On not sucking (as a business)

Have you ever looked at someone’s obvious pyramid scheme or hype-based hustle and thought, “Ah, making money could be so much easier – if only I were more comfortable lying or just outright swindling people.” Damn this moral compass, am I right!? Well, no, actually. Thanks for not being a monster.

I opened Bang Personal Training in 2008. And while I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly gifted business operator, it’s fair to say that a lot of things have gone right for us to have this kind of longevity and so many multi-year members. I think it’s tough to trust many businesses, and my sensitivity to this informs our process. I get regular offers for services and think, “If I believed that these guys could do what they claim to do, I’d hire them in a second. I’d probably pay even more.” But I don’t (and I don’t).

Most of us are exhausted by the general state of the marketplace – and marketing, in general… The constant hype cycles, gaslighting, and fake choice architecture. I feel like 80% of the business world is just a speculative shell game where people build hype – hoping to sell their businesses based on potential, not intrinsic value. Maybe Hot Potato is a better analogy because actually providing value is always the next guy’s problem. That’s far from the worst of it, but I don’t need to elaborate further; we’re all aware that multiple things are rotten in Denmark. And while the world of health and fitness should feel like a refuge where we simply take care of ourselves, there are still clear problems. They often relate to a few predictable patterns.

Here are three:

North American culture views exercise as a chore. This translates into a transactional relationship with movement. Or, in some circles, evolves, Pokemon-style, into a who-canwork-harder cult. Hard work is terrific, but when you focus on it exclusively, you lambada with burnout and injury. There is a softer side to exercise that makes all that hard work sustainable.

Hype is easy. If your promises are big enough, you will always get some takers. But most of the exciting promises wind up providing marginal gains (at best) compared to just doing the basics well.

Many fitness operators drink their own amino-enriched Kool-Aid. In other words, they believe that a successful business works just like conventional fitness marketing promises. Faster, more novel, more intense! In reality, people often need something totally different.

I didn’t set out, back in 2008, to build a personal training business anchored in trust. I mean, I didn’t say “Let’s be assholes,” obviously. But I just figured we’d do the best job we could and then keep learning and evolving. So, we settled our way into Toronto's Queen West, somewhere between Trinitty Bellwoods and Spadina (that's just west of Bathurst, for those keeping track) and that was cool. However, there was also an inner voice steering me away from perfectly standard marketing and sales practices, like before and after photos, “assessments” designed to make you hate yourself, and approaches so rigid and extreme that they pretty much guarantee meltdown. I wanted to build long-term relationships and lifelong health. And it’s been good, give or take exactly one pandemic and/or metacrisis. We’ve enjoyed whole lot of multi-year (sometimes decade-plus) relationships and some more genuine wins than I can count.

I don’t want to pretend like I had some master plan when we opened. I just knew what I didn’t like. Looking back, I can tell you that I didn’t want to begin the conversation with anyone – one that often spans months and years – from a place that told them that they were not yet whole. That’s the implication. And while it might be a good sales pitch, it’s no way to begin a relationship.

On Not Sucking as a Business

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