Jim Cavale was a baseball player from New York.
Little did he know that his love of baseball would lead to him becoming an entrepreneur.
It all started when he began to broadcast games for his college.
Not wanting to pay his dues earning $20,000 a year until he "broke through," he leveraged his network to launch a sports business for high school athletes.
He was working out at Iron Tribe Fitness where he met the founder, Forrest Walden, and it has been a natural fit for the two to work together ever since.
Their efforts paid off when they were named the Ultimate Marketer of the Year in 2012 at Infusionsoft's annual conference, Infusioncon or the "Infusionsoft ICON Event."
Rubber-Meets-The-Road Tip
- Find a good mentor.
- Jim was always a leader in his other partnerships but Forrest is a little older and was a good fit for Jim’s weaknesses and vice versa so Iron Tribe Fitness has worked.
- Forrest had experience in being a franchisee and their third partner is a franchise owner.
- All of their franchise locations do the same thing from warmup to cool down including offering the same products.
- Marketing is key. “Let’s educate the prospect via sales in print so the stigma of the intense workout is gone and they are already sold.”
- Multi-media, multi-touch
- Mostly automated but triggers the personal touch
- Can’t automate conversations and hand-written letters
- “The bay door” is the staff-user interface and it is their custom software for billing and POS and collaboration
- The Perfect Athlete Lifecycle (even the 73-year-old).
- Step 1 to Step 2 to Consult to Athlete to non-athlete.
- Attention to detail is key.
- They get down to the nitty-gritty on how their staff answers the phone, how to greet a prospect, etc. and his staff is asking for more of that.
- It has never been hard for them to think high level but then get down into the weeds to create the systems.
- But that can be a disadvantage if they don't learn to let go.
- Now they have a staff they have to trust and delegate so they can stay high level and big picture.
- Having a great staff is key so they have an “intense” onboarding program.
- IronTribeFitness.com/jobs
- Introspective and challenging and lengthy.
- Personality and purpose.
- Granular with their development process.
- Myers Briggs and Kolby and a values vetting test.
- Hire slow and fire fast.
- Video interviews.
- Always seeking to improve their marketing is key.
- Direct mail and print worked well the first few years but they have to innovate and update it. They are growing with their social and digital.
- If he gets 3 people out of 20,000 to sign up the ROI is still there. (Direct mail.)
- Social, AdWords, Retargeting, leveraging client testimonials on video.
- <Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Give, give, give, then ask for the sale.
- People buy fitness but stay for the community.
- What one thing would you do differently?
- Been a bigger stickler on hiring and training and development.
- More time, energy, and investment in his people.
- Final words: Failure is only a means to success.
- The component that is left out is the people you are around are just as important on your journey.
- Find older mentors that have failed and that can encourage you with a healthy, sober perspective.
Links Mentioned
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.