'cause of the money. Also, again , having that confidence to deal with the fires and, and be able to navigate the waves of everything going on alone was a huge return event .
Yeah, and it's funny because you mentioned not having sales , uh, funnels and , and systems and so forth, and then when I spoke to you last on this show, you were here because you made one of our sales leaderboards. That's pretty cool.
Yeah. Yep , yep , yep . Leads. Yep . It was for about the leads.
Yeah, I love it. I thought that was super cool to , to see that and how you built stuff in a short period and then got results out of it today. So you've been around for a while now. What's happening in your business today as a result of mentorship? Why are you still here? Mm-hmm
. Still here because I , I feel like , like I said , even when you get to a point where it's kind of like having a trainer, you know, I have a lot of clients that I've had and they technically are , have gotten their results, but now they kind of want that accountability.
I'm still at that point where obviously being at the highest point in business, I don't have anybody to light a fire under me and be like, Hey, you need to get this done. You know, Peter does that for me. Peter knows he can talk to me , uh, not , I won't say aggressively, but he can get on me and say, Hey, bill , like, I don't know man, you said that three months ago.
Because if I don't have that, you know, with me juggling so much , um, I can kind of like get distracted. Shiny object syndrome happens a lot with gym owners. Um, you know, or you just get stuck procrastinating or you just kind of get stuck putting out a lot of small fires and still having that, that , uh, that mentor having Peter to be able to be like, Hey, bill , you just kind of va back over here .
And it's like, ah , okay, yep , you're right. I , I've been focused on , on this been way too busy, but not productive, you know?
So I still, I feel like right now it is helping me navigate a lot of the storms, you know, have some new storms come up and , um, to be able to have someone to go to still to this day, hey , hey man, I got , I don't know , I'm dealing with this, what what we think is the best thing based upon this . So yeah, it's, it's still very valuable to have, still valuable to this day .
Have you seen Chris Cooper talk about the thing, the one skill that makes, that sets the apart , the top 12.5, sorry , top 12.5% of gym owners and two Brain , have you heard 'em talk about that
Focus? Right? Yeah,
You got it. It's exactly that that focus, you know, it like literally Chris went into our data and said, why are these gym owners, these top gym owners, why are they further ahead than anybody else? They have access to the same resources, the same stuff. They can come to the same summit, they can, you know, all that stuff. What is it? And it's focus .
And it's like, that's what the mentor provides because you and I are the same. Everybody's like, oh, I'm gonna try this. I wanna try that, or I forget to keep doing this. And the mentor says, Hey, did you do that thing? Like, do you have an example? What's something Peter told you, like recently? He's like, did you get that thing done? Yes.
Literally for one, like blog posting, you know, it's one of those things that I , you know, I , I didn't stay on, I just posted a block 20 minutes before I jumped on this podcast. Nice. Because me and Peter's call was last week, and he said, put it on the calendar. Right? And I just posted it and I sent it to him too, so he could see it. It held me accountable. Yeah. But like, that was one thing too.
And also just telling me to just remember to focus on the boring things too , right ? Just last December we had our , uh, it was like our fourth highest month of the year, and December is usually our slow month. But because I didn't look at it as, oh , it's a slow month, I kind of shifted that paradigm.
I did some small things and like, I mean like front end revenues towards, you know, 2000 plus dollars just in the last couple of weeks in December because of having a mentor to say, Hey, just do this. And it was literally me creating a package and sending out a mass email that took, what, five minutes, 10 minutes. But if I would've been caught up over here doing all these other things, that would've never happened.
So perfect example is that Yeah, for sure.
Oh, that's, that's a brilliant one where it's just, and we all know like if you send an email to your newsletter, you'll probably sell something, but we all just like, no , we didn't , didn't do that today. But if someone says, did you do it? Then you did it, you know, and you mean right ?
By getting , yeah, because you get a amount of stuff like that. It's like, oh, well, you know, I might send a message 1300 people and maybe only two will apply . Yeah. But if those two people close , which is what happened, three people responded and closed immediately on, on front end upfront packages, it was worth the 10 minutes. Right.
You know, so that's another benefit of having a mentor to remind you like, Hey, sometimes it's not the big things you need to take . Sometimes the small little things, sending mass emails, check it up on old clients. That'll get you.
When Chris was running his gym, he told me that he actually, he had a number, he knew how much money he made every time he sent an email. And yet sometimes we all just don't do it because we forget, you know? So that's the value of just like those day-to-day things, but also big picture stuff where it's like, how do I solve a staffing problem? How do I hire, how do I change my business model?
How do I serve more people better, faster? Like all those different things. All the value of all that stuff. Now I'm gonna play it in the background. I'm gonna share a screen and play a quick video on the summit. Uh, I'm gonna do it with a sound off . Would you mind just explaining to gym owners why they should come to the Tru Brainin Summit 2025?
I'm gonna put this video on if , if you don't mind, you're gonna give the narration and , uh, away we go here.
Yes, yes. Number one reason you should come to the summit is because of the mindset. Um , I think that a lot of us have a limiting belief on what you can be as a homeowner .
And when you , um, get yourself around a massive group of people, the probably the largest group of people you'll ever , ever be able to be around that are gym owners that are doing what you are doing that is going to show you like, wow, like this is a massive community. All of these people took this leap of faith and, and look at how it changed their entire life.
You know, my life has changed tremendously with , with going through the summit . And had I not done that, I wouldn't have the knowledge that I have , the experience that I have, and the freedom that I have as well as a gym owner to be able to do what I'm doing . And the biggest thing is if you want to impact more people, why not go around more people who has impacted more people ?
It just all adds up, you know? So yeah, I highly encourage people to go. Um, it'll change your paradigm. It really show you that you're huge waves in the world.
I love it, and I hope to see there . I know you got some stuff going on, but I hope you can make it. Anyways. I would love to hang out with you again, and I can't wait to see you back on the show for a leaderboard episode. Thanks so much for being here today . Amen . I appreciate
It. Nah , thank you, Mike. Anytime , man. My pleasure. All
Right . That was Vel Bates . This is Run of Profitable. Jim , if you'd like to use the Two Brain Summit to transform your business, you can get tickets via the link in the show notes. And again, the discount ends February 1st. Make sure you get on that right now. Thanks for listening. Please hit subscribe on your way out. And now here is Chris Cooper Way , final message.
Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness. Every day I answer questions, I run free webinars, and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym.
I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.