Today we’d like to introduce you to Ray Lynch.
Ray, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started lifting weights at 10 years old – I was overweight and self-conscious about how I looked. But my love for the gym blossomed the following year when I competed for the first time. I lost to a 17-year-old while I was 11… Unacceptable to my brain Haha. I immediately started to only care about getting stronger. Also, in that same year, I would be diagnosed with Mitral Valve Prolapse – a heart condition made worse by straining and activities that can raise your blood pressure. I was basically advised against the only sport I loved doing, but I didn’t stop. I broke a teenage world record deadlift at 15 years old and two more at 17 years old. Soon after that, I had an injury that kept me out of heavy lifting until I was 22 or so. I was told I’ve never been lifting heavy again by a handful of “experts.” In the meantime, I became a personal trainer and was able to share my passion for strength training with the general public. Also, in that time frame, I went on a mission trip to Haiti for assistance with cleaning up from a huge earthquake that left the island turned upside down. That’s when I learn about the “Compassion” organization. It’s only $38/month to sponsor a child, and that gets them three meals a day and schooling. I immediately developed a heart for Haiti… That’s important later.
Meanwhile, my personal training career was gaining some momentum – I became a strength coach at a professional athletic training facility and attended the Florida College of Natural Health to obtain a medical license in massage therapy. At this point, I had stopped fighting (I did MMA in place of heavy lifting) and tried the weights again. I focused a lot on recovering myself and learned a lot about physical therapy… I was able to lift again! I started competing again and, within a year, had taken a junior national record and had gotten back up to competing at the national level. My problem was that I didn’t have the model that created flexibility for the charity work I wanted to do alongside the lifestyle I’d need to compete. At that realization, I began planning how I’d open a gym. The rest is the standard entrepreneur story, I suppose Haha. I got my butt handed to me for the first three years – I was living off of $17.37 a week for food. Then in my fourth year of business, we had a consistent lease and doubled our size and profit. The fifth-year was Covid. We had our lease until the dead middle of everything, then it ended. Being a gym, nobody would touch us for a lease. I went through twenty-six lease applications inside of a year, only to be denied every time because we were a gym.
Being paralyzed in one area means you must grow in another direction. I paid $22,000 in business consulting in order to develop an online business and the tools to scale a brick-and-mortar so that we’d be equipped to handle anything no matter what happened next. I had to go back and live with my parents at 29 years old to accomplish paying that consulting off. As God would have it, we found a business selling that included a unicorn of a lease. We moved on it and have been killing it. Our gym sponsors thirty-six children via the Compassion Organization today, and we’ve hosted nineteen separate charities for locals in need. We also have a network of 15 online coaches, so there’s no ceiling we’ve hit growth-wise. We also own a podcast called “Redefine Strength” that’s cobranded with the gym as a message that strength can look many different ways.
And that’s a snapshot of the story!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh man…. no. I outlined some of the major struggles in business in the story. Personally, I had a relative go through alcoholism recovery and multiple close deaths in the family, I was literally poor. Like not in a taxable bracket poor. I left the girl I thought I was going to marry and suffered three major training injuries while trying to still compete through all of this. I had a potential business partner back out of a deal after I had already put all the money down. I lost all my money literally and had to move an entire gym into and out of a location within two weeks while looking for another commercial location. That really hurt the business. I was used to 2200 square feet… I was forced into an 850-square-foot unit after that. It’s all I could “afford,” although it still kept me broke for 6 months in order to recover from that financial hit. Many conversations with friends who told me I wasn’t around anymore etc… Plenty of struggles.
As you know, we’re big fans of Backbone Barbell LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a high-end coaching service at a price the general public can afford. I see the main problem (in fitness) being that the best marketers make the most money… Not the best coaches. A big part of that solution would be the educated fitness consumer – we attempt to be a part of that solution by teaching Current and Tangible practices based on an intimate knowledge of the human body.
We are mainly known for strength training, performance-based training, and powerlifting. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with many pro athletes, most prominent probably being Tim Tebow and other professionals. I still work with Matthew Lewis – Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter franchise – to this day. They are enthusiastic about the message we bring to the table of picking up your fellow man and, of course, the quality coaching. I want them to know only two things – and in this order. First, you can sponsor a child in a third-world country for $38 a month for three meals a day and schooling. Second, come to us if you want to actually make a difference in your fitness goals or attain more performance without the pain factor of training.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
It’s going to be harder than you think. You can never have enough access to capital – not capital itself. Read that last sentence again… If you don’t have strong ethics as a person, you will fail or become someone you likely wouldn’t want to be. You’re going from 1 boss to many bosses. Love on people. Don’t think social media is good to lead generation – it’s not because it won’t convert to sales at the rate you need to maintain a real business. Learn marketing – which includes branding, copy, text vs. call vs. in-person scripts (which differ greatly depending on the product type), sales funnels, which ads grab eyes, what offers are king, etc. I wish I knew how important learning new habits was going to be as a skill to employ.
Pricing:
- From $167-$397 for plans plus the gym membership
Contact Info:
- Website: https://backbonebarbell.com/
- Instagram: @ray_198_powerlifter
Image Credits
Claire Gibbs
Rob Gibbs
