Welcome Back And Why Transparency Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hey everybody, welcome to the HerdFit Podcast with Dr. Sam Reed and myself, Coach David Stiverson. 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 HerdFit Podcast. I am Coach David Siverson. I'm here with our, we just recovered from the longest ever podcast in HerdFit history. And we said, hey, let's do the second half of this. But really, I do want to call this the final third of the bison survey results because I don't think this is going to get anywhere near two hours. Last week we'll probably be closer to a one-hour episode. And then I'm probably going to take a couple weeks off for putting out anything new. Just got some family coming in town. And then we're going to be away for a few days that first week new uh of August. So because we're providing three plus hours of content, uh, we'll get a little bit of a break. Uh, guys, before we get into the next topics, uh, just round table Liz. Well, I'll start with you, then Sam, then Ash. Um, that was a semi-serious podcast that we did last week. I don't want to call it heavy, but we really got into some details about bison. And there are some people say that you should be careful about being transparent, you shouldn't really kind of give all the ingredients to what you guys are cooking. Um, I do err on the side of wanting to explain a few things so that people that are going there fully understand what we're trying to do as a group, coaches, owners, and members. And I, you know, you don't always have to agree with everything, but it is important to understand the reasons why we do things. And I know all three of you have had conversations since that podcast went live. And that podcast, it's the most listened to podcast in the first seven days we've ever had. Um, you know, it's it's not going to catch up to some of the episodes that have been around for four years, and they still to this day get downloads. Like there, it's amazing. I don't even understand why or how that's the case, but that was the most downloaded podcast we've had in the first seven-day period. So I know that a lot of people listened to it and got something out of it, and we've had conversations. Liz, looking back on it a week ago and also some of the conversations, were there any takeaways that you had from really kind of opening the door uh to the coaching side of things?

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Um I would say one thing that I did want to touch on when my pods decided to uh die on me during my question, um, was to encourage some of the members to go to our activities. Like I know it's tying into the events, but like the bison bowl. I feel like um people that didn't do the bicycle kind of missed out on a really great time. And we all hung out after and kind of I just encourage them to join stuff like that. That's also an event, even though it's at the gym, and uh just meet some new faces and some new people. But I had a lot of great conversations that people were surprised that you sat there and went through every single survey and answered. We're gonna get to obviously everything that was kind of on there and how important that is um for a gym to do that, kind of open up um feedback for members. A lot of gyms I don't think would do that, and then not take it to heart um, you know, some of the negative stuff. Instead, you guys jumped on it and changed it. So I think with the coaching stuff, um I thought it was great feedback. I think I am getting in there on some of their classes, and we are gonna change some of the things they want. And I love that they want one-on-one feedback, and I think that's my focus right now is to make sure they're getting that.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Nice, awesome. And now, Sam, um, any any kind of feedback that we've had again, I know you've had conversations, we've been a part of a couple group texts about people that actually wanted to give feedback on our feedback to their feedback, and just again, what I like about it, I truly love it, is it it creates conversation. And I think the more conversation people have about things they don't agree with, and you can go in any direction you want with that stuff, by the way. I really do think at the end of the conversations, that's the opportunity to really make progress, which at the end of the day, that's what everyone wants. And you really touched on that last week. Um, when we got into some of the the culture, the ownership part of it, where that it really truly is the only goal is to make it better for everyone. Um, were there any kind of takeaways that you had from you know a week later from that podcast?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Uh, I think the first thing is I'm very appreciative of how many people listen to what we had to say. Like again, that was shocking that people would actually listen to a like two-hour, 14-minute podcast. Yeah, and I think it shows that people really care about the gym. The gym is a big part of their life. I think fitness is a big part of our members' lives, and they the they took the time to fill out a survey, and then they took a time to listen to the feedback about their feedback on the survey. So so to me, that tells me we have a big responsibility. There are a lot of people invested in uh the experience they get at the gym, and it just drove home to me uh the responsibility we have to really provide the best that we possibly can. And and like I said before, we're not perfect, but I really appreciated the people who came up to me afterwards and told me generally positive um how many listened and uh and their thoughts. And uh it it really touched me and it it makes me want to make sure that things are even better at this point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And now, Ash, I I always like to bring up the HR background. And again, you're just problem solving and dealing with problems and complaints and managing all that. Um, what were your takeaways after being on last week's episode? Again, we were also part of a couple group texts. Again, I'm gonna try to keep everyone's individual names out of the podcast, but we did get a couple messages from longtime members um that made me feel like this is the right thing to do. Um, not the easiest thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. Any takeaways you had from last week?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Um, I think kind of to echo off of Sam and Liz is that I think people were really shocked that we spent time to actually read through every single one of them and that we're making those changes. I think people were kind of shocked as to, you know, they may have a suggestion. And then when we answered it, they're like, oh, I didn't think about it that way. Um, you know, or you know, there's a why behind it. Um, so I think just from that perspective, um, people were, you know, really receptive to what we had to say and were shocked by, you know, some people's, you know, comments and things like that. Um, but I think overall people were were just really thankful that we were actually even doing something like that and that, you know, we're making changes.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah. All right.

Gym Schedule Philosophy And Morning Crowd

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Now we're gonna dive into the the backside topics of this. I don't want to call this less important because to some of you, this is a lot more important than programming and the coaching and the culture. Uh, because a lot of people don't like that kind of the bus the gym. They just want to come and work out, go home. We have actually, I wouldn't say the majority of our members are in that camp. They just want to come and work out, they're not really looking for community and friends, and they care more about the things we're gonna talk about today. So this is not less important, but I would say it's a little less intense with uh some of the feedback that we got. And we're gonna start off on something that everybody is impacted by, and also could be interesting to talk about if you're gonna bring up the history of CrossFit bison and it's our gym schedule. Um, I empathize for anyone that starts a gym. We just started out last week, and we're still a year in trying to figure out what to do with our schedule. Add, subtract, um, trying to make things more compact and what to do on the weekends. And the gym schedule, I'll start off by saying this because we're a gym that is 90% class based, meaning almost everything we do in that building is as our classes. We made a decision a long time ago that we would um that we would have more classes or as much classes as anyone. And if I did some research on other gyms in the area in New Jersey, I even when I drop in, I look at gym schedules. I'm just kind of like a little bit of an addiction to it. We have more classes than everybody, and that's not a knock on anyone, that's not comparing us, but one thing we wanted to always make sure is that we never want to say someone's I can't be a member because we don't have a class time where they work out. Um, Ashley, mother of a young kid, full-time career, you don't have a lot of options with when you get to work out now that you're you know you're six years into being a mother, how important is having a ton of classes to choose from so that you can't come up with a bogus excuse of like, hey, I can't work out because it just doesn't have a time where I work out. How important is that to your changing life?

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Um, I think it's really important. I mean, everybody has stress in their lives, whether you're a parent or not. Um, so I think getting to the gym is really important. Um I I think having a, you know, a full-time job and then having, you know, a kid. And as they get older, everybody knows that, you know, schedules change for them. They have sports and activities, you know, after school. Um, so I think being able to either come in super early, which no one will see me at, um, but coming in either super early or having you know, you know, late night classes after sports and stuff like that is super important. Um, we want as many people to come be able to come and and use that one hour of their day. Um, so I think for us, you know, we try to make sure that there's no question that you can't get here.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah. And and Sam, you've been a part of the the morning crowd that is our biggest crowd. Um, I always like to just do play some math games there before 11 a.m., I think it's about 70% of our gym attendance has already come to the gym. And in a lot of cases, you've had over 100 athletes come to the gym before 11 a.m. every single day. It's the main reason why we move gyms from 59 Greenwood to 265 to 265. And when you look at the schedule and how important it is to have a really early start and how consistent those class sizes are, and you are a part of that, right? It's like a routine, it's the only time you can work out, or you've set your body clock up to wake up that early. Um, how how important it is for a gym to have such an early start to a gym? Because some there are some people that say 5 a.m. Are you nuts? And I'm like, Well, the majority of our gym has finished the workout before most people have eaten breakfast in the morning. Think about that. Um, thoughts on what's the why behind the morning crowd and how much should a gym really plan around that? Because we plan around, honestly, we plan our programming and equipment purchases around the morning classes, if you believe it or not.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, I think for most people, uh mornings work for them for a couple of reasons. One is very few people are bugging you at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. Yeah for your job or you know, your family, they're sleeping, you know. So for a lot of top people, that's their only protected time. You try to get someone at four o'clock, five o'clock in the afternoon, they got 50 people sort of, you know, messaging them and things that they have to handle and and everything. So so just by necessity for a lot of people, uh, morning classes are the only time they actually get uh some quiet time to to to fitness. And so that's why, you know, I was just looking at our schedule. So we have a and these uh times have been sort of they're not arbitrary, they've been honed over time many, many years to try to fit the the best number, the largest number of people possible. And um the five, six, and seven are the three classes that are pretty big in the morning. Then there's a nine thirty class, and you know, there's a reason behind it's that the nine thirty, um and then there's an eleven, twelve, and one, which is very rare for a lot of gyms to have midday classes. Yeah, and then we have four classes in the afternoon every day, four fifteen, five fifteen, six fifteen, seven fifteen. So yes, it's it's a um by any objective measure, it's a lot of classes. We do that because for most people, it doesn't matter how many classes in the day there are, there's probably a very limited amount of time that they say, I need it at this time for it to work. So if we can do that for you, that's great. Um it does make it a challenge in the morning for the coaches because there are so many people that take the five, six, and seven. Um, and we were I'm sure you'll talk about that in terms of um the facilities and parking and whatnot. But um, but I I think I I'm inter I I really like the the feedback we got from it, I will say, uh, and you can talk about the weekends as well, uh, other uh aspects of it, but by and large, this has been time tested for many, many years. These are the times that seem to work the best for for the most amount of people. That being said, we have also played around thinking about morning classes as well, right? Like to try to accommodate more people. Yep. Um I mean, like 4 30 start, like stuff, crazy stuff like that. Like seriously, like I mean, we've really we've really thought about scheduling, like probably, like you said, more than almost anything else at the gym because, like you said, it affects the most people.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah, I mean, the it hasn't happened often, but we have had a 4 a.m. request um over the years from both members and non-members, like, hey, I'll join your gym if and I get it, he has to be on a he has to be on a 545 train or something like that. So 5 a.m. is not an option. Um you know, you have to draw the line at some point. Like, I can't imagine getting to the gym at 3:45 in the morning, but I will touch on some of the things that you can do in response to that. And are some gyms will add classes to accommodate people that they want, they want more people. Um, another one, what we did is we went to a bigger space, right? If you remember the early days at bison, old 59 Greenwood, we had about half the square footage, maybe a little bit more than half the square footage of what current bison is, and we still put 25 to 28 people in class at that gym. And like, so I do think there was like such a like a low threshold for how much actual space you needed in a workout. In my opinion, it wasn't safe, and we did stress about that a few times um that it just wasn't safe to have barbells and people going in and out um in a long, narrow gym with 28 people, but it did work, and now we're kind of spoiled. We provide a lot of square footage for people, but that was our decision that we made. It really was not a good financial decision for us. We had to, you know, really fork up a lot of money to move, but then also increase our rent by over a hundred percent to move into that space with the hope that your membership grows. But really, it was we just want to make the experience better in the morning for those crowded classes because midday and night, it generally doesn't get as crowded. Sometimes you do get crowded at night, uh, but usually the mornings and Saturdays are where we really use um the full square footage. Now, Liz, now getting into some of the survey results after you touch on this, because 95% of your classes that you've coached um at bison have been 9:30 through the midday, 9:30, 11, 12, 1, and then the night classes. Okay. And you've coached at night classes, middays, 9:30s with massive classes, and you've also coached classes with two to three people. The business savant will say you should not run three midday classes per day, which I've never seen a gym do, by the way, 11, 12, and one, where they all have four people. Sometimes they have eight. Every now and then you'll get a bigger class, but touch on the value that provides a small class where you really can give all this attention that we talked about last week and how that can actually set us apart. It's not just the schedule, it's the amount of attention that you can give as a coach on those midday classes.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

I think it's exactly what kind of came up in the survey is that the bigger classes um they need it one-on-one once in a while. They need attention, but it's very hard for a coach to see everything with that many people and work logistics. So when you get an afternoon class where you have anywhere from you know five to ten, I those some of those are my best classes. Like you can get with everybody, you know exactly where everybody is, you know exactly what they're working on, you can help every single one of them, you can help them get in and out of a band if you need to, just little things that go a long way in a workout. So yeah, sometimes it's hard if it's just one person. Like I do feel like they need a little bit more, you know, motivation from you as a coach, and you can be more exhausted from coaching one person or five, but I do feel like you you really get to shine, I feel like, with five to ten.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, yeah. Those classes sometimes the excitement of 20 people in a class can get the adrenaline going, but real coaching and relationship building um definitely happens in the smaller classes. I agree with you.

Sunday Open Gym Requests And Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Um, let's get into what was requested the most. The most common thing we did get, and I actually appreciate this, was your schedule offers more than everyone. That was a sentiment that the most common reply to our schedule was what can you guys even add? You offer more than everybody. And I, you know, athletes like to be seen and appreciated. I do appreciate that a lot of members put that out there.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Oh no. Oh, did he drop off?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yes, I'm here, I didn't leave. I think I just removed myself from the studio, but we're still recording. All right, technology for the win. So I I do appreciate that people see our schedule as wow, this is a lot, and um it does it does make us feel good to hear that. But let's get into what people want more of. And the most common was actually on Sunday, they wanted one of two things. These were the two most common replies to our schedule. People want an earlier Sunday start, so we just get we are open gym, we don't have classes on Sunday at bison. We never have, and that is uh 8 to 10 a.m. open gym. And because we have a gym with a lot of early risers, as we just said, their most common request was either bump open gym from eight to ten, start at seven and end at nine, or simply start at 7 a.m. and go to 10 a.m. The second most common was extend open gym to 11 a.m. And it goes to show there is a gap. There are a lot of people in our gym, they go out on Saturday nights, it's a it's a big night for them, a social thing, and they're out, they don't want to wake up early. Like, early is subjective, you know. Like, I think anything beyond 6 a.m. is sleeping in these days, but that's not a lot of people like, no, I get out of bed at eight or nine. I don't want to have a half hour to get ready to go to the gym for only 40 minutes. They would like that gym to be later. Um, and I think whenever we have a coach that goes in early, they'll put out, hey guys, I'm going in at seven. If anyone wants to hop into open gym early, let um come on in. And there's always a handful of people that do that. Ashley, if you could remember, I don't even know if you remember this. When we opened the gym, and this is a different ball game. It was basically me, you, and Chris that were just running everything. We made a rule, it was more like a relationship rule, but we said no gym on Sundays, no classes, no open. We were closed on Sunday. Not like the doors would not open. I think for two years, it might have been three years. There was no like the that was like it had nothing to do with like the Holy Sabbath, or it was you guys are that is the day off for everyone. No one's working on Sunday. Mandatory rest. Yeah, mandatory rest day. You don't need to work out again. There wasn't anyone doing seven different programs or a conditioning program. Um, if you wanted some extra gym time, you would find it during the week. But again, back then people didn't use open gym, it was work out, go home. In some ways, I missed those days. I genuinely do. Do you think now that we have a there's over 20 people that work between the two gyms for the business? It's a little bit easier to spread out that work. Do you think there's any value in going back to that at some point? This is going the opposite direction of what the survey said, but no open gym on Sundays. Do you think that would be a good idea, a bad idea? I can't tell if you're freezing or not.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Bad idea. Um, I think we have so many people now that almost rely. You got me?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Um, I think there's so many people that almost rely on that, that if they miss a class or they want to get an extra programming, um, you know, they're really working on a skill or something like that, or hey, they've got a comp coming up, they've got high rocks coming up. Um that is pretty much their only time. Um, and I think it allows people to work out with their friends a little bit more, work on those skills that we can't fit in class. Um, so I do think that if we took it away, I think there would be an uproar with people not being very happy. So I think that uh open gym is set.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah. Uh Sam, any thoughts on one thing we might do? And this is something again we want to talk about more, guys. We're not quick knee-jerk reaction type people. Um man, we are having tech issues today. All right. Um, we don't want to be a knee-jerk reaction, but we have talked about a Sunday, not a class yet, but maybe a workout that we program so that when people come to Open Gym, and it's it'll be a simple one, it'd be like an endurance type workout. Because again, we have a lot of people asking for more endurance type 30-minute workouts where instead of making the whole gym do it, maybe we say, hey, here's the workout. You show up whatever you want to open gym on Sunday and do it. Do you think that's a good way to kind of meet people in the middle with, hey, I want something on Sunday from CrossFit Bison, but it doesn't need to be a structured class or adding hours to the staff?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I mean, I'm not opposed to it. Um, I don't know what that demand is. Um, I I'm not sure. Like so the benefit to a class is that you have a bunch of people take doing that workout with you together, and then you have a coach who's sort of overseeing everything. So if we just handed everyone a workout and said, you can do this if you want on Sunday, uh I'm not sure where that benefit is uh for athletes. Yeah. Um so because most athletes uh will figure out something more to what their needs are. And so um it it would either have like I'm sort of like that's sort of a half-assed measure, like either like do a real class with real, you know, a coach and all that, or or just let them do whatever they want to do. And um I have never I've had um athletes who have I know gone gone to you or to others and said, hey, listen, I I want I'm interested in doing something. Do you have something I can do?

SPEAKER_04 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

I mean nowadays it's all chat GPT anyway, but like I I will say um I'm uh I would need to see uh more evidence that people really wanted someone to hand them programming for a Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Liz, I want to ask you a question about the A15, but I do want to give you the opportunity. Do you have anything to touch on us adding anything to Sunday that hasn't been said? Like, do you have any opinions? Like, I love open gym vibes. I think you do too, especially like you know, you're training for something. Um, do you have any thoughts on that before I get into what I want to ask you about the nighttime schedule?

SPEAKER_03 25:31

I mean, I feel like at 9 30 they're mostly like clearing out anyway. I do see maybe like a 7:30 kind of startup. And I do feel like the coaches, I mean, they usually come a little bit early, like 15 minutes or so in general. So I I'm not really like opposed to the 7:30 kind of startup, but that would

Late Night Classes And Staffing Reality

SPEAKER_03 25:50

be it.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Okay. Um, now the the second, sorry, the third most requested, and I had a feeling this was gonna happen, is actually was a tie for something else that was open gym related. If we have time, we'll touch on that. But back in the day, everyone, our nighttime schedule was 5:15, 615, 7.15, 8.15. We had four classes at night, but we started later at 515, and we went with the last class starting at 8:15. That 815 was around until man, I think we got rid of it in 2022 or 2023. It was after COVID, and we started to see that there was no one coming, or it was one person. And again, I hate to bring this up, but I'm going to. The business side of it is we would pay a coach to be there, and you started having one to two to three nights per week where no one would come, but we still had to pay the coach. And you know, you do that enough, like you look at the numbers, like it adds up. You're like, this kind of makes zero sense. However, there were people that they could only work out at A15. That was the only time they commute from the city or they own a business, kids going to sleep, whatever. And that's what I'm telling you, I still stress about that because I know and adding the A15 back would help some people, and I think some people feel really passionately about that. And you know, that that essentially has the coach there until 9 45 because of the requirements of the nighttime coach has to set up the gym for the next day. You know, you put boxes and rowers and you know, this inclined bench over the past few weeks, that it could easily be a half hour to 40 minutes, and now you're getting home at 10 o'clock. And you know, I I Bobby joked at you know, when I we brought that up, he goes, like, I'm gonna have to draw the line at some point. It's like like, and I get it. And I do, you know, back in the early days, we would do that. We would I would get home at 9 45, I remember 10 o'clock. And then, you know, those days you'd go back and coach the morning. And as of right now, we're not going to add that class back to the schedule. If we did, we probably would experiment with maybe two nights a week. And we probably would have to, Liz would probably have to adjust the schedule. We might have to hire someone instead of just making someone else do it. But another angle to this, I want people to be aware of we never had a 415 class. And then we added that. I want to say in 2018, 2019. And I remember you're still kind of a scared gym owner at that point, where someone said, I'm gonna leave the gym if you guys don't add the class. I was like, Oh my gosh, we're gonna lose a member. I go, we got to do this, and we added the class, and it ended up sticking. But I remember that person that asked never came to the 415. And this is where it's really hard when you take feedback from someone and you make a change based on feedback, it that it might not even, it's almost like the people want the option to work out at that time, but that doesn't mean they're gonna use it. So knowing that our schedule already offers more than everyone, it's hard for me to imagine a world where we're adding any classes to the schedule unless there's like an overflow issue where classes are filling up, and we just did that at Out Last 9:15 was getting full every single day to the point there's a wait list. So we added a 1030 class for that reason, three days a week. Um, I think that that's where the awareness I would want everyone to know, that's where the schedule making comes from. But as Sam said, we massaged this thing for years and it's still an ongoing. I think we've hit a flow. Last thing about the schedule, um, and then I'll just touch on what other people were just requesting.

Afternoon Open Gym Versus Class Culture

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Um, Liz, I want your feedback on this because I think this would probably, you brought this up a few times. This might even affect you the most if we ever did this, was afternoon open gym. We're closed from two to four fifteen every day. Let's call it two to four because the coach usually shows up at four or earlier. And there's some personal training that goes on during those times. There's crossfit kids that goes on that during that time during the summer. Open gym is not what our foundation is. Some gyms rely on open gym. Our our open gym, we view it as hey, this is a gift for you guys to use. It's not something we feel we need to give you. It's um it's a privilege to have open gym. To add one to two hours in the afternoon, in my opinion, it starts kind of really kind of making us more an open gym style CrossFit. And some gyms do really well with it. What is your stance on potentially adding that? And why do you think that's a good thing? Why do it would be a bad thing?

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Um a good thing. I mean, the obvious, they get some more time to work on what they need to, and some people are just not morning people or they have an eight to five job and they just cannot get there. I do think we're very good about offering like open gym time at night because our classes are smaller, so they can do the class and then they can stay after. But you know, it sticks with our thing that classes are always first and they have to work around the class, but we haven't run into much trouble, I think, with open gym time like at night. Um I do look at it like the more open gym time you have, you know, is it the less classes that they're doing? Like um one person that just stands out in my head is Steph Age. She started with open gym. I think you guys remember that.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

And we had talked to her about getting into classes, and she has made the effort to adjust her schedule and move things around to make sure she gets to classes, and she's like taking off. She's like a different athlete just because of the push that she has with the classes. So I guess would be my one um little negative to it. The more time you have, the less, you know, you just try to do the workout real quick and get out. And then you're not really getting the full experience of what CrossFit is in class atmosphere, I guess you could say. But I'm not definitely not opposed to more time wherever it can fit in, even if you slide around some things and give an hour here and there.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah.

unknown 31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

No, we we've touched on this. I don't want to go into details. We're a little over what I want to be on the schedule anyway. But the we do, I do want everyone to know we talk about the schedule, I would say quarterly on average, you know, whether it's the owners, the coaches, Liz always has a lot of input on what she hears, but also what she observes because Liz is really there at all different times of the day. I think between her and I, we see everything between the morning, the midday, and night. Um, I just think you have to make sure you don't make quick decisions and then pull it back. Like what a decision that you make, whether it's changing open gym time on Sundays or you're adding something during the weektime, uh weekdays for open gym or moving a class around, you got to make sure like you really lean into it for a long time, like six months minimum, but probably over a year. And to make that kind of commitment, especially when it can affect the hours of your staff, that it's a very loaded situation. And I would question people that want more open gym time. That is it more you're just kind of thinking about your schedule, your routine, what's ideal for you, or is it something that would actually be beneficial for the gym? And again, I think we always have to wrap our heads around this is about the group and the gym, never about what individual people need or want. And I agree with Liz. If you are, and I've seen this happen a million times over the years, if you start getting really biased towards open gym and away from classes, you will probably not always, you will probably be less fit over time because there's something that happens in classes, it's really hard to simulate in in open gym time. Some people are a different breed and they can get through it. Most people are not. And again, we're making decisions based on what most people need. Last thing, Sam, do you do you really kind of stay biased towards is it more open gym time or more classes? Like if we were gonna add something and we had to make a call, and remember when you add classes, it adds coach uh work and prep for coaches and people go out in the summer, those are hard to cover. Do you lean more towards, like if we said we're gonna add hours to the gym, do you lean more towards open gym or do or finding different times to add classes?

SPEAKER_00 33:53

I mean, think about it. If you were to go to open gym and you knew that no one else would be at open gym, just you, how much of a positive experience would that be? I think when you mentioned the positive vibe you get from open gym, it's because there are a group of people there that are working out doing different things. So I feel like open gym by yourself or with one or two other people in in the gym is not a really positive experience. I feel like people will get a much better open gym experience if there are more concentrated times where there are more people around you. That is that is the benefit of what an open gym can do for you, as opposed to just being by yourself somewhere. So um think about that. If you're asking for more open gym time, would you really want to go to a gym where there's like nobody there and you're just doing the workout all by yourself? Not not so great. So I would I would lean towards trying to find the most optimal times for open gym where the most amount of people would actually be there, have a positive experience for the athletes there in terms of classes. There are um, like you know, you you you want to service as many athletes as possible, but there are expenses involved. The schedule, I see you and Liz doing backflips, trying to get coverage for all the different classes we have. And if we added more classes, like it would I would really want to see how many people legitimately are going to be there. Like you talk about the A15. I know probably there's gonna be two or three very vocal people who really, really want it, but does that justify you know, pissing Bobby off, pissing a lot of coaches off, trying to find coverage on a on a weekly basis for that? Like like we're doing backflips right now, just trying to get coverage for every single class we have. So I I would really, really, really want to sort of look at the numbers hard. Uh it's it's like you said, we don't want to lose members, but on the other hand, if we're paying paying, you know, thousands of dollars for five people or two people or whatever it is, like that is not that's not feasible.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Yeah, some of the some of these decisions do have to be scientific. And when I say scientific, objectively about money. They some of them have to be. And if not, again, like we said this last week, we wouldn't be here if we just made decisions to make a few people happy. Um, let's speaking of making people happy, let's move over to the facility part

Facility Ratings And What Stands Out

SPEAKER_01 36:30

of this. And the facility, uh, it went all in to the building, the gym, the equipment, the bathrooms, um, everything. And this really did. I'm gonna try to share this screen real quick, but the um the majority of the people in our gym did think that our our facilities were good, they were good enough. So I'll put this. Let's see, where are you at? Okay, so the facility is like on a scale of one to five. How would you rate the cleanliness, the maintenance, the organization of the rig, the barbells, the gym floor? There's so many things that go into it. And the majority of people did think that it was a five out of five. Again, we did not send a survey out to get pats in the back. You know, we don't I'm I was actually more cognizant when I compare this to the programming and the coaching, that there were a few more people that did not simply rate it five out of five. You know, that that's really what I was looking at. Uh when you looked at the programming, the coaching, um, the numbers were like above 90%, above 80% of five out of five. Now we we were at 60% of a five. So there were more people that probably gave this a second thought of like, hey, this the gym is big, it's nice, it's spread out, it's organized. But you know, there there were some things that did come up a few different times, and I'm gonna touch on that right now, uh, of what the some of the trends that we came up. And we we touched on it the the last week. The the most common, the two most common not complaints, but negatives about a facility where we don't have showers, and the parking can tend to be a disaster at times. And I I do and we touched on the fact that if we added showers, the parking would become even worse. Um, I don't want to spend too much time talking about the showers. I don't think it's interesting. I also said last week it's just not gonna happen where we are at the current gym, there's no space for it. Um, and I think it would create a lot of problems in our gym that we're just not gonna deal with. It's not even a financial thing at this point. I would just don't see it actually creating any sort of fix or making anything positive here.

Parking Problems And Morning Logistics

SPEAKER_01 38:37

But parking, let's let's talk about parking. Yeah. The the if you come at 5, 6, 7 a.m., you see the the ugly side of bison. If you come on Saturdays, sometimes you see the ugly side. People are usually not as stressed out on Saturdays, so it's usually not as big a deal. But during the week where people are very regimented and they need to hit a train or hit a bus, they have to hit get home and shower. Um, that parking is it gets ugly sometimes. Um, and we do have landlords that have offered a couple of solutions that we are technically allowed to use the building. If you're looking at it from Greenwood Ave, that overflow parking is allowed on the right side, that building on the right side, the tan building where all their septic trucks are. That's still a little dicey over there. A lot of people don't like to use it. Um, Sam, you've coached in the morning, you usually work out in the morning. Your thoughts on what we have done in the morning, which has does affect classes and programming, that we try to make the coach be done in 50 minutes for the only for the sole reason that the parking gives time for people to get in and out of the parking lot. You've come there and not been able to find a parking spot, I'm sure, kind of annoying, kind of stressful. You just woke up, no one's ever happy after they wake up, so they kind of get extra angry about things. Um, but you saw you've also been on the coaching side. Can you touch on both perspectives, coach and athlete, of what the parking situation at bison is truly like behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah, this is probably this is a problem, full stop. Parking at Bison is a problem, especially in the morning, and uh there are no easy solutions, but also full stop. So a couple things are absolutely mandatory. One is coaches have to finish their classes by 50 minutes, like that's it. If you can't get your class done by 50 after the hour, you have failed as a coach in the morning. There's there's just there's just no way around it. You have to. You have to. Um, and and that's for the people who commute, that's um for the people who are getting in. I cannot fault the people who stick around and talk and socialize afterwards. I do not want to demonize them because I know that part of what the gym is about is seeing your friends and talking. And so I would rather uh figure out other solutions than to try to yell at people, which we have done, unfortunately. Uh, you know, get the F out of here. We got another class coming. Like, I hate that. Like, to me, that um on a personal level bothers me because I just want to foster more interaction.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Um, so I am not gonna go there. I'm going to say, listen, if you want to talk and hang out, we'll we'll try to figure out other solutions.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Um, the the we made it worse without last.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

We did.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Um so so now there's even more people taking up more spots and and that it so what are the solutions? Well, um, I park on the street. So I go across, like I am one of the first people who will go across the street and park on the other side of Greenwood Ave because there's always parking there. You just have to walk about half a block. Oh my god, that's I'm not telling people that that's what they have to do. If you want to sit in your car and wait for everyone to leave while you come in, that's fine. But that is one, if you don't want to wait, that that would be one option for you. Um, in the meantime, um, I know we've discussed this. Uh, just I think people should know this is in the forefront of our mind. And I don't know what else uh right now to offer as a definitive solution. But but this is something that we've talked about time and time again, and and hopefully, um, you know, and and there are a lot of other issues involved, you know. We we don't want to get in trouble with the town or or other people, we want to comply with all the rules and regulations. So so just know that I fully get it. This is a big problem in in the morning. Have some patience with us. We're we're doing our best to try to address it.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Yeah, yeah. Uh echo everything. Don't want to be repetitive on this. It's definitely a problem. We talk about it, I would say weekly. I think about it daily, especially when I'm coaching in the morning. I'm coaching tomorrow morning and it's it's stuffy out of stressor. Um, we've talked about bumping the move schedule around. Like, even if you made it a 605 start and then a 710 start, um, I don't think it would help as much as some people think. And I also think it also throws off the morning routine of people that work out at 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Like some people again, I can't tell you how many people are very like, I need the schedule to be this because I need to be here by then. And that's the part of being a gym in a commuting uh area where a lot of people do commute into New York City, is that very schedule regimented. So it'd be tough to move the schedule around. Um, we've actually offered to pay in the past uh for parking on the either lot of side of us, like a monthly fee. But you know, with the amount of tenants that are in there and they have all these trucks and back and forth, it's tough. Um, we also know that the the parking does provide um create some running safety issues because people park in the street. And uh right right by the entrance to our our parking lot. And that makes people go into the middle of the road literally every single time they run. And Hawkinson has done a great job, like putting cones and doing certain things that eventually get run over by people on purpose, I believe, or they steal our cones. But there are, I think it's important to know that there is a lot of effort and thought, energy, discussions that go into fixing this long term. And I do think if we ever moved a facility again, that I mean, you would have to get to a part where the parking is a absolute number one priority before you even look into the rest of the building. We have looked at buildings in the past and we said, oh, 20 parking spots. Can't even look further. There's no point in even looking further than that. Um the the facility itself, Ash, the again, you've been here from the beginning at Old Bison, New Bison. We have changed the, and we're gonna make sure Ash's connection is good, but so if it's not, I'll I'll pivot this to somebody else. But we have changed where we put things in the gym so many different times. Barb, like if you look back at pictures of 2019, just imagine this, guys. You walked into the gym and all of the barbells were there right away on your right in the weight. Like that's where that was. It was very closed off in the front. And we've moved things around based on their certain wall space that cannot be used for handstand push-ups and wall balls. So we try to really jam a lot of equipment into those areas. Um, where do you stand with how efficient our things are set up in terms of barbells, weights, making it convenient for people to get stuff and put stuff away in a timely manner?

SPEAKER_02 45:41

I mean, I I think we've done the best that we can possibly do in this space. Um, you know, with the large amounts of classes, obviously comes large amounts of uh equipment. Um, so we've tried to use the spaces, like you said, that we can't use for you know wall space. We've put everything there. Um, we've extended the rig a little bit um in the back to supply, you know, more space for people. Um, but as we grow and as the sport grows, right? We didn't have air bikes a couple of years ago, we didn't have, you know, uh different machines and stuff like that. But as the sport grows, people want things. Programming demands you to add those things. So we kind of have to add things, but in this space, we don't really have any room for them. So I think we've done our best to kind of move things and and Liz is really good about telling our coaches, like, hey, think ahead when you're closing the gym or opening the gym. Um, you know, look three days ahead and say, like, okay, we need the wall. So where are we putting boxes? Where are we putting growers today? Um, I just think that our gym is the way it is, and most people, I feel like, you know, work with it as best as they can.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, that definitely where things are in the gym, how things are set up, there's a right and wrong way to set up every day's workout. And it's not, it has to go with the flow of where people lay down when they do burpees and how safe it is when people drop barbells and what pull-up bars. Again, I still have never seen a gym in America that's puts people in a zone that has a pull-up bar that is ideal for their height, you know, and that we go down to that detail on every single time we use the the bar. Um, someone did say that that the stuff was not efficiently placed, barbells, especially. Um, if you're in the front corner of the gym by where the old office window was, um, you're traveling somewhere to get your bars and your weights. Uh, bars, I should say, primarily. Um, I think it's important to know that those decisions are made with the thought of how much wall space we need for handstand push-ups and wall walks. We need that wall space for days where we go upside down and sometimes even wall balls. And I think if you have an opinion on where stuff is in the gym and oh, that's not efficient, you're probably thinking about you're probably a middayer or nighttime person who is in the gym. When you're in the gym, there's eight people in class, and you really can do whatever you want in that gym with that amount of people. But we make the decisions on 30-person classes because it does happen to this day, and that is where the decisions have to be made, even if that has a negative impact on people that don't go to those classes. And that that's part of a gym that has such a disparity in attendance and classes that those things get moved around because we have seen negatives that have come from literally not having enough wall space. That's one thing we actually lost a little bit of when we moved from 59 to 265. There's not as much just like sheer wall space that people can use to

Air Conditioning Limits And Real Costs

SPEAKER_01 48:50

go upside down. Wall walks, handstand pushups, even wall balls get a little dicey on those big classes. Um, I'm gonna touch on the air conditioning because it's a sensitive uh subject topic, and I don't want to put anyone in a bad spot. So, air conditioning to give everyone a really quick overview of where we currently stand. Uh, it's probably the most talked-about topic among owners, and there's a lot that goes into it. We're renters, I think we're pretty open about that. We rent our building, and we definitely are gonna, we've invested. Um, as I said last week, Adam put a lot of his own money into it. And then bison has also put a lot of money into temperature control, cooling, work that needs to be done. Um, tens of thousands of dollars have been put into it. And if you remember, this past winter, the heater went out. Um, it literally just broke on that really cold, like the dangerous cold days, and our pipes froze. And after a member went to the bathroom, we found out that the pipes froze. So the the you know, you couldn't flush, couldn't use the sinks. And if you guys remember, that was like a panic moment for everyone. Landlords, us did get fixed in I think two days, two or three days. Um, but it was a different heating system. It was just a heater. That's the thing that's hanging in the gym right now. The HVAC unit that goes behind the building that cools, kind of, and heats, kinda. Um, it was a really old, beat up machine. And they were, you know, landlord decision was to use that thing until it's done, and it eventually got there. Um a quick fix was to get a brand new heater that does heat only, and it it worked. It worked fine. That gym can get warm when you need to get warm. No complaints there, and we really did appreciate the timely manner in which our landlord did that. The problem is that cut out the AC. There's no more AC now in the gym. Um, Outlast has it, that's a separate unit. They had a new unit put in last year. The landlord put a unit in there that was all on them. Really thankful for that, but it still leaves zero AC option in the gym. Now, if you guys have been here since 2019, we've never had good AC at bison. We would blast it all day last year, and the temperature would go from 91 to 88. Like, and that, and you're again, I hate to bring up the finances as part of it. You're paying for an air conditioner that's running 14 hours per day. Um, again, we open at 5 a.m., we go till 8:30 p.m. and it doesn't shut off when we do turn it on. That's you know, it's just blasting, trying to get down to the temperature we set it for. It would never get there, so it would never stop all day. And that it's it's a really difficult decision on what to do because it's partially us that needs to make a call on what we want, and then it's partially the landlord because it's their building and there's a split cost there. And um right now we are going to be adding something, probably duckless units in our gym, um, either this year or hate to say it, next year. Meaning there we're leaning towards right now, just met with a couple of the guys yesterday. Um, Sam and Hawk met with the Silva today. Um, probably leaning towards not doing anything in that gym this summer. We have about six weeks left of really, really hot some uh weeks. The amount of time it's gonna take to install, get permits for the electricity, you're talking two, three weeks. Um, there is an angle, a landlord angle, I'm not gonna talk about on this podcast. Just wouldn't, I wouldn't feel right about doing that. It's a little private information there, but we are very aware that it's it's really hot in there. Um, I do think this is where I'll get in trouble. You could hate me for saying it. I do think people have gotten a little too sensitive about that. Um, it wasn't as big of a problem as it was for like four years ago. We didn't really hear about it as much, and now it's kind of like a daily thing that people say it's too hot and it's not too hot. I sweat more than any two people combined at our gym. It's very uncomfortable. It definitely affects my workout sometimes. Um, but there is a feeling to this that uh you're gonna have to suck it up a little bit. And if it ever gets to a dangerous level of heat, then we will make a move. Um, we do we have changed workouts based on that before. Um, but I do think some of this overheating mentality, this overheating thought, it is often the same people that say it's too cold in the winter. And in a gym like this, part of the feel to this is take the elements and deal with it. Um, because that's a big part of what we do. If we did want to get a sophisticated $60,000 air conditioner and pay for it, um, business would lead us to um raising every single rate in the gym, probably 15 to 20 bucks just to cover that. Um, we're not fluiding cash to just say we're gonna go do that. It's just not gonna happen. And that's where we could easily do that if we felt that was the right thing to do, is to go get that enormous system that does heat and air conditioning, brand new, but it would be it would be coming out of the members' pockets to a point, not all of it, but it'd be a shared cost there. And I don't want to do that to people uh for something that really you need for two months a year. So that was a long-winded way. Sam, do you have any thoughts on this? Because we again, we this is probably the most talked-about discussion we have right now, and I don't even think I have the right answer, but it is a decision that does need to be made.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

I really appreciate your honesty, Dave. I mean, basically, the survey results come in and you say suck it up, buttercup. It's just not an issue. No, I which which I mean I understand why people have issues with heat at the gym, okay? And I see that. Um also I think it really depends, and we've talked about this, what you are used to when you work out. Right. Um if you have worked out at most CrossFit gyms, very few have I mean some have air conditioning, most don't, uh, in in this area. And but on the other hand, I just took a Pilates class this week and it was like 65 degrees in there. Like so, if I was working out in that type of environment and then I came to to bison, I would be like, oh my god, this is ridiculous. So, yes, there is some user experience and what they're used to is true, is does play a role. That being said, uh, we are working very hard on air conditioning to make it tolerable, especially like you said, there are a few days or weeks out of the year that it may that's it's really bad. Yeah. Um, I agree with you. The Zudamas have been um fantastic as landlords. We appreciate them very much. Um, there's been a lot of back and forth, and and they've worked with us and we're working with them. Um but like you said, it's about the numbers, it's about our priorities, how much do we want to spend on this versus other things? Do we want to raise members' rates just you know to install um something that's only gonna move the needle, as we talked about, a couple degrees in the in the gym? Are we gonna pay that um electric bill that is like insanely high to actually make that uh temperature change happen? Um, I think uh based on uh our talks that there are some solutions that are cost effective and might be helpful. But as you said, it's probably gonna be some months before we can do that. Mainly uh because of uh equipment availability. Um, like you said, even if we got everything installed like today, it would still take some months for you know permits and all this other stuff to happen. So uh so this season between now and September, everyone's going to have to deal with it for now. And I and I think that that's a reasonable ask because um because it's just literally not possible at this point. Now, could you have said, oh yeah, you should have dealt with this last year or the year before? Yeah, but you know what, like water under the bridge, we're not perfect. We are really trying to work on it now. Um, this is the best solution I think that we have. Um, and I know Dave will keep everyone updated um as to the status once it does happen. Um and we're appreciative, honestly. A lot of this came from members who have experience in HVAC and in other um facilities management and everything else. So this has actually been a community effort for us to try to get the best, most cost-effective solution. So so we appreciate our members, uh, we appreciate everyone, and uh I I I do lean a little bit towards um it's tough, but and if it is unsafe, I think we'll we'll try to take some measures with that. But yeah, um, but I think between now and the end of the year, hopefully we can get by and and and do okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Yeah, uh just to touch the last thing, the bow on this one is we don't want to put time, effort, energy, finances into something that's gonna move at three degrees, and that that's kind of where we're at with some of the solutions that have been brought to us. Um, per because it's a steel building, it's an old building, it's probably not the best, most insulated building in the world that we don't want to do something that's gonna move it two or three degrees. It's just it's not good enough, and you don't want to spend money on that either. The landlords don't want to spend money on that either. The original plan was to use the unit that is in Outlast and create holes in the wall with ducks from there and bring that air into bison. And a professional did tell us that would work, and then we did a little bit more research on it, and it that we were told it's not even an option, it won't do anything again. We almost invested in that. So the worst thing you want to do is make a big decision and it actually not make a difference, and then it's kind of just again water under the bridge, but money under the bridge as well. Okay.

Equipment Requests Plus Bar And Rig Care

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Um, some equipment, something the requipment requests that we've gotten. I'm just gonna run through these. Okay, so we have more barbell collars, two and a half and five pound plates. Um, that got mentioned a lot that we don't have enough two and a half and five pound plates for every single member that wants one. So you see people, I call them uh weightlifting bandits, where you know it's like the middle of an emom and they go into someone else's zone and take their fives. So we we will um that is 100 a promise we're gonna make that we will have 30 pairs of two and a half and fives for the gym. Um uh foam roller storage solution. Someone called it a house of cards that made me laugh. Um, you go in there, you take a roller sometimes, 11 come off that thing. I do agree. Um, we are coming up with a better solution. Um, Adam Hawkinson is really good at that stuff. I do want to give Hawk a shout out. I'll wait a sec for that, but he's gonna come up with a better solution for that storage room um that has turned into something that has been used for a little bit more than we thought it would be. Um, we've been putting out last machines in there. We had yoga mats in there, which I got rid of this week. Um, we do appreciate the feedback that people need to go in there and not feel like something's gonna fall on top of them every time they grab a bench or they can actually move around. Or so again, safety is paramount for there. So we are making a few policy changes for our staff in regard to especially the outlast staff of what's allowed to go in there and what's not allowed to go in there, more importantly. Um, new equipment that people ask for. They ask for sleds, a turf area for sleds, pushes, pulls. That's the high rocks crowd, I'm assuming. Um, traditional powerlifting machines, more GHDs, which we've actually considered getting rid of completely, by the way, um, because they take up so much space. Um, better organization, we've talked about that. Um, barbells that fully spin and are not so rusty. We do have a lot of barbells that are very rusty. Um, Liz, can you touch on some of this equipment talk with barbell care, dumbbell care, the rust, but also we've gotten a lot of complaints that our pull-up bars are not tacky enough. They've lost some of their grip. And we both know that with the growing trend in frog grips, and for those that don't know, frog grips act uh perform better. It's a new brand with no chalk involved, none on your grip, none on the pull-up bar. So we do, we have members with water wiping down the pull-up bars before they use them, and it makes their workout better. All about that. However, the next person to get on there, it's it's literally slippery. And trust me, those bars are not slippery. They're they have blood guts and rust all over them. Um, but just kidding about that. Don't freak out. Can you touch on some of this mem things that we expect from members with barbell care, wiping them down and and being a little bit more mindful of what you're doing to the pull-up bars so that you have a better pull-up workout? Can you touch on that? Because we've had a couple of discussions about this.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:32

Yeah, so we do have our coaches too clean. We have one coach that's in charge of that, and they will wipe down and clean the barbells, and that has to be done X amount of times per month. They have to sign off on it, um, just to make sure they're clean for people that are using them from sweat. But we would love to see a little bit more. You know, if you do chalk that bar, like if you paint it white, we have um I don't know, it's brushes, like steel brushes that are right next to the barbells that you guys can scrape the bars down for the next person. If you bleed, again, we used to have um a chart in there that kind of gave some house rules. Um that's just I think a known etiquette. If you bleed, you have to swipe and scrub that bar down, um which yes might leave it a little bit slippery for the next person. But if you use chalk again, it'll be fine. There's no knurlings off there, it'll be okay. Um we have noticed um yes, the pulp rigs are being scrubbed down before these cross grips. I will say one pet piece I have is when I find the rags on the floor after they scrub them down, they just leave them there. So there is also a hamper for that to put it in and hot does wash and clean those. But yeah, you know, we do notice it, and I do think some of the responsibility is on the athlete to make sure the rig is clean for what they need. But also, if you feel like it's super slippery, you can put you know, chalk on your grips and use that as well. Our dumbbells are wiped down by a coach also, and they have to sign off on that as well and they keep them organized. I think they do a wonderful job at keeping them clean. But then I think if you're somebody who really gets to a barbell and wants it squeaky clean, you do have to take the initiative to clean it down. But then also, how would you leave that barbell for somebody else that was gonna use it?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

Yeah, facility cleanliness is such a team effort thing. Um, it's our job, but we also we definitely need support and help from members to not treat it like it's a dump.

Bathroom Cleanliness As A Shared Standard

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

Um, and that's gonna lead me to the bathroom talk. All right. Um, bathrooms are really tough to keep clean because I've seen they get cleaned multiple days per week, all four of them in the building. And all it takes is one class. Literally, it takes one class for took like you know, a bunch of seventh grade boys went there. And um there there is, we're not gonna ask people to wipe the sink down or or do all this, but we do, you know, things like blood on the sink or blood on a door, blood on like like from high volume pull-up days, like that's stuff that's kind of beyond like that's that's a personal responsibility. We've seen gum on the ground, we've seen gum and urinals, like that's stuff I expect from high school kids and not grown adults that that go to a gym. And um, we we do want, you know, the whole rags thing that on the floor underneath the pull-up bar. I've left things at the gym before, shirts, grips, like there are times you just simply forget. But one thing I try to do, not as an owner, but after as an athlete after a workout, I do try to go back to my zone and just look at it and be like, is there anything I forgot to put away? And almost always I find something. It could be a roller, it could be a piece of chalk on the floor, which is always dangerous if you want to give Ash a heart attack and watch someone step on it. Um, but you know, we we did redo the bathrooms. I don't think they were done to um the quality in which some people were probably wanting. Um, but again, there's a budget there that you really can't go past. And um, Ash, can you touch on some of the, you know, you've seen some nitty-gritty of you know, we've had some issues with the girls' bathroom. I I think women are actually have a lot more uh higher standard for cleanliness in a bathroom. Men are just like, whatever. I do know that there are we should keep that thing clean, but over the years, we've had a lot of complaints um from women about what is found in the bathroom and what could be better about it. Um, without being defensive, remember that's a rule for us on the podcast. And um, can you touch on some of the stuff that we do as a staff, as people we check the bathrooms every night, coaches, but what we want members to really understand about what we want them to do in those bathrooms?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

Um, I think, like you said, we have you know a hundred something people that come through the doors before 8 a.m. sometimes. And so you can imagine that by the end of the day, and no offense to Women here. I don't know what we're doing in there, but the bathrooms by the end of the day look like a bomb went off in there. Um, and I I just think that, you know, as much as we take pride in this is our home, we hope that you guys take pride in it as well. You know, like the see something, say something type of mentality that if you guys see that the, you know, there's toilet paper on the floor or there's feminine products somewhere um that they shouldn't be, um, or just that it's a little bit dirty, like clean up after ourselves a little bit. I mean, and for the gentlemen, obviously I'm not in the men's room, um, but cleaning up your urinals and stuff like that, you know, think of it as your home. How would you want somebody else to come in um and find that place? I think it's just as simple as that. It's nothing, nothing, you know, too big there. Just clean up after ourselves, make it nice for the next person who's coming in.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

Yeah, yeah. The the bathrooms came up uh seven times. So for our survey, that's a decent amount. It's a and um they get cleaned three to four days per week. And I want to give Hawk a shout-out on this. He really, his primary job at bison right now, he does a lot of our beginner classes, but he also he's kind of our facility manager. Um, you see him, a lot of you guys don't see him between two and four, he's blowing out the the hair, the chalk, the dirt that gets in the floor during the morning, so that it just looks a little bit better for the nighttime, not getting as dirty every time you do a burpee. Uh, but he's in there and he doesn't really have to be. He kind of volunteered to do this when he became an owner, which is kind of the anthem to what a lot of people think an owner would do, is he cleans the bathrooms, he's in there with with brushes and paper towels. And um, you know, Hawk's not going to start a cleaning service, but in my opinion, he does a pretty good job in there. And it's not a fun job to do. Now, you see stuff in there you don't want to see. And I think he does a really good job. Um, this got brought up multiple times in in the survey that they love the upgrades and they love the daily attention to just making it look a little bit better and feel a little bit better. We're not equinox, we never will be in terms of things being shiny and clean. Um, but that's not again our workouts, the chalk and you could just see the contrast. We don't allow chalk and out last. That alone makes the gym, I would say, five times as clean or looking cleaner just because it's not as dusty, it's not all over the place. Um, I do think Hawk does a great job. But what got brought up three different times was what Ash said, and this is not bashing anyone. I think it's more of people are in a rush when they go to the bathroom at the gym, to be honest with you. Like they're trying to squeeze it in before the workout starts, um, or squeeze it out. No, just kidding. But the but the um he the the comment that I got that kind of brought my attention was like, women are savages in the bathroom. Now, I don't believe that. I'm not calling them that. I think it was just more of a kind of like an emotional, like, guys, like, you know, some of the stuff that you see in there has nothing to do with Adam not cleaning it enough. There's gyms I know that clean it once every two, three weeks. Um, a gym that I know of that's very good job. That's their once every two, three weeks, they do a deep clean, and that's it. You know, I think that we have to all be very conscious that um what Ash says, if you treat it like you'd treat your own bathroom at your home, it would help out a lot. And we don't really suspect us going a different level higher of either cleaning service or making Adam do more. Mike DeSilva does a lot of that himself as well, especially on the Outlaw side. So I I think it's it's really important. We do hear you on the bathroom stuff. And um, I do think anytime you see something like you know, we brought this to Hawk's attention and he didn't really think one way or the other about it. Like, I can guarantee you there's probably even a little bit more effort on his side. And if we all do that, if we put a little bit more effort into making it look better, I do think it's gonna be better for everyone and without asking anyone to do too much. Uh, but just be mindful of what that place looks like when you leave it. I think it is it's a big deal. Um, I think that's really it in terms of facility stuff and equipment that really, you know, we have some people say the water fountain uh that is in the storage room, it's a little warm. Um, we can't make that cooler, so that that that can't change. We did try to do that, it's just not gonna happen. Um, a lot we have a lot of clutter in the gym up front and in the back. We do agree. I just got a text from one of the owners right now that he's removing some stuff from the back to make it feel a little bit less crowded. I do feel we want as little clutter in there as possible. Um let's go back. We're gonna go rapid fire for the next 15 minutes on the other

Social Media Stories And Member Comfort

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

category. And I'm gonna start off with social media. Um, vast majority of social media was that they like it, don't need to change anything. Got a lot of comments from, I'm assuming our older members who don't really care. They literally said, I don't care what you do on social media, but we also know that we're marketing to, you know, trying to market to a younger crowd that that's where they live. They're on social media all the time. And I just met with Liz and Bobby. I'm not gonna disclose what's gonna be changing, but there is something changing that is pretty significant, in my opinion. Um, that we're gonna wait to announce this. And a lot of this came from this survey. So, again, I want you guys to know we appreciate the feedback that we got. Um, but social media presence is a big part of what we do with our marketing. We don't invest a lot in marketing, we just kind of make some posts and we hope that it gets shared. And um, Liz, you I remember used to spend hours and agonizing how many times you would share stories and tagging people and making it look nice, and you were really good at it. And people do like to see themselves on social media. I do think there's a big part of people like seeing themselves and they share it, and that's what we want. We want people to share with people that are not currently following us. Where do you think CrossFit but also bison stands with social media? Should we be doing more? Is there something we're not doing enough of? Um, and without giving up what we talked about earlier in the week, where do you stand just with the relationship between bison and social media?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:58

Um, I think just making sure it's all different people, it's all you know, different levels and what they're working on. I think everybody has something they're working on, and I think it's super important to share that. And sometimes when people see themselves in social media, they're kind of like taken back or shocked by how how good they look or how well they're moving, or you know, something like that. I think everyone deserves that little spotlight, that shout out. Um it's a team effort again. As the gym gets a lot bigger, it's it's you need more people, you need more manpower to make it happen. But I think we're doing a great job with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love, I love like reading, especially if a day I don't coach or I didn't do the workout. I love kind of looking in on like what happened at the gym, like who was doing what. And again, like I think you're really good at finding the stories. Like they're like, you're like me, like you could find a story in every class, like to that actually is worth telling too. Um, at the gym today, Dave Lancelotti would did the seven minutes of burpees, and I took a video of it, and I'm probably gonna make a post about it, probably giving that up right now. That I don't know many people that would want to make up that workout, but I think there's a reason behind that. There, Dave's a certain way with like you know, doing things and doing hard things, but also being like, hey, I feel responsibility to do this kind of thing. And then Mike Warren and Dan Coda are cheering him on for the last minute, and that's the kind of stuff you want to get on video. It's not fake, there's not rehearsed. I didn't do it for anything. I was literally sneaking my camera in at the end. Um, Sam, you've you uh I think you've gotten mad at me in the past for put posting a really badass video uh picture of you doing a clean. There are some people that don't like to be put on social media. How can a gym manage this? Because I think some of the stories, some of the feedback that I got back in the day, not in the survey, was I only highlight good athletes on social media. I have objective proof that that that is false, but I'm I'm willing to have the conversation with you. The problem with the stories that some people want to see, it's like, oh, I want to see the old person that's not fit doing the workouts. I'm like, well, what do you want me to do? Go up to someone like, hey, you're not fit. Can I video you and make a post about you? It's like you have to find creative ways to put it out there. But do you think this is a lose-lose for gyms in terms of like really pursuing TikTok and more social media and getting more people who may not want to be on camera? Like, do you think that's like a lose-lose? What is a gym supposed to do with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

Well, if you post Dave Lancelotti doing 35 burpees in seven minutes, that's that's not gonna be a win for anybody. I'll fast forward. Like, yeah, you got your 35th. Woo-hoo. Okay. So uh, no, I'm just kidding, Dave. I love you. But uh, I would say this, you're right. Um, I think I I you know, I was one when I I think most people go through an evolution with social media. Yeah, and that's why I I posted a lot and then I didn't want to post, and then and that's why I didn't get mad, but I'm like, yeah, don't put me on there. And I think so. As a gym, we have two, I think there are two main reasons why we we use social media. One is it is marketing, right? We we don't do we don't pay for marketing. We've talked about paying for marketing, and we decided that's that's not where we should be spending our money, but um a lot of it is organic. If you post um what we are doing at the gym, I think that that will naturally draw others to the gym. And so it is basically our form of marketing and and outreach for us to post as a gym. The second, which I think both um you and Liz do a remarkable job, is showcasing our athletes making great uh strides, improvements, uh little wins, everything. So I don't think it's really about good athletes or bad athletes. I think what you and Liz have both focused on are the athletes making improvements in little and big ways, which is why it's so exciting to see someone do their first hang power clean in a nice way, or their ring muscle up, or anything. Now, yeah, is it flashier to show the ring muscle up versus say someone doing like I don't know, something else? Yeah, sure. But like I think you guys do a good job showcasing that. And I think one, it does validate um our athletes. I think athletes do enjoy uh knowing that we are interested in their progress, we are seeing what they're doing, and we are happy and proud for our athletes to make those those improvements. And and I think a majority of athletes are really uh okay with that, especially especially our our newer athletes. I think there's there are good stories there about uh pushing yourself more than you thought you could. I know Liz talks a lot about that. And um, yeah, there are a few maybe who don't, but I think the majority of what we want to do is just show um the power of CrossFit. Like, you know, CrossFit gets a bad name, and we know uh in some circles it's not so great, but our athletes know what they can do with the methodology, how good it can be for them, the uh improvements they can make, and that's what social media is about. So um I'm more for it, I'm all for it. And um, the the the more focused our efforts can be, the more um powerful our efforts can be. Um, I think that's going to help everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:24

Yeah. Storytelling. That that's really what we want social media to be. I know there's better graphic designers out there, there's better film editors out there, there's better lighting and better cameras. But to me, the goal has always been tell the stories that we get to see and we know about that most people don't. That and it's um, and there's a few things we're gonna change with our social media that we're excited to share. That's gonna be more for our members that are coming to the gym, not necessarily marketing what we do. Um, but we'll we'll disclose more about that uh in

Outlast And Bison Synergy Without Freebies

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

a little bit. Ash, the what also came up in the survey um a request for more synergy between Outlast and Bison. Um, and before I have you answer the question, you're currently on mute. I I'm seeing you on mute right now, Ash, just so you know. Okay. And um the okay, just making sure. So we've done a few episodes on Herd Fit. Sam and I, we've had Dean Hawk come on, talk about the the relationship between the two. They are separate memberships. I know that's not ideal. Um, I'm always hesitant to give people free things, not because we're uh gold diggers trying to grab money, it's I never want to um never done it as a bison either, too. I don't want people taking things for free that other people are paying for. And like my no out of the loyalty to people that are paying members, I don't want to take what they've paid for and give it to someone else for free. So to say that you're gonna get a free class at Outlast or get a free class at Bison because you're a member at one, I don't I don't jive with that. I don't think that'll ever happen. I do think there are certain pockets in the year where we can kind of mesh the workouts, be like, hey guys, both gyms are doing the same workout. You can go whatever class you want. That's something I think that could be some synergy that we would do. But you coach at both, Ash. Um, because you're coaching set, you're in the Saturday rotation right now at Bison. You just coached this past Saturday at last, you've done a bunch of uh Monday or Wednesday nights at that last. Um, you know, and we don't need to get into comparing the two, but do you see where uh an athlete at one might want to go dabble in the other? And you see the relationship between the two because it is a very similar culture, similar leadership, similar vibe. Um, or do you think it's better separate? And like, hey, if you want to go in there, you got to go be a drop-in, you got to be a ping member or a 10-packer because they're they're separate gym memberships, and we don't want to disrespect one or put one in front of the other.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

I think they should be separate. Um, I think the the feel is a little bit different in each side. Um, you know, we've definitely heard that, you know, people will say, like, oh my gosh, like bison is just so intense and you know, it's intimidating in some aspects. Um, and some people just want to come in and work out. And yes, the workouts may be very similar. I think Sam even said this yesterday when I was coaching. Um, he's like, that was a very cross-fitty type of workout. Um, I think people can get benefits out of both sides. Um, but I do see that there are times when we have athletes that dabble in both sides. You know, we may be doing dumbbell clean and jerks um over at Outlast. And sometimes they're like, hey, I want to know what it's like to have a barbell actually. Um, or we started doing, you know, strict pull-ups in Outlast. And, you know, maybe they want to learn a little bit more of like the tip. So I can see kind of how people want to bounce back and forth from either side. Um, but I do think that they should remain, you know, separate gyms. I think that uh they're they're different, um, yet the same. Um, but I do think that they should remain uh a little bit separate here. Uh programming is a little bit different. Um, it's just the need of the athlete. And um I think people should go back and forth. Um, there's plenty of times that I do, you know, bison three days and not last, you know, two days or something like that, depending on on the week. Um, I think they're both beneficial in different ways. I think people should try to see both sides.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:34

Yeah. And from their perspective, that it for some people it is a financial thing. It's like, look, Dave, I'm paying 200 bucks a month at bison. Stop telling me to go take a class at last. I get that. And I think there are some things we can do to create some synergy in terms of maybe program the same workout at both and give the option to go to both. Or um, but in terms of just giving stuff away for free, I just don't I don't think that's a good idea because of what it kind of shows the people that are already paying. So I do think there does need to be some sort of investment. What I would actually recommend, if it is a financial thing only, is I would put yourself on hold at one for a month and try the other for a month. Um almost half of our, I would even say about half the members at Outlast have a bison background. Um, either current members or they used to go to bison and they they switched over to Outlast. And I think there's more to that than you might think. And the financial part of it, we're having someone do it tomorrow, uh, July 20th, right? The um they're gonna give Outlast a shot. They're putting themselves on hold at bison and they're gonna go over there because they want to get like 16 to 18 classes to really see, like, hey, do I like this kind of training? What's the difference? Um, that's always another route. Um, doing it for a month too is probably a better way to get a feel than you know a random workout here and there. Um but that that's that's up to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:52

And I think we've done a good job with you know trying to mesh the two without completely integrating them wholly, you know, inviting Outlast to do the open with us. And we had a lot of people who did the open um really surprise themselves. Um, we had people join us for bison pole.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

Um, we've done holiday workouts, holiday workouts, holiday workouts, exactly holiday workouts.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:15

Um, so I think there is that synergy coming together with still um maintaining a little bit of that separation.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

Sam, are you gonna touch on something?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:24

Yeah, I mean, I think all those things are good. I think I want to first remind people that philosophically we we didn't know that Outlast was gonna s be successful. So we didn't want bison to cannibalize or just become an extension, Outlast to become an extension of bison, which is why we made a very clear philosophical decision to separate them completely, membership-wise, um programming everything. And so is the is the but the question remains is there a benefit as what Ash does sometimes? Like who wouldn't want to go to Bison three times a week and then go to Outlast one time a week? Why is there not a hybrid bison outlast membership? And these are valid questions, and this was raised in the survey. And I'm not opposed to that right now. Um, I don't think there's an option that makes sense for us right now, be looking at the growth of Outlast and seeing um that you know what we want at Bison. And and I understand there are some people who are very interested in that option. Um, and that's not to say that there's not going to be that option in the future, right? But I think we need to see more growth on both sides first, and also to try to figure out exactly what we're doing on the Outlast side before we start like saying, okay, bison members, here's another m option. Because then like what happens on Outlast, it's not a big class, let's let's face it, it's relatively small. You only need like 20 people on bison to come over to like a w a couple times a week to completely overwhelm what's going on. So I'm I uh it's not financial, it's really more of uh logistics, philosophical, and um and trying to make sure both both sides grow appropriately. So um I think Dave offered a good option with trying it for a month and seeing how it goes. But if you want to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, like that's we we we can't do that yet without without without issues at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

Yeah, no, you're right. It's important to know the morning classes are full. Like we can't just have 10 people go over there because they feel like they like that workout better than seven and suburpees. All right, um, we have two two things left, and they're both relatively quick.

Extra Programs Versus Keeping It Simple

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

All right. Um, but speaking of extra programs, uh Liz, you remember I think I said this to you, Liz. I think it was last two weeks ago, where I was like, there is a part of me, the simplicity side of me, that misses that all bison was was classes. That's it. No next level, no power, no next gen, no crossfit kids, just you show up to class, no open gym, that's it. And for it to be a growing business and to feed all of our staff and to keep our members engaged, we we added a lot of different things. And I don't want to get nostalgic, that's not the point of asking the question because this came up on the other side of in the other section of the survey a couple of times. It's only two or three times, but it's almost like we've offered so many different things, outlast being one of them, that it has diluted bison a little bit, it's actually broken us up a little bit. Um we we we've been told that we're trying to sell things all the time. Um do you do you see that side of it? What is your response to it? Um, because I never want to get away from what we are. I think what we are is pretty simple. It's a community of like-minded people that are just trying to get fitter and meet people and build health and happiness through a lot of different mediums. But as the gym grows, there's just so many different things that are needed, and we're also providing money for other people that are doing work and starting their own little business here and there, if you want to view it that way. Um, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:21

I'm gonna start with I don't think there's a gym that cares as much as you guys. Um, I think having other um things on the side is just trying to service the needs of more people. And it's start it's always based based off class. I don't think that's ever changed your advice in is that any decision you guys make is around the classes, and then you make the rest of it work. But I think to have um all of this other stuff that people can do and go to and learn from is only benefiting them. Um, like skills classes, you know, like if you have great pull ups, you don't need to even think about skills classes, but it might help that one person that. Needs are five people that don't have pull-ups yet, and it helps them get that and then bring that to classes and grow. Um, PT, sometimes, I mean, we've talked about this a lot. Sometimes people need a year of working with someone or six months of just strength work. They don't know what to do, they need accountability. So I think to have that offered is awesome for maybe a smaller, yes, a smaller group of people, a smaller audience. Um, kids program, we don't all have kids. I don't have kids, right? So that's to me, I think of that, it's not irrelevant. I see that how amazing it is, but it's for people with kids. So I think it's just looking at what that person needs and then how to service them. So I think it benefits us. But yeah, simplicity is a you know me. I love simplicity. I want to change, same thing, 20-minute workout every single day. I love that. Yeah, but I do see that there's a lot of value in offering other things.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

Yeah, yeah. It's just it's such a multifaceted discussion. We probably just could do its own podcast on it because we're running out of time here. Um, but I think it's important to know it's not necessarily about um revenue as much as it is about providing what other people need, and but we're not forcing anyone to do it. I think that's number one thing. It's like you might feel FOMO if you see seven people doing the reset challenge and you have zero interest, or some FOMO if someone's doing next level and you're not, no one's making anyone do anything. And if you do want that foundational, hey, we're just across the gym with classes, it's there. That's what we are. That's what most of the people from our gym do. They just do classes three to four days per week. That's the number that most of our gym does. So the the other stuff, it's just accessories.

Cameras For Safety Privacy And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 1:29:38

All right. Last thing I want to touch on because this came up and I want to make sure our members are on the same page with this because this is semi-serious. It's our cameras at the gym. Um, we've had security cameras at the gym since we moved to 265 Greenwood in 2019. So that there have been cameras in that gym since since then. Um, maybe uh maybe it was like a six months after, and they were more like Wi-Fi based. Now they're hardwired. So those things are running. Like, I could check right now um that you know, what's going on at the gym? What's there? What's set up? Is there a fire? Right. Sometimes I literally wake up at 4:50 or 5 15 a.m. with anxiety. I'm like, I hope the coach is there. And I'll literally look in real quick and be like, all right, good, someone's there. And then I go back to bed. Um, but we there are things that have happened at the gym that it really does help protect us to make sure things are done. Now, there's a double-edged sword to um cameras. Um, but I think the primary thing is safety. Um, I've had I've Ash used to coach the gym. Liz, I've seen her look close the gym. Kayla has closed the gym by themselves, 8:15, 8:30, 9 o'clock at night back in the day. I would watch them to make sure they got out of there at time. Like that it was something that I needed. We've had people go down with injuries, heart issues. Um, we've had equipment malfunctions that it helps us to have cameras all over the gym, all different angles to make sure things were done correctly. We just had a situation last week at the gym, and we're not evaluating how the coach handled it, but it is a good learning point for everyone that if, hey guys, this coach did this perfect, brought the uh athlete over there, called 911, that kind of thing. And you there's no sub, it's like watching yourself work out. There's no substitute for seeing what happened on cameras. Um, but I do think there's a privacy concern some people have. And I think you need to understand, and I hope you guys trust no one's privacy is being invaded at the gym. If you're not doing anything wrong, you got nothing to be concerned by. You know, like it that's the big thing. But if someone ever stole something, assaulted someone, sexually harassed someone, there's something that we might have to go back to and have record with, other than just using people's words. Um, I remember telling the guys, uh, my my former business partners in 2018, I was like, I don't want to be alone in a gym with a girl. And because what if she says something that's not true? Everyone believes the girl in a situation like that, and like that could be the end of biasing, the end of my career. Um, I always want to have a video to say, like, prove it that this happened. Um, because that stuff happens. And like you might be like, oh, Dave, you're paranoid, but I'd rather be paranoid than careless about something that is this serious. Um, funny things happen at the gym all the time, and a member will literally ask us to get the video of what happened. Hey, I fell off the rig. Hey, I tripped over this weight when I was going back. Look at this video. We have a laugh about it. Uh, but I think it's important to know that the purpose of the cameras are always safety based. In some ways, it could even be legal based. And again, I know there's two sides to that. Um, but it's never, hey, did Liz squat low enough? Hey, um, is is Ashley uh cheating on this or cheating on that? Like that's something that if an athlete asks, Mike Warren asked Adam to count how many rounds he did in a workout um a couple weeks ago because he put up the wrong score, and uh not shockingly, he was off by a round. So he had to went down around, down to seven from like that kind of thing. It does you can kind of say, like, all right, is that really the purpose of the camera? No, it's absolutely not. The purpose of the camera is for safety concerns, legal concerns, um, and you're gonna have to trust that it's not anything that's gonna be abused by the very few people that have access to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:24

Yeah, um, I wanted to reiterate that because um I don't think there's any question that cameras are are needed at the gym, like for all the reasons that you cited. There are there are benefits for the gym as well as for members and their protection to have the cameras there. That does mean that there is some loss of privacy. When I coached, I made sure never to scratch my ass at 5 a.m. in the morning when I was setting up because I was like, Dave is probably checking to see if I'm here. Yeah, you know, so let me, you know, yes, be on my best behavior, right? You know, don't, you know, dilly-dally like be professional, like absolutely. So it it may not feel awesome to know that, but as Dave said, there are very few people that have access to those cameras, the only the ones necessary. I don't have access, most owners don't have access. It's just the people who need access to that. And as Dave said, especially lately, with um um a couple posts where people had like on request um asked for footage, uh people might be thinking, and justifiably so, that this is just a cavalier or um something that we don't take seriously. We take it very seriously. Yeah, and so I think people should um understand that uh and I think yeah, I think you're right. I think even people are saying, Oh, can you go back to my footage and check if I did burp enough burpees or whatever? Like I yeah, that's something we we've discussed and um we're sort of leaning uh sort of not on. Like if you really want to know how many rounds you did, Mike, video yourself next time. Yeah, don't don't freaking ask us. Video yourself and and check for yourself. So yeah, so it's not for those purposes, and I don't think that it should be. I think, but I think as we've discussed many times, it's it's extremely serious. As Dave says, it cuts both ways, and how we use it um will determine uh whether we are appropriate and and safe with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:32

Yeah, I do appreciate someone bringing it up though, because I do think that uh if if that person thought it, I'm sure someone else did as well. It's like, are they really checking us out? Are they really looking at our form? It could even be as simple as that, or you know, what are you actually using it for? We had a member's car broken into in the parking lot, and that video helped police figure out what happened. Yeah, the police literally thought it was from a dump truck. Uh, like he a rock came out from a dump truck and hit our members' window. And then we I went through the video for a long time and found that someone broke into her car.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:03

So those are real, like that's one of those, like, dude, we have to have these. And um, as someone that feels responsible for our coach's safety, I really do feel like it's um not important but vital to have cameras going on at all times. And um, you know, as long as you know, don't do anything wrong. I understand there's maybe a little discomfort, as Sam said, but um though those are really necessary for us to have.

Final Takeaways Thanks And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 1:36:25

So that's gonna wrap it up, guys. Um, again, went a little bit longer, but we did not break our PR. If we did, I think we all would have been mad at me for the week. But again, that's the that's it for the bison survey. Um, there will be more discussions that come from this, probably even more episodes, because again, I I view this as kind of like a maybe once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a gym to have a first survey like this. If we do this next year or two years down the road, it won't be the same. Um, to have a first survey like this, it was really special and it really did help us look inward at what we can do better and understand where people are coming from. And it's gonna help us make the gym better. And again, that's the goal of all four people on this podcast. It's something we talk about pretty much every single day is what can we do to make it better within reason? And if I just want to give you guys a shot. If there's anything you guys want to touch on, and then we'll wrap it up. Liz, is there anything you want people to know that we haven't really talked about? Um, if not, that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:24

No, I just honestly thank you guys. I think you do a wonderful job. I think they've told you that. And I think it's awesome that we're making the changes that they want to see and we're putting in the effort. So just patience. Um, it comes within time. There's a lot of people, and it it does take time to implement.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:40

Yeah, Sam, I appreciate everyone who filled it out, who's listening to this. Um, just know that we will take our jobs uh with the utmost of uh seriousness and uh the responsibility seriously. And and I also appreciate Dave that you really took the time to read, address, discuss all of these issues. Um I think that's what makes the gym work is uh how um important every comment from anybody at the gym is to you and and to all of us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:12

And Ash, are you there?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:15

Okay. You know, I don't see your video, but you what do you want anything you want to touch on on in closing?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:21

Um, no, I echo, you know, what Sam and Liz said, you know, if you guys think of something or think of something that we can improve on um or think would be great for the gym, always let us know. We're always open ears.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:36

Yeah, yeah. The first survey podcast got some people saying, like, hey, I didn't fill it out, but you know, so like if you didn't fill it out, like and you still have some things, like this isn't a closed book. Uh, don't the survey I'm not gonna look at it anymore, but you can reach out to us. Can't be anonymous. I guess you can oh, you can find a way to be anonymous, but we don't need it to be anonymous, nothing's gonna be held against you. I think we've proven through this episode, these two episodes, that we will uh whatever you say will be taken seriously and and with the same effort of making it better. So we appreciate you guys. We have a lot of respect for how smart some of you guys are, and that's another reason why we want your feedback. Liz, Sam, Ashley, thanks for all the time that you guys put into it yourselves. Uh, even just with these episodes. It's a lot of time that you guys spent talking. It's not an easy thing to do either. And I really do appreciate you guys uh for doing this, but everything you guys have done and continue to do uh for bison as we try to take it to the next level. All right. Thank you guys, and we will see you probably not next week, probably two, three weeks from now. Have a good one. 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.