Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan McGrael.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hello everyone, my name is Jonathan McGrael, Face man, front, man, man about town for the World-Famous Kissimmee Muscle 24-hour gym. Most that know me know only the most recent period of my career since I have been running my business, Kissimmee Muscle Gym. Before I was here, I was a Bio-Tech executive living what most would call, the American Dream, retired in my 40’s a real success story, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
I grew up in a normal family of average income in what really amounts to a mining camp in rural South-East Missouri. I was smart in school but rarely applied myself in those years. I was a chubby kid and felt as though I was picked on but, in retrospect I probably was just overly sensitive. I lived for baseball, then BMX racing and BMX freestyle and later on I found the weight room and competitive bodybuilding which forever changed my life.
I suppose one of the most dramatic changes in me came from my time spent at Main Street Gym, my first real old-school bodybuilding gym experience. There were several great athletes that trained there and as I read everything I could get my hands on about bodybuilding and began responding well to the new training stimulus, still I was completely ignored by the “real” bodybuilders in the gym. I focused my energies on passing up the one closest to me and with my new goal and direction, I really began growing to a degree such that others in the gym started talking about me. This was a step in the right direction at least but they still wouldn’t talk to me. Even at that time I began the process of building my personal brand though brand building was new to me. As I continued progressing and surpassed one after another of the athletes in our small gym and my brand awareness grew, I finally joined the conversation and ultimately became training partners and life-long friends with most of the athletes there. This success building my personal brand, built confidence.
In college, I wrote my own degree program, pulled together a group of faculty advisors and gained approval for an individualized Bachelor of Science major called “Human Bio-Dynamics” and based in the Bio-Medical Sciences department. To do so required specific purpose and ultimately became my first attempt at building a believable and actionable strategy. I learned about zeroing in on a handful of specific items and positioning the plan to the seasoned faculty team in order to gain approval. Once in place, fulfilling the necessary requirements became almost mechanistic and made completion with honors faster and less expensive. All of this came to fruition because of a well-conceived strategy that directed my behavior to the specific goal.
Because of my performance, image and exposure to the faculty I was recruited to be among the first graduates in the newly created HPER department Master of Science program. I was appointed to the position of graduate assistant, entrusted with the responsibility of direction the efforts of more than 425 undergraduate students as a Graduate Assistant Professor as I tackled my own graduate degree program. I secured my own paid internship with the Department of Justice and was the first in the program to graduate with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
I landed my first professional sales role in the big leagues of selling, the pharmaceutical industry, only a couple of months after completing graduate school. I took over one of the worst performing territories in the company moving it from the bottom 1% of sales territories to the top 2% and secured roles of District Sales Trainer, Certified Field Expert and Certified Computer Applications trainer enroute to being formally promoted to a Regional Sales Trainer position where I found my wings and discovered my talent for helping others to also achieve great sales success. My time teaching adult learners while applying adult learning theory was instrumental in my success as a Sales Trainer.
I was promoted to a District Sales Manager position in under 5 years in the industry which is considerably ahead of normal timing. There I achieved President’s Club success (top 10% of the company) and earned all the necessary criteria to be promoted within position to a Senior District Sales Manage position which is typically a 5-year process. I accomplished all that was required in my first year.
Another sales management promotion placed me in charge of a specialty team of the most decorated and heralded sales reps in the region and lead quickly to another promotion, this time to the home office for a marketing role where I began learning big brand marketing from some of the finest brand directors in the industry. Having had the opportunity to grow up in the brand team under talented leaders earning their credentials from the prestigious halls of learning like Northwestern University, Harvard and Chicago schools of business gave me a firm grounding in the process of allocating resources to drive brand success and build actionable strategy. After one full year on the team, I earned the most prestigious award in the marketing organization, the “Pioneer of the Year” award of which only one of 250 brand team members per year are awarded.
I stepped out into the world of start-up pharmaceuticals to learn what it really means to be an entrepreneur after 10 full years learning from the best and brightest in the industry. In start-up I learned the importance of speed of execution, alignment of the two most scarce resources, money and time, and I coined the phrase “Every Day is Monday” highlighting the sense of urgency necessary to become successful in this space. I learned from brilliant business builders here and learned how to scale the organization all while holding on tight on that white knuckle ride that is the start-up world stacking up revenue at every turn.
In the start-up world I had the opportunity to rebrand and reposition 22 completely different assets that were low level producers for the companies from which we acquired them. Because of the sheer number of assets I had the opportunity to work with, my process became largely plug-and-play regardless of the disease state category, specialty or stage of development the brand was currently existing. I learned that these assets and markets, while radically different, shared a common set of opportunities that transferred across many differing lines. The work I have done with the World-Famous Kissimmee Muscle gym the last decade showed me these same principles and methods transcend across brands in nearly any space or market and they will drive results in most businesses no matter the category or stage of development.
These tested principles apply regardless of organizational size or revenue level. They are universal from single person service brands like personal trainer or prep coach, to large-scale commercial entities.
In 2017 I was at a reflection point in my life. I was living in my dream home in an exclusive gated community in the suburbs of Denver, running a Bio-Tech company as the Vice President of Commercial operations where literally every meaningful decision for our brands came across my desk. I had built my dream team around me filled with talented professionals that, like me, were driven to seek more.
I had a second home in Celebration, FL, the Disney community and I was living the ‘American Dream” quote/un-quote in the eyes of the world. I realized that calling myself an entrepreneur as I cashed my cushy paycheck from the true entrepreneurs who stepped out to build their dream businesses was a far cry from building my dream business from nothing. I believed that all I had learned in the last 2 decades of brand building would translate to success no matter the industry or product. I took a deep breath and I quit my “dream job” before securing my own brand to sink my teeth into. I knew that all I needed was an asset that was on market and failing or “break even” and I was confident I could use the principles and behaviors I used to build in the pharmaceutical and bio-tech space to create something that really means something to people in this completely different area of the fitness industry. I knew I could build something brilliant and I know with the proper direction you can too!
I spent 20 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech sales and marketing space. Working my way up from entry-level sales representative to Vice President of Commercial Operations, running all sales, marketing, managed markets, trade relations, medical, and product development teams. I managed large-scale projects, budgets as hefty as $10 million annually, and sales teams as large as 124 sales representatives and 14 sales managers. I was fortunate to learn how to make intelligent investments into businesses in big pharmaceutical companies (Abbott Labs) and the start-up side of things. I learned a ton from the talented people in the industry that I could tap into.
On the start-up side, I learned how to do more with less and focus on a micro-market strategy. I learned to narrow the focus to only a handful of things where the company and brand can win, and through this “micro market focus,” I learned to play big where we play, or at least look like we were playing big, and to not even try to play in most other areas. I also learned the value of acquiring a failing on-market asset and fixing it from the start-up. Across businesses, there are failing assets with simple fixes that can make them prosperous again.
Over the course of ten years, I learned how to identify what was wrong and fix bleeding assets through a couple dozen such acquisitions. Most required a rebranding and repositioning as well as renewed energy to get them back on track to be successful, and I believe that by doing 5% more with 30% less spending, most of these assets stand a chance of success again.
The other piece I learned in a start-up was an unrelenting, ridiculous work ethic. You can’t put a price on hard work, and hard work covers a multitude of mistakes.
My perspective and much of our success at the World-Famous Kissimmee Muscle Gym comes from the road warrior level of travel that came with my 20 years in the Pharma industry. I spent 4-5 days on the road, often staying in 4 or 5 hotels in different cities each week. There were many nights I awoke, not knowing where I was. Each of these trips included me looking for a gym to train in, as I was still a national-level competitive athlete then.
Arrive in town, work 10-12 hours, find food, find a gym, sleep a bit, and repeat. During this time, I probably trained in 500 different gyms nationwide. About ten of those gyms inspired me due to their energy and equipment, and I traveled a great distance to make it back to those truly special gyms. I developed a deep empathy for those traveling for business and pleasure during this time. Having access to a suitable facility often meant the difference in a successful and pleasurable trip for me.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In March of 2017, I was working from my house in Celebration, where I spent about a third of my work time running a Bio-Tech company out of Denver, where my primary residence was located. I had become disenchanted with the industry because I didn’t feel like we were advancing science, just raising prices and selling differences between products that were theoretically there but had little impact on actual patient outcomes. I was good at my job, but I knew I needed a change.
I wasn’t prepared for what came out of my mouth that day. I just quit my high-paying, prestigious career without a plan for what was to come next. After the call, I was oddly calm as I set in motion a plan to sell most of my possessions to fund my first truly entrepreneurial endeavor. Sold the Denver house fairly quickly and several cars and began looking for an on-market asset that was failing. I found the little neighborhood gym that has now become the World-Famous Kissimmee Muscle gym and the rest, as they say is history.
I stopped by the business that was the predecessor to Kissimmee Muscle Gym in late 2015, and it was a horrible place. It was too much to fix even to consider it salvageable. I had all but ruled it out as an option when I physically stopped by and looked around in June of 2017. To my surprise, a new owner had begun to revive the business and it was sort-of breakeven though at a very low revenue level. We spoke for a while, and I decided to do due diligence to determine if an acquisition made sense for the owner and me. Ultimately on July 1, 2017, I acquired the asset.
I knew this build would involve a complete rebrand and change in strategy, equipment, and environment. I knew the path and what consistent messaging and application of sound branding principles could do to rekindle the asset. By year-end, I was convinced that the business would only make it if we viewed ourselves as something bigger than a neighborhood gym. You see, Kissimmee Muscle Gym is a travel and tourism company and an area destination and attraction at its core far more than it is a neighborhood gym. I knew travelers were an underserved market, and I had the empathy and perspective to help them check this important piece of their travel off their list. Looking back, it all seems worthwhile because we have seen significant success. I knew in the beginning just how much work this would be to create something really meaningful in a sea of mediocrity. I also knew it would be worth every effort we invested. Your brand can build the same way and I understand the impact of self-doubt when you are just beginning. I heard those same concerns inside my head as well.
I may not have taken this on if I had not had the past successes that built my confidence because I knew, like you know, just how difficult doing this would be if you were doing it alone. There are far too many ways to fail at this and that’s why you need a proven system to help you organize your thoughts and effort in order to cut literally years off your time to success.
To this point, I have said “we” quite a bit, but “we” was just me for a significant part of the first year. In my first week, I worked 113 hours in the gym; in the second, I worked 127 and maintained that pace for 458 days without an afternoon off. In the second year, my sister and my mother joined me in working to build the business. One of the greatest benefits of this business has been getting to know my family on a level that family members rarely get an opportunity to experience. I know my family as brilliant business people, and I did not know that before this business. My sister Mary is a year older than me, and my mother has worked with us here through her 82nd year. Our local members and traveling guests love them both.
When the shutdowns came in 2020, we had some difficult decisions. I had just sold my Celebration home to fund an expansion completed in December of 2019, and I found myself not being a homeowner for the first time in two decades. Up to this point, all my savings, earnings, and sweat equity were invested straight into the business. I sold my home to free up the equity for operating capital and further investment. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, right up to the point where they have to sell their home to make the dream a reality.
As the Covid shutdowns came we closed for our first two days the weekend after gyms were shuttered. The absence of our business serving our guests felt far too weird to continue. On the following Monday, my sister Mary and I decided that if we were going to go down because of this, we were going down big, so we began to invest. I began buying, selling and trading equipment as the local equipment market heated up. We also undertook renovation projects and we remodeled our locker rooms. We timed our investments and activity perfectly as the paint was nearly dry on the day we were allowed to reopen.
We didn’t know what to expect of the market once we reopened, and we were blessed beyond our wildest imagination. Beginning in 2020 and continuing through present day, because of Florida’s wise approach to reopening, multiple events and more people than ever made their way to our state. We pivoted to hosting major events and remained brand focused by caring for those traveling for the events themselves. We have now been the home of the top professional bodybuilding competition in the world, Mr. Olympia, for three years and the top amateur competition in the world, NPC National Championships, for three years. We were home to Teen, Collegiate, and Masters Nationals in 2020, and the Klash series is now 6 years running.
Aside from the competitions, our focus on three areas has set us apart. We have hand-picked, we call it to hand curated, our equipment from the best lines of equipment ever made, of which most come from the 1980s and 1990s (there is an entire another story of why this is).
We’ve assembled it in an environment where the positive energy helps to push everyone who trains with us. This environment is built on a solid foundation of discipline and respect, which have gone from commercial fitness centers today. We demand more from our members and traveling guests; they require more from themselves.
We have also made colossal industry-first strides in access by creating the world’s first and only online instant access portal where traveling guests can set up a membership and access the gym 24/7.
Because of the factors above and our ability to capitalize on some key breaks in the market. We have seen more than 500,000 traveling guests from more than 126 countries and counting as well as all 50 US states all in our first 5 years in business. These statistics squarely land us the title of “America’s Destination Gym” and the moniker “where the world comes to train.”
We have not stopped there as we continue to pull in more rare and different pieces of equipment, which we showcase through our “Weight Room Archaeology” segments, and we continue to reach a broader group of traveling guests. In 2022 we began taking the show on the road to physically go out and meet our traveling guests before they decide to train with us. Each encounter begins with a great conversation about where the person currently trains. Because of my broad frame of reference training in gyms across the country, we almost always find some familiar common ground. Since 2022 we have been out to train in and meet with owners and members of 100 gyms, and we have additional tour trips planned throughout the remainder of this year and through next.
As for our local members, our tribe is the best. They not only value our changes in improving and upgrading our facility, but they genuinely value interactions with our traveling tribe, where they are welcomed selflessly. From a local standpoint, no statement rings more accurate: If people travel from all over the world to train here, isn’t it worth your drive across town?
Beyond what’s contained in the first narrative, in our second year in business, a new gym attempted to do the same things that made us successful, and they decided to set up shop 1.5 miles away from our front door. Even before their opening, they began to take potshots at us and attempt to goad us into online negativity. We refused to even engage them, rather we decided to show them through execution of our brand plan, that they are not welcome in our world.
From the beginning, we knew we had far too much to accomplish, just trying to continue doing what we do well, to send any energy their way, so we stayed in our lane and served our customers.
The strategy to rise above our new competitor was simple. Make the price they have to pay to win a customer too high for them to mentally continue to pay it. This strategy, once fully conceived and put into motion made tactical decisions on how to support the strategy relatively easy. One lesson I learned as the sole funding source and person accountable for all budgetary decisions was that sometimes you need to spend more than your comfort level supports. I spent my commercial career wearing a badge of fiscal responsibility to the point of perhaps too much frugality. I learned quickly when the spend was my own money that sometimes you spend beyond what is comfortable to begin winning little battles that ultimately win you the war.
I purchased the billboard across the street from the front door of this new entrant into our world and managed to also purchase the URL for their website which I promptly pointed to our website. I knew that while this spend was higher than I was comfortable with, it ensured one thing for certain. Every dollar that this new competitor spent to try and move people away from Kissimmee Muscle, if effective, would lead people squarely to my billboard.
One additional unanticipated consequence of having such a prominent display ad for the gym was that it legitimized the business in the eyes of both locals who had a general impression of the business before I took over and for travelers who were accustomed to seeing their travel plans displayed in this manner around town. For these reasons, the specific tactic of advertising on the billboard across the street from my competitor was on strategy for three of our core strategies. As an aside, my billboard sold to a new investor group and I lost my space just days before I learned the competitor gym had ceased operations. For the specific strategy which I invested in it was no longer one of our core strategies.
Their new business folded within two years; they didn’t make it through the shutdowns. In spite of the negativity spewed by owners and members we remained on the higher ground and maintained true to our brand position. We welcomed their members into our tribe to train after they closed. In retrospect, I’m not sure if we would have done this again knowing what we know today.
The base of members that came over did not exhibit the strong core values or work ethic it takes to thrive in our environment. In short order, all but a handful moved on down the road. We believe the negative culture that resulted from an unchecked membership group was much of the reason for the failure of their business. We talk about culture daily at the world-famous Kissimmee Muscle gym, which is so important. We actively manage culture, and for those unable to operate within the norms of this group, we ask them to adapt or choose another option for where they train. We will not trade good members for bad or forgo a difficult cultural conversation when behaviors negatively impact the broader group. We have built a disciplined, ethical, committed, and brand-loyal tribe by maintaining this standard.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I love this question! This is one of those areas in brand building and in business that is often discussed and so rarely well executed. We are talking about STRATEGY and then the TACTICS that are used to support the strategy.
First, it’s important for us to have a shared understanding of what strategy means. The word strategy is thrown around so often in business and by failing to first define what it means you almost certainly fail in execution. The simplest working definition of strategy I have heard is this: “how we will win”. By understanding this, everything else becomes clear quickly. The saying goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do”. We all need a clear path forward! Strategy when well-conceived, guides your decisions of where, when and how much you invest.
Strategy examples will vary depending on your unique situation, brand and market dynamics. Think of these as specific, long-term, over-arching plans.
Some specific examples are:
1. We will become the lowest cost provider in the space which we play in. We will focus efforts squarely on cost reduction across the board to support the strategy.
2. We will drive growth through the launch of new products to our already loyal group of customers.
3. We will demonstrate the value of our differentiated brand showcasing the elements which set us apart from our competitors and warranting our higher price point.
From the specific strategies listed above you can simply measure your opportunities against the strategies and ask yourself if this particular tactic is on or off strategy. Example, running a sale for existing products would be off strategy for the third strategy. It does not support the strategy.
Now that we have a shared definition of “strategy” let’s make sure we have a clear picture of what “tactics” are related to your brand. The tactics are the specific things we do to align with and support our clearly defined strategies. A tactic is a specific action that you undertake to achieve a specific and measurable outcome. Where a personal strategy may be “to improve one’s health” the specific tactic undertaken to do so may be “exercising for 30 minutes each day”.
If we are intellectually honest, most businesses operate using a completely reactionary model. They introduce some energy into the space, some tactics generally not related to an overall core strategy, and then follow the responses. Regardless of what happens, they introduce some more energy, often in a completely different direction, and then wait for something to happen. With this approach there is no synergy, nothing builds because the energy is non-linear and random. There is no cumulative effect from random.
You must first crystalize your focus. Early on we narrowed where we thought the World- Famous Kissimmee Muscle 24-hour gym could be successful to only a handful of areas. Once we decided what might work, we tested it. We messaged and positioned in these areas and were consistent with it over a long enough period of time to learn from what we measured. Based on the learnings from our testing, we knew where we needed to win and from that flowed what we needed to message on and where resources should be allocated. The two resources most scarce for nearly all businesses are, money and time. Because of this you must narrow your focus and understand that strategy is more of what you don’t do than what you do. There is no shortage of really cool areas where you can spend your money and time, though there are only a handful that will benefit your brand best. We all must stick to only those most aligned tactics and forego all other activity.
Positioning and messaging involve the specific words you use to communicate your strategy and your brand. Like most elements of your brand plan, your messaging should be consistent over time and should have the same look and feel. This means, the same phrases using the same fonts and colors are communicated over and over. There are several elements also critical to your messaging in order to effectively support your strategy.
Once we knew where we needed to win, we deliberately crafted the positioning and began testing the specific words (tag lines) that support that positioning. After many attempts, the words “Welcome to the World-Famous Kissimmee Muscle 24-hour gym” began to resonate with our guests. I said this phrase for the first time one day after studying the verbiage that Disney (just up the street from us) uses for their World-Famous Jungle Cruise. They welcome travelers aboard the Jungle Cruise all day and we welcome travelers to the gym all day. The connection felt playful and apt and our guests smiled really big when I said it. Before those guests departed that day, they said the same wording back to me and I knew immediately we must be onto something. We used this verbiage and a couple of other phrases that sell in every execution, again measuring what we heard back from those enjoying our brand.
After only a week or so of consistent use, I had a message on Facebook messenger from someone I had never met living in San Diego. In his message he said, “World Famous, huh”. My response was simply, “Dude, you are in San Diego, we are in Orlando”! This message was cutting through. In many ways we began stating that we were world famous, long before we actually became world Famous.
To own a positioning, people must know that this is where you are positioned. When our guests began to use these same phrases unsolicited in their communications with us and about us, we knew they at least understood our positioning. Members and guests began using our specific words when they spoke about the gym. Owning a positioning and living up to it are two very different things and we took great care to ensure that the experience of our guests was aligned with our positioning. Positioning must be believable and your behaviors either help to make the positioning believable or to undermine it. You can’t say one thing and then behave something completely different.
Finally, positioning must cause someone to undertake a change. Change is the truest measure of effective messaging and positioning. It does little good to have your positioning known, understood, believed and then no change in behavior takes place. Behavior change in your customer is the real measure of result. Only then will consistent application of your messaging and positioning create traction in the market.
There’s a lot in the last paragraph, lets crystalize it to make sure we all are on the same page and ready to move on.
• You know people understand your positioning when you hear your words come back to you. This often takes repetition and time to take place.
• People saying your words back to you only matters if you live up to them.
• Even living up to your position, perfectly aligned words and behaviors with a high-degree of recall doesn’t get you there. Customers can understand you, parrot back your words, see you behaving them as well and those words may have one of three possible impacts on them:
o Customer is put off by them – this is rare when you know your business but possible. If your specific words do not align with their perception, they may feel the disconnect.
o Customer is indifferent to your positioning. They are neither negatively impacted or positively impacted by where you are positioned. This is the category where most businesses fall. They know what you stand for, they believe it, they see you behave it and yet they are not influenced one way or the other by it. Differentiation in today’s crowded markets is really difficult to accomplish. Many companies prefer to group all of a similar business together in efforts to attempt to win as the low-cost model in the space.
o Customer is positively influenced by your position. Again, rare and difficult to achieve but critical to your success.
Side-note about differentiation: Above I talked about the challenges of differentiation. One additional consequence of being truly differentiated is this: If you create a brand that really means something to people, it will most likely be polarizing, at least to a certain degree. You see this play out in the homogenization of most markets. Brands in this modern era are not significantly one side or the other, they tend to be middle of the road. You see this in the housing market where perhaps the best examples of this phenomenon are seen. Most new homes look generally the same and distinctive architecture styles are all but dead in the modern housing market. This generalization means that most buyers will “sort of” like homes or like many things about homes, but it’s rare for someone to just really love a new home. If someone loved it because it was distinctive and different, someone else will absolutely hate it as well. This middle of the road stance is viewed as safer but it lacks a true path to creating a great brand. Keep this in mind as you set your strategy and begin looking for the words that help you sell your strategy.
Getting back to strategy, even when positioning is known, the benefits of your brand supporting your positioning and strategy may not be easily articulated. I remember early on fumbling over my words when asked “what makes you different”. What makes your brand different is perhaps the most important question you can ask yourself and one not always easy to answer. With time and attention though, you can get there. It was a couple of years before this became an automatic response for us. As a travel and tourism company operating as a hard-core old-school gym, we are America’s Travel Destination gym. We are where the world comes to train. Even though these were clear to us, the “why” behind these facts took us some time. We had the words that were resonating with our customers long before we had the supporting reasons why identified in an easy to remember and articulate manner. I firmly believe people can really only remember three things about your brand and as such we have three core message bullet points. We have become the destination where the world comes to train because of our 1) Equipment, 2) Environment and 3) Ease of Access which set us apart.
Equipment – hand-picked or hand curated equipment from the best lines of equipment ever made. Ensuring that our members and traveling guests have a differentiated effective and quality experience when training with us.
Environment – more disciplined, more mature and more respectful than a commercial gym. Our members and traveling guests are serious about effecting change, and their behaviors inside the gym reflect this seriousness. We have created the most picked up gym in America and our guests support this fact as much as staff does. We enforce a more-strict code of rules than most facilities ensuring nothing, like phone calls and tripods get in the way of the training.
Environment – more disciplined, more mature and more respectful than a commercial gym. Our members and traveling guests are serious about effecting change, and their behaviors inside the gym reflect this seriousness. We have created the most picked up gym in America and our guests support this fact as much as staff does. We enforce a more-strict code of rules than most facilities ensuring nothing, like phone calls and tripods get in the way of the training.
Ease of Access means a couple of things. First, largely stemming from our proprietary online Instant Access 24 platform, guests and members can register for the gym in real time from their smart phone, build their member profile, fill out their waiver and select their dates for attendance, pay for their access and receive a QR code right away allowing for instant access to the gym even when they have not trained with us before. Being able to access the gym through an easy sign-up process anytime 24/7 supports our “Ease of Access” position. Second, once inside and training, it does no one any good to have access, have the best equipment you can buy inside and an environment that rewards your hard work with results if the gym is too crowded for people to properly use the facility. Having a wide and plentiful variety of equipment laid out such that everyone is able to effectively train is crucial. Only with these two in place do we live up to these aspects of positioning.
To recap, when we are asked, “How are you different?”, the answer is our Equipment, Environment and Ease of Access set us apart. Beyond these three we have the supporting reasons to believe to ensure our customers understand what these three really mean.
Once in place, these elements have the potential to drive behavior, so long as you assess whether resources are applied in line with strategy. Let’s look at a practical example as it relates to our business here at Kissimmee Muscle Gym. One of our key strategies is to be the gym of choice when it comes to traveling guests coming to the Orlando area regardless whether their trip is for business or pleasure. Many, however look at us through a more-narrow lens than this. As a hard-core old-school gym, we appeal to many athletes and the more serious side of training. We’ve hosted the top professional and amateur athletes in physique and strength sports while they are in town for the Mr. Olympia and NPC Nationals competitions. Because of this large group of high-profile visitors, we’ve developed a reputation as a bodybuilding gym. If we were not firmly focused on our core strategy of providing a memorable and meaningful experience for our traveling guests regardless of fitness-level, we may be tempted to run down a path of sponsoring local bodybuilding events, and spending considerable time and effort down the competitive bodybuilder demographic. When we apply our strategy strictly though, we can simply ask the question “Should we utilize our resources on bodybuilding?” Is this on strategy or off strategy? In its simplest form, spending assets broadly on bodybuilding will be “off strategy”. Bodybuilders and the bodybuilding community become “on strategy” for us when and only when they are traveling to us for business or pleasure. Only then are bodybuilders decidedly “on strategy”.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
We have been fortunate with our business, Kissimmee Muscle Gym, to have several hundred thousand like-minded people come through our doors. In a sense, networking is built into what we do. Beyond this built in benefit, through my own bodybuilding competitions nationally and internationally, we have met even more people sharing our same values and been able to forge lasting relationships as friends and business associates.
I would like to shift gears a bit and speak to how this network or similar core values and faith has impacted our business profoundly and created for us additional commercial opportunity.
It was nearly 6 years ago when we had a group of 3 traveling guests visit and train with us while they were in town for a faith-based retreat. The gentleman who was the defect leader of this little group explained how he was called into ministry and how he walked away from his high-level corporate law position to join the ministry. Upon the conclusion of their workout, the gentleman, Heath, said something that profoundly challenged the way I think about success and later how I define it. He simply said, “You have blessed us today by having this place for us to workout”. Wow! I never really thought about our work as a blessing for others and it really struck a chord. I realized in that moment that the better I am at what we do here, the better we can bless others with what we do. This changed everything including the way I pray for our success. I now pray for success so that I might bless others at a greater degree.
Since that time we have had many conversations that could be considered faith-based in their nature. Anyone who is a Christian knows the challenge and fear of witnessing for Christ because we just don’t know how it will be received. Typing this now, I admit, I do so with just a bit of trepidation because doing so may have a cost. More than ever, I push where I believe I am being led to push and thus this paragraph about faith.
The events of the last couple of years have caused many to pause and reflect. Through my own reflection about faith and nation, I have realized just how fragile our freedom is and how so many seek to take it away. Freedom and Free will come directly from God not man and not country. Though many in politics seek to greatly limit our freedoms. The last couple of years have shown great division even in this country that bears the motto, “E Pluribus Unum” or “From many one”. Because fo these difficult times, we began to look to faith more and more.
In the last several weeks, the word “Hineni” has surfaced no less than 5 times in conversation and learning and interestingly, it’s a word that I never previously learned in my 55 years on Earth. Hineni is Hebrew for “I am Here” and it’s a symbolic answer of readiness in answer to a call from God. Through study and introspection we have started a new brand, Hineni Outfitters to create premium Christ-centered bodybuilding gym apparel that forges opportunities for wearers to witness about how Christ is moving in their lives.
Our new brand with it’s full launch in the next week was made possible through our network within Kissimmee Muscle Gym and because of the foundation of others who have witnessed in our lives and business these last nearly 10 years.
Pricing:
- Day pass $30
- Week Pass $75
- Month Pass $95
- Most people pay $65-$75 per month
- We offer discounts for military and 1st responders
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hinenioutfitters.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hinenioutfitters/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583484143789
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hineni-outfitters
- Other: https://kissimmeemuscle.com
