S05E160 - CrossFit Owners - 908 Athletics Tim Carroll: Evolving Within and Outside of CrossFit Part 02

Unpacking the evolution within and outside of CrossFit continues with Part 2 of our interview where coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic sit down with Tim Carroll @tim.carroll, the dynamic owner of 908 Athletics @908athletics.

We'll explore the evolving dynamics of relationships among gym owners over the past decade. Gone are the days of competition and secrecy; today, cooperation and mutual support are the norms. Through compelling stories, Tim illustrates how local gym owners now foster positive relationships, maintain professional ethics, and ensure open communication. We'll delve into the importance of accountability, self-reflection, and focusing on one's gym improvements while respecting the community's shared goals.

Lastly, we dive into the broader fitness landscape, examining the rise of boutique group fitness classes and the misconceptions surrounding CrossFit. Tim introduces Endure, a gym that offers structured bodybuilding coupled with longevity training, making it accessible to a broader audience. We'll discuss how diverse fitness options cater to different needs, sustain long-term engagement, and promote health and happiness. Tune in for an engaging discussion on thoughtful decision-making, innovation in gym ownership, and adapting to the ever-changing fitness industry.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate

S05E160 - CrossFit Owners - 908 Athletics Tim Carroll: Evolving Within and Outside of CrossFit Part 02

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker Names

David SyvertsenHost

00:05

Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syverson. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am Coach David Syerson. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Marie, and we are here for part two of the awesome interview with Tim Carroll. Last week we had the initial interview with him. If you didn't listen to it, just rewind a week and go back. It was a lot of good conversation in there and Tim's Sierra Nevadas here are still unopened, so we have not had any drinks here yet on a Thursday morning at 9 am.

00:48

But we are going to dive into part two of this interview, which really is going to revolve around, I think, one of the biggest decisions a CrossFit owner is ever going to have to make that has a successful gym. Because I've been asked this a million times over the years Sam, when are you going to open up another one? Are you going to open up another one? How many are you going to open up another one? Are you going to open up another one? How many are you going to open. What's the goal?

01:08

And it's almost like peer pressure sometimes that I feel like, okay, am I supposed to? Well, you've talked about it, you've thought about it, we have thought about it, but a lot of it comes from peer pressure. Like you know, we're currently experiencing to go do this again somewhere else. Whether it's close or not, that's, you know, another discussion for another time. But tim and aaron, they are the owners of three different gyms and all at once three, three gyms, and they're all like successful, making money, and they had their own staffs, their own programming, all this stuff, own facilities and build outs. You know, tim, at what point did you and aaron decide like, hey, you know we're crushing it at berkeley heights, let's go do this again somewhere else crushing it.

Tim CarrollGuest

02:00

Um, I would say that you know and I think this is most people think like, oh, you must have been crushing it, that you just wanted to open up another one to crush it. And I tell people that this story I'm totally open and honest with it is that, as you know, aaron works solely in the business with me. Right, we don't have other sources of income. So when we were looking at our facility at Berkeley Heights, we'd gotten to a point where we had a good coaching staff that was coaching majority of the classes. We had a solid foundation, especially pre-COVID. We felt like opening up a second location was actually something we needed to do to almost provide a dual income for our family, got it?

02:38

It wasn't like a we're making money hand over fist, let's go to this over there. We're like, hey, we're, we feel like we've got a good formula over a fist, let's go to this over there. We're like, hey, we're, we feel like we've got a good formula, good processes here, we've got the resources to. You know, do a build out. We have staff in place that want to elevate to a general manager role. We're like, let's do this and then, if we can run both equally as well. Um, and obviously the two of us are in it so we can kind of split time. Then maybe from a financial side of these things we would feel a lot more comfortable with planning for retirement and saving for kids' colleges. So that's really more where it came from, okay.

David SyvertsenHost

03:15

That's interesting and I had never talked to you about that. It was more of like, hey, we should do this for our sake. That's kind of like a Carol family decision. Like, hey, we should do this for our sake. That's kind of like a Carol family decision. Like, hey, we should be doing it Because Ashley and I, like Ashley, has her own career, and it's like if we didn't have her income, I don't know, I don't think I could do this. It would be enough for myself, but to support the whole family by myself from Bison alone it wouldn't be enough.

Sam RheeCo-host

03:41

I mean, it kind of makes sense if you're already putting all of this effort into one. It's less effort to duplicate that and run it at a second. Like you have efficiencies because you already have one going, so you would have less cost but more income. Like more income. It's not like running two separate gyms. You're actually the efficiencies of running both.

Tim CarrollGuest

04:03

Yeah, I would say there's probably like economies of scale there, right. There was sort of a copy and paste with facility layout and equipment and programming and membership management software. There was a lot of things that we knew going into it, so it didn't feel like there was a lot of unknowns. It was just that, okay, we have additional rent and additional staff pay at this point, right, and so those are obviously pretty expensive things, especially in New Jersey. But I felt like if we could get it up to the same point that Berkeley Heights was performing, then we would feel really comfortable. There wouldn't be a want or a need for more at that point.

David SyvertsenHost

04:38

When you started 908 Berkeley Heights I think the term you used last week was you were, was it over. You were just very confident it was going to work out. You knew and sometimes that's what you know when you put your back up against the wall like that you, you, you're going to get it done. Did you have that same level of confidence when you found and agreed to a lease in Westfield?

Tim CarrollGuest

05:00

It was definitely different, um, mainly because my life personally had changed so much. We had one son, aaron was pregnant with our second son, and so there was more at risk in my mind at that point. What I would say is based on kind of the changing of the CrossFit gyms in that area in Westfield, meaning there was originally a CrossFit Westfield. They had moved to Garwood, which is a town over, then they ended up going into a facility called Brawl House and they were just under them and then that facility closed. There was a lot of turmoil in that area and we ended up having because we're not too far from Westfield, from our original location in Berkeley Heights we ended up having maybe 10 or 15 people drive to us in Berkeley Heights, okay, and they would say, oh yeah, you know, we had all these people down at Westfield, but now a lot of them aren't doing it anymore and all that stuff.

05:52

And so I I was born and raised in Westfield, um, and so I was like it'd be cool to open back up in my hometown.

05:59

Plus, there was already a CrossFit gym there that was, you know, had clients, and I felt like all was already a CrossFit gym there. That was, you know, had clients and I felt like all right, that's a great town to try to do it and we're going to, there's going to be a captive audience. And so when we opened up Westfield and did that whole build out and we did a presale, you know, we opened up day one with almost 50 clients, which you know for a CrossFit gym in a small suburban town like that's, that was great, that's great, that was huge for us to be able to like start covering the rent pretty much from day one, cause, you know, we, we took a loan out and there, you know, the build out the second time around was so much more expensive than the first time around, and that's that's something else I think you need to think about if you're going to open up another gym right now. You know, versus my, my first build out, which was maybe 30 grand, you know, now it's like I feel if you want to open up a second gym, you're in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

06:44

Yeah.

David SyvertsenHost

06:44

I mean, building this place out, compared to our previous, was about 30 grand time one. It was over 100 grand for this one and you didn't cannibalize any of your members from your original place.

Sam RheeCo-host

06:55

You're pretty far away, like how far is Westfield from.

Tim CarrollGuest

06:57

Berkeley Heights anyway. It's like you know, eight miles, but if you drive it and there's any sort of traffic, you're probably 20, 25 minutes away and there's some like Route 78 and Route 22 are in between us, so you have these natural barriers of people are like I don't even want to cross those. Yeah, but you know to your point, like, did you cannibalize? We did. But I think sometimes you also need to think if we don't cannibalize ourselves, who will Right, like if we've got people that are already on the fringe traveling and there's this dead space in a town that is, you know, affluent and densely populated, like someone's going to open there and someone did just open a CrossFit gym in Westfield yesterday or the day before, like literally right now, like I could walk to them in like four and a half minutes right now.

David SyvertsenHost

07:40

You're saying right now OK, so this is not years ago.

Tim CarrollGuest

07:43

No, this is literally two days ago just opened up another crossfit gym, and how does that make you feel we should get into that? Uh, you know, I think, um, it's the first time that in the 15 years that someone else has opened up so close to me promoting crossfit, who also has multiple locations, um, and it was a former client of mine that runs this. So I don't know you, it doesn't make you feel good, but to focus on them would detract from focusing on what we're doing and how we're attempting to improve ourselves, and so, if anything, it just lights a fire to make sure we're not resting on our laurels and just do a better job.

David SyvertsenHost

08:20

Yeah, you know what I mean. We said we're going to go off on some tangents. I think that's something to talk about. And again, I'm not going to throw shade on anyone, but we have not really dealt with that that much. We've had a little blip with that over the past year, but you know it's every gym owner's worst nightmare. At the same time you shouldn't feel this way, but that a whole group of your people are going to leave and go start open down the street and it's not that it's going to put you under, it just adds, it just takes a piece of your pie away For sure, like that's.

Tim CarrollGuest

08:52

That's another gym that is now in the way of new leads potentially coming in. Right, they'll try them out and, depending on what they're offering for their upfront offer and they're new, maybe they're giving better deals out or whatever it is. It's just one more obstacle in the way of trying to get people in and, as I've told you in the past, it's not like we have hundreds of leads every month coming in. We're a CrossFit gym. We are immediately niching down into the top 1% of people who want to do fitness.

David SyvertsenHost

09:17

Yeah, Now, do you have relationships and has this changed over the years with gym owners that are within 20, 30-minute drive of you? It's one thing to have a relationship with someone that's an hour away You're not going to lose any business to that person and I know for the CrossFitters like Jason Ackerman will talk about this the best hour of their day. It's like you should be supporting other affiliates, even the ones near you, because it should rise the tide and everyone should get better and we should all push each other to be a successful CrossFit gym. You just don't, and there's so many people in this area that, hey, maybe that CrossFit down the road introduces CrossFit to someone that eventually wants to find a different gym and hey, you're right there. Like that person might actually put money in your pocket at some point. How have you had relationships with people in your immediate area with that also own a gym, or has it just been a little too, do I say, awkward, competitive, fake?

Tim CarrollGuest

10:20

That's a good question. I think most affiliate owners would say you know 10 years ago that we were all pitted against each other.

10:23

Yeah Right, there was. No, we're not sharing any resources. I mean, I had a specific example, which I don't fault him at all to this day and actually have a much better relationship with Greg Arsenic from Gorilla. But I reached out to him day one like hey, man, I'm opening up this affiliate, and he's kind of like I'm not going to give you the keys to the castle. I'm like you got to figure this stuff out on your own. I'm asking him all these questions and he's like you know, no man, you're going to figure that out. And so that was a good.

10:48

I was kind of like you know, trying to hold the secrets and I don't think any of us are holding any sort of secrets right, what happens inside of your gym is because of you. You can tell someone what you want, but, yeah, the way they run it is the way they run it. So I think, over the years, though, hearing more of that stuff from best out of the day, like we've tried to make those relationships so like. The closest affiliate to me is probably Leonardo Munoz at Veracity CrossFit, Veracity, CrossFit, Veracity Okay, they're in Summit. I've been friendly with him for a long time. I know all the affiliate owners around us, I would say that it's a neutral to positive relationship. I don't have a lot of negative relationships with other affiliate owners.

David SyvertsenHost

11:23

That's good and I think that's something that a lot of affiliate owners that are listening that are trying to reach the level in which Tim's gym has gotten to that stuff. Just take it from us, because we both kind of feel the same way is stay away from the petty stuff of, of the rivalry of different gyms. How do you feel about your neighborhood affiliates? I mean, we have a great relationship with waldwick and I think probably is the closest one. Um, they helped us out enormously when we had the announcement. They let our members go there and I still talk to those guys pretty often.

11:51

Um, you know, I think some things, you know some petty things from like again, early days of ownership where you hear something said or they make a post about this. I mean I think everyone's guilty of that at some point and then you grow up or you don't. And if you feel like you've grown up past that and you feel like others are still kind of playing in the mud down there, you simply just have to ignore them. So does that mean I have a distaste for people or I'm going out of my way to talk shade out about a gym? Absolutely not. You just ignore.

12:20

I always feel like, in those situations the best thing is to focus on your affiliate, make it as good as possible and not get into petty back and forth fights. And if someone does ask you for help, you do it. Because some of the gyms that we don't have had the best relationship with in the past, I know for a fact that we've put a lot of money in their pocket through competitions thousands and thousands of dollars. So you can't really go down the path of like, hey, a few of our members went to that gym, screw that gym. Like well, that might've been your fault actually, and I think that's a big underlying issue that we always point the finger at other people when something goes wrong. Well, if we do have members, or if I lose members to another gym, my first thing will be like we didn't do a good enough job for that person to stay. If we have members from your gym and that's like that's really what I want to.

Tim CarrollGuest

13:07

I want to agree with you on that, like wholeheartedly. I think this this transcends any sort of industry, but we seem to be in an age with lack of accountability, right, and so one of the biggest things I can always think about is no one stole my member. I lost my member right, like it's my. Why didn't I do a good enough job? Because if I was doing a great job right outside of them, moving right like they shouldn't leave, right, my coach shouldn't leave if I'm providing them a great job, right, so I don't feel like people poach your members or steal them. Yeah, maybe they offered them a, a good deal, they bought them out of your contract, but at some point, if they're not doing a better job than you, they'll come back, right, exactly.

David SyvertsenHost

13:41

But you have to you in this world gym, you have to be accountable yeah, I just think, yeah, gym owner as a person like, yeah, what did you do wrong? And that's all about, yeah, accountability, yeah, accountability, self-ownership, like if now it's a different discussion if an owner of another gym is contacting your coaches and saying, hey, can you come coach for me? Like you know, yes, free world, you're allowed to do that, but that's no, that's happened.

Tim CarrollGuest

14:08

I got a. Oh yeah, the one that opened in Westfield was contacting two of my coaches.

David SyvertsenHost

14:11

If you were to do that, I'll say this right, yeah, yeah, if I wanted, because we have part-time and full-time here. Right, and I know you do too as well. Right, if you lost a full-time coach. Like, that's something you have to fill pretty quickly. If you know that there's a coach at another gym that wants a full-time career, you can absolutely contact that person. But the first thing you should do, out of respect, is contact the owner. That's where, like, you can fix a lot of issues and not a lot like when there's a lot of gray area.

14:41

We as owners and people that are very protective of our business, are going to assume the worst. But let's say we lose a full-time coach and I know there's a coach at CrossFit Waldwick that wants to be a full-time coach. Before I and we're interested Before I even contact that person, I will contact the owner of that gym. Like a baseball club, yeah, this is what I'm doing Tampering, illegal tampering. Is Aaron Judge available? Yeah, as professional as way to do it. But that's where I don't know Crossfitters by nature, and a lot of owners and coaches are very type A control freaks my way or the highway. They just want to do what they want to do where I think you'd have to kind of.

Sam RheeCo-host

15:24

Aren't we competing more with the F45s and the Orange Series out there anyway? How do you feel? Where's your competition coming from? Are they other gy coming from? Are the other gyms? Are the other fitness clubs?

Tim CarrollGuest

15:35

so that's a good question. I think that they're. They are certainly competition in the sense that now there's you know where there was maybe you and your big box gym in your town now there's an f45, maybe there's an alpha fit club, there's an orange theory, there's a bunch of other boutique fitness options that are doing low barrier to entry offers $99 for your first month, first week free, all that stuff. And so what I mean is if you have someone that maybe was going to be a Bison member but they went to F45 on a free trial, then they went to Alpha on a free trial, then they went to Orange Theory on a free trial, there's a high likelihood that they're going to like one of those, that it's going to be enough for them.

16:12

They don't know that they want to do I mean, no one wants to do wall walks, right but they don't know that they want to do double unders and get their first pull-up. They don't know that it's only until they step in your doors and they see other people doing it and they see progress in themselves, they think, wow, I could really climb that rope one day. So it just puts up more obstacles in your way of getting new people to try you out, and so I feel like they're not direct competition in terms of doing the same thing as us, but they are certainly digging into the same pie that we're trying to dig into.

Sam RheeCo-host

16:44

You know it's so funny because you know Karen, one of our, she's a great member, she's a 6 am or McKinney. Oh yeah, yeah, she used to be at Orange Theory, 6am-er McKinney. Oh yeah, yeah, she used to be at Orange Theory.

16:54

And I said, because I was like there was this podcast from Huberman talking about how there was a physiologist and the woman was saying how cardio is not the way to go, like just cardio, cardio, cardio, because you jack up your cortisol, you need to do strength training, you need to do muscle building, and she kind of pooped on Orange Theory and the Stacey Sims one that was just out right, yeah, yeah. And she kind of pooped on Orange Theory, the Stacey Sims one that was just out right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, oh well, you know what, I've never been to Orange Theory, I should try it. And she said I had been there before I went to Bison and it wasn't bad. Like had I not even tried Bison, I probably would have just kind of hung around Orange Theory and I would have thought that was enough.

Tim CarrollGuest

17:37

And I think you know you're that cardio hamster wheel. For a lot of people that does get tiring, but they immediately think that CrossFit is this huge leap of faith. That's like no, I could never do that. And and so what's what's that? Stepping stone from group fitness that's more bootcamping, not a ton of strength training to CrossFit, which is extremely technical, high skill, even though we modify and scale and coach Right, there just seems to be. People are like I could never. Yeah, you're like you're at Arnst, you're running on treadmill for 24 minutes. You're doing swings, you're doing rowing. You can certainly do.

David SyvertsenHost

18:05

CrossFit yeah, 100%. I mean what you said prior to coming into the gym today, tim, is really because we talk about new leads and how hard it can be to get new leads. Sometimes when we started our gyms, there were not a lot of group fitness gyms period. The only group fitness gym you would ever see would be at your Globo gym in the corner at 6 pm on Tuesdays. And now I think CrossFit has really been a trailblazer for boutique class fitness. I really am a strong believer.

18:33

Bias or not, crossfit changed the fitness landscape as much as maybe any program in the history of fitness because everyone's doing group fitness now. When I started working out, I used to just go to the gym and bro lift. There was never any of that. Now it's probably the majority of gyms. I feel like Every time you come to Pilates and yoga and F45, orange Theory boot camp so that is a struggle for a lot of gyms Like yes, maybe Tim's a little. Oh, we have a new CrossFit down the street. But I'll tell you what, if an AlphaFit opened up down the street from us, I would feel the same exact way, because it's not just CrossFit competitors that you're worried about, it's other group fitness competitors that you're worried about. That's right. Um, now you have opened up a third gym. When did this one open? What's it called?

Tim CarrollGuest

19:23

just give us a little like bird's eye view of what indoor is so indoor training co in scotch plains opened november 27th of last year, so we're we're nearing the one year mark there.

19:35

Okay, um, and I think the easiest way to look at it is kind of how I just mentioned it's a big gap between what the other group fitness offerings are doing and what cross is doing.

19:45

We're trying to fill that void where we're still bringing in quite a bit of strength training, still structuring classes very much like crossfit, where the beginning of the class will have dedicated strength training. It's not always done in the cardio circuit right, it's not just you're always on the clock, it's like no, hey, we got 20 minutes to focus on bulgarian split squats or arnold presses. There's things that we do in crossfit, things that have been done in the bodybuilding world for years, things that physical therapists love to do. We're doing that in the beginning of class and then our conditioning and cardio is a little bit like lower skilled movements, things that people can bring some intensity to, and then we vary our cardio between sprints and then longer paced out efforts and so just trying to find that stepping stone between us at CrossFit and then maybe what the next group fitness offering is doing, got it.

David SyvertsenHost

20:39

What would be the primary difference between your CrossFit affiliates and?

Tim CarrollGuest

20:42

indoor. So primary difference, right, no barbell training right now. We actually just put in landmines, so we will use landmines for those that know it right. But we won doing any olympic lifts with a barbell no cleans, no satches, and there won't be any pure squat dead lift with a barbell as well. Yep, um, that's the biggest thing right there. And then, in terms of the gymnastic sides or body weight side of things, um, there's no rings. So we're not doing dips, we're not doing inversions.

21:10

Um, so, in general, kind of like across the board, took away a lot of the low hanging fruit of either intimidation factors or movement selection. In my opinion, that tends to have a higher risk of injury. You know, people with bad shoulders maybe shouldn't be doing kipping, snatches, heavy jerks overhead, right Like. And so I think we felt like at crossfit, we were having to modify a lot and then people were starting to feel like maybe they were not winning in the gym. They felt like they were losing because everyone wants to do what's up on the board. Yeah, right, and if it's day 101 and you can't do what's on the board, you start to feel like it's a loss. And it shouldn't feel like a loss, right, us as coaches will say, it's not a You're still doing something. You're still doing more than 99% of the people, but this gives an opportunity through movement selection that removes a lot of that, and so I feel like people feel like they're modifying or scaling less.

David SyvertsenHost

22:05

Got it Now. I think that's a huge market for people that either are doing, or used to do, crossfit.

Sam RheeCo-host

22:13

I can tell you there are a bunch of people listening right now who are like nodding their head.

David SyvertsenHost

22:16

That sounds pretty good to me as an athlete Right, absolutely. Do you still have like that group feel, community feel, hey, we're doing everything together, kind of like? Have you felt, because you've seen both sides of this now and I know Indoor's only about a year in?

Tim CarrollGuest

22:37

Do you have the same kind of feel there when you're doing things together. So I specifically structured the classes because we all know and I try to tell this to people like one of the reasons I think we have such strong bonds across, it's not just because we sweat together, but it is that dedicated strength time where, let's say, sam and I are partnered up and I had just met but we've got 20 minutes to do five by five back squat. There's a lot of downtime, there's a lot of me and Sam having to talk to each other, right, and then so people start to get to know each other. And then they're there at the. You know they're at the 5am three days a week, and so there's three strength training sessions a week, set after a month, no-transcript gone next class in and I'm like where's the opportunity for anyone to actually make a social connection? Some people don't want to, but I wanted to create that space where these bonds are gonna get strong. And I already see iture. I see people who are the regulars at certain class times and it's like they're texting each other are you coming, where you been? That kind of stuff. And so maybe it's not as crazy as CrossFit, but within the first year. I feel like there's already a strong connection between our clients and the class times. That's awesome.

23:52

Are you programming it? No, so one of the guys who I've worked with on the program his name is Tommy Mazzeo. He was a former CrossFit affiliate owner. I don't know if you remember Mike DeMarco yes, I remember DeMarco. So DeMarco and Tommy co-owned Motives, which was called CrossFit the Helm at the time. But Motives was down in like the Manalapan area and Mike was a college wrestler. He coached. He went back and was coaching at Rutgers like strength and conditioning for wrestlers, and Tommy was a young kid when he started with him, like in his teens. And Tommy's from Kenilworth, which is very close to where we are with Endor, and he ended up leaving and wanting to go to physical therapy school. So Tommy's in his third year at Kean University getting his doctorate in physical therapy and he's gone the way of training for longevity right. He's super invested, as much as you're invested into CrossFit. He's invested into Huberman and Peter Attia and listening to every podcast and what you should be doing, and so he takes the idealistic this is what we should be doing for longevity training into account. You know, for instance, would be.

25:00

We do four weeks strength cycles and four week programming. At Endor Last month we had four weeks in a row. On a day was 25 minutes of steady state cardio. Okay, four weeks in a row, right Of like, let's get better at this stuff, guys, let's build our aerobic capacity.

25:15

And like in a cross gym, you're like, nah, we're not gonna do that man, everyone's gonna hate that, right, oh, everyone hates those days. It just sounds horrible already. But by the fourth time people were PRing their distances and there was this like every time they finished it wasn't boring, right In the moment maybe it was boring, but and then it's gone after four weeks. And so, um, the programming is something that we he, he'll bring his like kind of macro strength structure to me and then we'll look at the conditioning and then we'll we'll change some stuff and I come from at the client satisfaction, like, is that going to be fun? Are they going to like that? Is that cool? Um, and he's much more like it doesn't need to be cool, tim. And I'm like, yes, it does, tommy. And so we go back and forth, but he is literally the kind of director of programming there and then I just kind of oversee and then throw some things in there that I feel like would be more beneficial from a client satisfaction standpoint. Got it.

Sam RheeCo-host

26:04

What's the growth like for this versus your other two as you ramp up? And is the cost the same as your affiliates Monthly cost and is the cost the same as your affiliates?

Tim CarrollGuest

26:12

Monthly cost yeah, so Indoor is the most expensive by $4. So our monthly unlimited is $2.15 at 908. It's $2.19 at Indoor. We did do a pre-sale when we opened up, like a lot of gyms do. Growth-wise, we're just about at 100 clients within less than a year, and then we've got another 30 on Punchcard. So I'm very happy with that Great. And then on the backend, cost-wise, we ended up purchasing the building. So it's been way more challenging from a cost perspective building it out and everything. Yeah.

David SyvertsenHost

26:41

Right, yeah, and so that's a whole different level of investment when you're buying a building and there's more to it than just your gym there. Right, right, yeah. So you're also a landlord now? Yeah, that's awesome. But this sounds to me question number four how do you provide options for everybody when it comes to pursuing health-first performance? We talked about this last week a little bit, but this is kind of like the RX Plus version of the answer is that you're actually supplying a whole new gym.

27:11

Can I ask I don't know if you said this yet how close is this in proximity to your CrossFit gyms? Is it in between? It's in between, okay, so have you, do you have people that are doing both, have left CrossFit, are just doing indoor? Because, again, part of this sounds like, yes, it's a business idea. But I also feel like you're doing this in service of the people, saying like, hey, we still want to work with you, you trust us, we trust you. I know that you guys don't want to do X, y and Z anymore. Look at this new gym I have for you, right, you might get in the best shape of your life and you're not going to be in pain anymore. You don't have to feel like you're losing at the gym.

Tim CarrollGuest

27:45

Yeah, so we have. The answer is both to that question. We've got former 908 members that are now current Indoor members and don't go to 908 anymore. We've got former 908 members that are Indoor members, that have a punch card back at 908. And we have current 908 members who have a punch card at Indoor. So there is this cross-pollination that's happening between them, which is great because, like I said, from Ind indoor in either direction it's 10 minutes to either gym and so, kind of being right in the center, we did cannibalize ourselves a little bit. We probably lost about 20 total clients between both gyms, but we're in a town that is, it's a great town.

28:25

And you know, aaron really encouraged me to try indoor.

28:27

I had been working with Tommy on the programming and the whole theory behind it, working with Tommy on the programming and the whole theory behind it and then when the building became available, I wanted to move our West Westfield location to indoor because the timing of the building closing and my lease were almost like they were two months apart.

28:43

I was like let's just do it, yeah, and Aaron was very much like you've been spending all this time working on this concept, like why don't you give it a shot, um, and so she really encouraged us to do it. And, like you said, you know we're trying to give an option for on on the crossfit side of the spectrum. We're trying to give an option for people that maybe feel like they feel personally that they've aged up and out of crossfit, they can't do or they don't want to do certain movements anymore and they want to train more for longevity, a little lower impact. And then we want to give an option on the other side for those that have been doing a lot of cardio, hiit, boot camp stuff to have a stepping stone into the strength training world where it doesn't feel so intimidating.

David SyvertsenHost

29:22

So we're trying to hit it from both sides and I think it goes to show you and Aaron and your coaches that these clients, these people, they invest in you, they want to be with you If they. Hey, you lost 20 people between Westfield and Berkeley Heights, but they're still with you Totally. You just had a different gym, whereas if they left you at Berkeley Heights, westfield and Indoor did not exist. They left you still at some point and they're going somewhere else Absolutely, and that relationship that you built with them over the years has really kind of just diminished because there was not that indoor option. What?

Sam RheeCo-host

29:55

do you think about that philosophy? Because I will say that seems to be something that's growing and that sort of in between, like High Rocks, is very similar to some of these philosophies that are being espoused here and that's growing like crazy it is. You know, tim just did a High Rocks. Oh, you did.

David SyvertsenHost

30:14

Yeah, I did one with Aaron, yeah.

Tim CarrollGuest

30:15

How'd that go? New York City? So I ended up having a diabetic episode out there, like on the sixth 1K run. All of a sudden I felt my sugar and I was down like the 40s and my legs just turned into tree trunks and I was trotting and Erin did her best to not look upset with me because I was actually doing okay up until that point. But overall, you know, we finished like 11th in our age group, which was pretty close. So I think out of like 80 teams, um, our sled push, we were third. I believe that all the teams, the two of us we were third on the sled push time and I was like, yes, we did something well. But, um, it was cool man, and they definitely have a very strong community. They put on an awesome event. For how long that thing was? They were running heats for like 14 hours straight.

Sam RheeCo-host

30:59

It was crazy I could see a lot of high rocks athletes wanting to go to endure and be like. This might be good prep training for me. Good point.

David SyvertsenHost

31:09

There's no barbell at High Rocks.

Sam RheeCo-host

31:10

There's no high level gymnastics at High Rocks. It's similar philosophy and longer cardio, longer piece cardio.

Tim CarrollGuest

31:16

We're doing a lot of our workouts where we differ from CrossFit sometimes, which I like because it's tough. We'll have a 25 minute workout, but every five minutes you start with something like let's say, you do 25 swings and 15 push-ups and then the remainder of the five minutes you finish out on a machine. Okay, that starts to get really hard for a CrossFitter because you have three and a half minutes on a rower every time. You're like thinking, man, I'm going to row 1,000 every five minutes on top of all this stuff. Yeah, it's a great workout.

31:42

The mental shift to go into indoor, like people are like oh, indoor is just a boot camp. They're just a boot camp. I'm like it's not just a boot camp. I'm like I'll give you two 70-pound kettlebells and make you do tempo front squats. You tell me, that's a boot camp.

Sam RheeCo-host

31:55

How do you feel about this? Because if you're a CrossFit purist, this is heresy. This is not cool. Yeah, but on the other hand, there are a lot of people thinking my joints are kind of yeah, we're going to beat up. Maybe this sounds like better for me. Yeah, no. How do you feel as a CrossFit purist? This is not something. Yeah, adrian Bosman, dave Castro would be like oh yeah, this is cool.

David SyvertsenHost

32:16

Let's let's, let's. I'll say this I think Adrian Bosman would be a little bit more anti than I am. Like I am all I'm more. I am a CrossFitFit purist, but I am also a people purist, like I want people to be happy, I want to help people, I want people to feel healthy. I think one of the biggest issues we have in this world coming up in an election that never gets talked about is the health of people. People don't work out. They're in front of screens all day, they eat like crap and I know for a fact as an affiliate owner of over 10 years people are not going to come here. It's too intimidating, it's too hard, it's too hot in the gym in the summer, like you know, the people are too intense. Someone wears clothes when they work out, like what the hell's going on. It's intimidating and they won't go to another place or they'll, or they'll quit because no one's supporting them.

Tim CarrollGuest

33:01

Right. So then what's the answer then? If you opened up three different styles of fitness and now you're, instead of having a community of a couple hundred people, now you're helping 600, 800 people yeah, that's huge. Is that blaspheming? Should you be ousted from the CrossFit community? Or are you a fitness purist where you're saying, look, something is better than nothing? And I'm not saying something in the sense that Endura is just something we feel wholeheartedly that we're putting as much effort into indoor as we are 908.

David SyvertsenHost

33:27

I feel the same way about indoor, same as I do about high rocks, and that I think at some point in our lifetime as gym owners that's going to be the trend is an indoor type gym.

Sam RheeCo-host

33:39

I feel like, from a growth perspective, if I was an NBA type, I would say I would open up an indoor slash high rock style gym because I can bring a potentially greater number of people into the gym than, say, pure CrossFit. We don't need that here at Bison because we're like, if we had another 150 members we would like die. Yeah, no, it wouldn't work. But if I had a new facility and I said you know just the way Tim is thinking I have two facilities, I need a new facility. I'm going you know just the way Tim is thinking I have two facilities, I need a new facility. I'm going to grow this. How do I get the most potential growth Cat's, the biggest net right? Yeah, it's not necessarily going to be CrossFit because, like you said, the 1% of the 1% are what they're interested in. But for all the people who do listen to Pete RT and Huberman and they're hugely popular- this sort of fits that bill 100%.

David SyvertsenHost

34:26

And what's one of the first things Tim talked about with Endure? It wasn't the workouts, it wasn't the endurance, it was the relationship building. It was the strength sessions, where people talk to each other for four hours. Now there's a relationship with guys that come in at 5 am three days a week. Well, he's stealing that from CrossFit. Well, using his experience and knowing that hey, it's one of my first lines I ever said with CrossFit it's not for everyone. Everyone should try it, though. I think everyone should try CrossFit, but it's not for everyone.

Tim CarrollGuest

34:52

Remember, everything I'm putting into Endure is because of my experience with CrossFit. It's like I'm stealing it from myself, right? This worked here, so I think it's going to work here.

Sam RheeCo-host

35:04

It's not like you weren't into CrossFit. You were an affiliate owner for many, many years. You saw what worked and we all know community is one of the biggest parts of CrossFit.

David SyvertsenHost

35:11

Absolutely. And I believe, sam, that if we go down the path of opening up another facility, I don't think especially if it's close, I don't think it should be another CrossFit, I think it should be an indoor-type gym, because you might lose people here at Bison if something like that opened in Wyckoff if that's what we ended up doing or Ridgewood right, I would rather them leave to us at a different gym than leave to another one that has the same idea or a different group fitness, or they just quit.

Sam RheeCo-host

35:39

Let's open up an indoor franchise. Yeah, yeah.

David SyvertsenHost

35:42

Tim, can you stick around for another half hour after class? But no, I love the idea. Tim, can you stick around for another half hour after class? But no, I love the idea. And I think here's another thing to kind of put Tim on a pedestal that's going to make him uncomfortable is that he's been kind of like a trailblazer himself for a long time, and if he feels strongly about something and he goes and does it and it has a little bit of success early on, which it sounds like it is so far to this point, people should follow that. That's what we all do. I mean, that's we don't.

36:12

I hate to like pee on anyone's bubble here, but like everyone, your ideas have come from other things as well, other inspirations, and Tim has proven time and time again that when he makes a calculated decision and goes for it, there's a thoughtful reason behind it. It's not just a pie in the sky. I love this, so other people will too. So if you are out there and you own a gym and you're not sure if you can do this again or you don't want to open up another CrossFit, this is a great option for you to pursue that can feed the same people that you've been feeding for the past 10 to 12 years. But they have to quote him aged out of CrossFit and grow the market Right and grow the market.

36:52

And still I mean, why'd you do this? You're making an impact that I mean, crossfit or not, and I'll say this fitness relationships it's going to outlast CrossFit. Healthy lifestyles, our relationships with people like we love CrossFit those things are more important and will outlast CrossFit, especially with all the turmoil with their leadership. It's always back and forth. How many CEOs have we had in four years? You know how many CEOs has Tim had in four years? One right, aaron.

Tim CarrollGuest

37:18

Yeah, exactly, and I think like the other thing to remember too is we didn't open up Endure be crossfit light, like we're not attempting to be crosser right, we are attempting to be our own thing that is unique. So I don't want people to think like, oh, he's just all you could have just offered crossfit light at his gym. I feel like there's a completely different um structure to the, to the programming and to the mindset going into it as well. So have you ever done that?

David SyvertsenHost

37:43

at crossfit where it's like, hey, we, we have our WOD classes, but then we have something similar but it's more like what indoor have you ever done that?

Tim CarrollGuest

37:49

Like gotten away from WODs, we toyed around with it for a long time, looked at other kids that were doing it successfully. A lot of gyms do that Like a boot camp type. We just never felt like we had. Maybe if I had two rooms I would have done that Right, I didn't want to have a competing in the same space and then I didn't want to just start adding random classes to the schedule just to try to offer something different. So it never. It never came to fruition, but certainly we thought about it.

David SyvertsenHost

38:13

So, wrapping this up, we just kind of touched on the leadership of CrossFit and you know we have a relationship with some of those guys and we respect the job they're trying to do and we love interacting with them. We just had the head of global affiliates at our gym a couple weeks ago, jd coons, and here's a question I want to ask you as someone that's been in the space for so long you've seen it, you know, from a6 and basketball shorts to to, to what it is now. Do you feel that you are a part of something bigger than just 908 athletics because you're with CrossFit, or do you feel like you're more now? 908 athletics and indoor?

Tim CarrollGuest

38:53

I think it was. It was a bit of a shift for us. I think early days it was. I'm a part of CrossFit, right Like um, I love this thing. I'm a part of the bigger movement we were. You know the dirty warehouse spaces, you know we're kind of hidden and so I was like, yeah, that's who I'm aligning with. And then, as the years went on and you just start to realize you know, like no one's coming to save you, right, like your processes. You got to create them. Like you got to onboard people. You have to try to keep them retention. You got to teach them. You have to hire your own staff. You have to hire your own staff. You have to hire your own cleaners. You got to write your own programming.

39:27

Like all of these things made me not upset with CrossFit. I was very clear on the fact that I was paying them this much money, to use the name. I didn't expect more from them. But as the years went on and we became more successful and we became much more of a business than just this hobby gym that I wanted to work out in. It was what Aaron and I had built, what our staff was doing, what our staff was, you know leading classes, how they interact with clients. That was all that was us.

39:58

Crossfit didn't help that at all. Some might argue that CrossFit the name, actually probably inhibited people from coming through our doors because they just immediately, oh, that's too intense, I'm not going to do it and I don't think that's true. But what I'm saying is I think nowadays, more people would run from the CrossFit name than run to the CrossFit name, got it? That's why I truly believe that, which sucks, because, yeah, I love what we do at CrossFit, right. And then I think now we rebranded in 2020, when Glassman made his famous comment, we had always wanted to, and that was just the impetus like, let's do it, let's just come under one umbrella as 908 Athletics.

Sam RheeCo-host

40:31

You're still an affiliate owner, I mean, but you still affiliated with CrossFit.

Tim CarrollGuest

40:34

Both are affiliates CrossFit 908 and CrossFit 908 Central. So if anyone wants to look them up, we are still affiliates, still present on all of our dues. They're coming due this month paying them.

40:47

Don't worry, but you rebranded your whole organization as just 908 Athletics, right, I think LA Fitness? Right, there's an LA Fitness in New Jersey, it doesn't matter, right? 908 Athletics could be anywhere, it doesn't have to be in 908. But yes, we wanted to be our own brand and be separate from just the word CrossFit. And so now that CrossFit is coming out with a lot of assistance for affiliates and things like that, it's kind of like a day late and a dollar short for me. I'm too far along to feel like they're going to help me. I mean, hopefully, just all their marketing and CrossFit for Everyone will bring some new leads to the door. But at this point I feel like I'm more closely knit to my community at 908 Athletics than I am aligned with the brand of CrossFit. Yeah, how do you feel?

David SyvertsenHost

41:29

about that dude, I agree that the amount of help that CrossFit can help is much more valuable. To someone that's probably years one through five, how do you read a commercial lease like that's something a lot of people just don't know anything about when they're opening up a gym. Um, what? How do you train your coaches? You know they provide the level one, level two certifications. So I wrestle with this back and forth, that without crossfit I don't know if bison would be around. I don't think I know it would be around.

Tim CarrollGuest

42:06

Yeah.

David SyvertsenHost

42:08

Because we were that unique right, yeah.

42:09

You were kind of like the rebel that one or two people tried out. You were the guy that was doing it in a gym, walking upstairs with dumbbells, and then you were like, dude, there's a CrossFit Hoboken, I'm joining, no matter what that got you in. And now, look, because CrossFit was on Hoboken, there's three successful, awesome gyms and thousands of lives that you guys have impacted. And here we are talking on a podcast all these years. So there is sometimes I struggle with this, like, yeah, bison, if we disaffiliated, deaffiliated which we're not, but if we did we'd be fine, all right. There's like a loyalty factor that I do struggle with. And we love the open here. You can't really do the open if you're not paying an affiliate fee, right logging scores. I mean that's not why we are affiliated with CrossFit, but there's there's a little. There is a loyalty factor, but also, I only own one gym.

Tim CarrollGuest

42:58

I feel. I feel that loyalty factor though, too, I don't. I would never de-affiliate and then program the workout for an in my gym. Do you know what I mean? Good point, there is respect there, and 908 wouldn't be around if we weren't for CrossFit but the other side of that coin is If you had failed, they wouldn't have helped you either.

Sam RheeCo-host

43:16

There was nothing that they could have done for you.

Tim CarrollGuest

43:18

To your point. There's been several gyms around us that have gone out of business. The name CrossFit didn't keep that in business. It's what that owner did inside that gym to promote the gym, to keep the clients. That determined their success. So, while CrossFit kind of like lit the fire for some people to come in early days, it's what we did inside the gym. We're not a franchise, right? People don't realize that. People think, oh, I went to one CrossFit gym. It sucked, I'm not going to go to another gym. No, we're a pizza shop. There's 11 pizza shops in every single town, right, they all make pizza differently, but they all make pizza. Right, we do CrossFit. We just do it differently than other CrossFit gyms, right, and some might not like it because we're not hardcore enough. And then some might love it because we are maybe a little bit more cautious about the workouts that we program and stuff, and so I still feel that's all CrossFit, absolutely Maybe. We're just not purists, but we're fitness purists. We love, you know, we love helping people out.

David SyvertsenHost

44:09

Yep, and it's at the end of the day, it's your business. You need to make the decision. What do you think about that, sam?

Sam RheeCo-host

44:16

I mean, I have always been a CrossFit purist, but as I get older and I see my athletes, I also see I'm so protective of them in terms of injury, in terms of movements, in terms of volume, in terms of what they're doing, and I can't I mean this indoor thing's got a lot of appeal to it Like I'm just thinking, yeah, how many more people could we potentially reach, unfortunately, without the CrossFit mon moniker, because, or some of these movements and I'm like boy, that's a, that's a devil's deal. Because you know what. I got to where I was because of crossfit. I got to who I am because of crossfit and I'm not gonna teach others that because of what? Like because I'm older, because I'm afraid of, like you know, crossfit is unfiltered. It's like smoking an unfiltered cigarette, like there's nothing preventing you from running off the rails or reaching your highest potential.

45:16

All of these kind of other fitnesses are kind of putting some guardrails down a little bit and training wheels and that's not always bad, no, and training wheels, and that's not always bad. But on the other hand, I would ultimately love to give everyone the fullest unfiltered experience that I got, that you guys got that. You guys went through a lot of lumps and bumps along the way, but ultimately that to me, is the best experience. But unfortunately you can't really offer that to everybody. Well, it's like control what you can control. Most people are not going to find that. So if I can find a large segment of the population that will actually not, you know, engage because I think they'll find they'll be like oh, indoor sounds better than CrossFit does, I'll give it a shot. Then maybe we get more people in the door. I don't know, it's like this is sort of, but that's sort of my philosophy and thinking. I mean.

Tim CarrollGuest

46:05

So one quick thing on it, cause I know we can probably talk on this topic forever is you know I think about? I'm friendly with Denise Thomas, right, and I think she's as purest of a coach as you can come across, and I think that you know she would vehemently like disagree with me on this topic. But I think the ideal of CrossFit and, again, the business of CrossFit diverge at certain points. Like, I don't think you're going to keep a client for six months who you're making stay on PVC overhead squats yeah, I don't think you're going to be able to do that. Now, that could just be me projecting my own insecurity of losing a client, yep.

46:36

But when we found CrossFit right, the level of coaching around modifications and what you should and shouldn't be doing with mobility restrictions and kipping, is not what it is today. Correct, right. Cap programming Right. They've got three different levels of it now Right, they've got your RX, they've got your intermediate, they've got your beginner as well, right. And so CrossFit, even in its purest sense, it's still evolved. Right, it's offered a foundations in the open. It has still evolved. Even if you want to say no, crossfit's for everyone. Everyone can do an overhead squat. No, they can't and some people should not. Does that mean CrossFit's dangerous? No, but it means that the affiliate that you're going to needs to have someone knowledgeable enough in place to ensure that they're not giving you a movement that's not the proper dose for your body.

David SyvertsenHost

47:28

Got it and that's where it's an equal responsibility we can point finger. Again, we talked about this last week Point the finger, point the finger, point the finger, point the finger. The owner. If you're going to own a gym, you're going to take on that responsibility. It's one of the greatest job in the world, but it's also a huge responsibility that should keep you up at night sometimes, right, that is where it comes down to that owner being able to really filter the CrossFit message to the people that they're actually working with. Right, CrossFit has set the example. Like you said, that's a good example. Remember, when the opening started, it was here's the workout.

Tim CarrollGuest

47:59

Yeah, so many members that were pissed. They put double unders in the beginning of a workout and you'd be like oh, why did I make them sign up?

David SyvertsenHost

48:08

But yeah, so I mean even you can say the leadership within CrossFit has changed so many times. Dave Castro's fired, he comes back. Don Fall, eric Rosa, greg Glassman Now we hear Greg Glassman on YouTube now more than ever with Savan, it's like geez, this would have been nice six years ago. But all those changes, we haven't seen anything change within our affiliate. It doesn't matter and I hate saying that because I know it's a huge business, it's worth a lot of money, but to me it just doesn't come to circle this back to what are we a part of here? I really think you have to. It's your gym, that's what you are. You're a part of the, the affiliate, your coaches, your community, and CrossFit isn't really going to impact a gym that's been around this long. It remains to be seen if, how much impact it will have on these gyms that are, you know, in year one, year two. Version of 908.

Tim CarrollGuest

49:03

Right, so, guys, that's's gonna wrap up the conversation with tim. Um, thank you, guys very much for having me on.

David SyvertsenHost

49:10

Thank you, I got a lot out of listening to this. I knew I would um and I'm trying to. I try to always channel my my inner tim as often as possible, even with the the shirt color choice perfect I would like to say, before we cut off you besides, thank you, dave.

Tim CarrollGuest

49:27

you've said that you've looked up to us, but we truly do look up to Bison, the community. You guys have the representation that you do bring to local competitions. You guys had 14 teams that are barbells and beers, the amount of people that you have in the gym, your classes are full, the energy in your gym. I think, as much as you maybe said, you looked up to 908, 908 truly looks up to Bison. You guys do a great job.

David SyvertsenHost

49:50

Yeah, definitely a mutual beneficial relationship there. And iron sharpens iron. All right, thank you guys. See you next week. Thank you, everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit Podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.