200% revenue through culture: an interview with Move Private Fitness Co-Founder CJ Lee
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MOVE Private Fitness gained a 200% increase in their revenue from 2023 to 2024 - without even growing more branches. They attribute the growth to having a team culture that drives business performance. With another 8 branches in the pipeline to be launched in 2025, they are are expecting to hit USD 3 million in revenue by the end of the year.
We sat down with co-founder CJ Lee to get his perspective on how fitness franchises can upgrade their staff retention and team culture to boost revenue.
Are there any gaps in how fitness studio owners are thinking about staff retention?
Fitness studio owners have always assumed that the success or failure of staff recruitment and retention comes down to the dollar amount they could afford to pay out. This is not entirely true as the workforce these days are also seeking for a work place where they feel belonged, appreciated, recognised and to realize their fullest potential.
There isn’t a one size fits all approach to ensure the engagement of all staff. Some require a lot more nurturing, some love to be thrown into the deep end to figure things out while some thrive only when a well thought out plan and instruction is given. It’s important to take the time to understand your staff better and the use of personality tests have helped us point our staff towards domains where they played to their strengths and thrived in their element.
However, personality tests’ results should also be used to make aware of how they could stretch to further reach their potential.
With staff wages taking up 44% of expenses for the majority of fitness studios, what’s the best strategy for retention on a budget?
This day and age, the younger workforce are starting to look at multiple factors when it comes to choosing which company to work with. Therefore, up until a certain point, paying your staff any more will not always lead to a greater sense of fulfillment nor retention.
The Maeslow’s hierarchy of human needs framework gives us a very clear idea of all kinds of needs that we humans seek to fulfill. While some are driven to just fulfill basic human needs such as putting food on the table and having a roof over their heads. There are also those who are eagerly driven by the need for connection, recognition and self actualization. As a business owner, not only do we have to provide our staff with a rewarding earning scheme based on values or outcome delivered, it’s also extremely important to ensure there’s a mechanism in place to help meet the needs of those seeking for more.
The good news is, it might not even require much money to do so! At MOVE, we’ve had dozens who joined and gone on to stay with us for a long time due to the fact that they felt belonged, cared for and at the same time, being challenged to push their limits. Those who had proven themselves were given the opportunity to create, design and execute projects with full autonomy.
How do you choose a great cultural fit? What top three things do you look for?
A great cultural fit all starts with a stringent recruitment process. When it comes to putting someone through it, we don’t make it easy because as the saying goes “easy come, easy go”.
Having someone come into our organization too quickly could mean that we might miss a few things when it comes to vetting through their characters and values. Those who seeked for an easy path had been turned off by our stringent recruitment process whereas those who made it through had a newfound level of appreciation. The top 3 things we look for in a recruit will be their Characters, Competencies and Congruency.
They must uphold our 5H values (Hungry, Humble, Honest, Happy, Heart). They should also come with a certain level of competency as any growth driven person should and we place high emphasis on congruency because it’s mandatory for coaches to practice what they preach.
When is the best time for a company to focus on culture?
The best time is always in the real beginning and it’s a non negotiable for us at MOVE. And here’s why. There was a time where we took on the concerns from new coaches as they suggested culture building should take the backseat as they felt overwhelmed by the amount of learning required during their onboarding. We took on their suggestion immediately and postponed our culture coaching weekly meet.
Months later, we realized misalignment took place and it became more and more apparent as time went on. We quickly rectified it the best we could and it was an uphill battle we would never wish to experience again. Culture building at the start is tough, it’s even tougher trying to rectify later. Hence we decided to work on it from the get go while streamlining our onboarding process to allow the best of both worlds to happen.
What advice would you give a fitness studio owner or franchisee who’s just starting out?
Stop having the misconception that people (especially Gen Z) want time freedom. While it might be true for some, many of them are rather wanting to be empowered with the freedom to think and a degree of ownership. With the right guidance given and a compelling purpose ahead, you would be surprised by how focused and resilient Gen Z could be!
You’ve gotta work towards having sales and marketing being delegated to your marketing and sales personnel. It’s crucial to have that in mind from day 1. Ultimately, your role as a business owner is not to find clients and members! Instead, your role is to constantly look for great talents. You’ll be surprised how many problems can be solved with great talents coming together.
This also means that you shouldn’t just be posting health and fitness contents on your personal social media, you should also think of contents that would attract potential recruits out there. Do check out my instagram profile to get an idea of what I mean @rise.with.cj
What strategies have you found most effective at building company culture?
The use of philosophies and principles by thought leaders and books have been impactful to our company culture as they are proven to work for decades and still stay relevant for companies big or small. Thought leaders such as John Maxwell, Jim Collins and Simon Sinek have gone on to provide us with in-depth understanding of leadership and communication amongst our team members.
We’ve actually created an 8 weeks cohort for those looking to go to the next level with the company and we spent time watching, reading and discussing nuggets picked up from videos and books and implementing them in order to achieve greater heights collectively.
Can you share some personal philosophies or principles that guide your leadership style?
Though we assume that it’s year 2024 and people crave for autonomy and no longer wish to be micromanaged. But as a leader, it’s important to know that autonomy is something that needs to be earned. I like using the Leadership Square Quadrant (search google) to help manage expectations with those under my lead that a more directive approach from me is expected earlier on in a role they’re assigned to.
As much as I don’t enjoy that style of leadership, but time and time again, it’s proven that failure to do so had backfired. To help both parties to align, I would visually present the framework itself. Usually, full autonomy will be rewarded once they've proven themselves and this process should take anywhere from 6 - 12 months.
Where do you see the future of fitness boutiques going, especially in relation to company culture, hiring strategies, etc?
I actually don’t have high hopes that it would get any better if business owners are constantly pointing fingers, blaming and complaining especially with the Gen Z workforce soon to dominate businesses everywhere. But I believe there would be a handful that could rise above because they are willing to unlearn to relearn in order to keep up with the ever changing business landscape.
It doesn’t matter if you’re venture backed or bootstrapped. The player who cares the most will win.