We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josef Brandenburg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josef below.

Josef, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

Growing up I was usually the “fat kid” and as people around me watched me turn it around over the years, a friend’s father asked me if I’d be their personal trainer. I had never heard of a personal trainer, I thought people got jobs that they were uninterested in so this was exciting to learn people actually could get paid for helping other people with their fitness. That was the start to my fitness career which is now in it’s 27th year.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Since becoming a coach in 1998, starting my first personal training business in 2002, and our current studio in 2016, https://true180personaltraining.com/personal-training/, I’ve gotten a full education in business. It has not been easy and in fact some years were scary. There are always ups and downs in entrepreneurship, and learning how to handle each thing that comes to you is how you succeed. That with lots of hard work, some luck, and great people!

We primarily work with women over 40 in the south Charlotte area. We are the only women’s only personal training studio in Ballantyne. We offer full body strength training sessions no matter your age or fitness level, we will meet you where you are starting. Our coaches, https://true180personaltraining.com/about/, both have over 25 years of experience and expertise which is hard to find in the fitness and wellness space.

We are not part of a franchise so we can really provide the best personal training and customer service to our clients. Since we do all of our programming in house we can pivot as needed to best serve our T180 ladies, who range in age from late 30’s to early 80’s.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

The book “Profit First” has been the most important business book that we have ever read. You can’t take care of yourself, your family, your employees, or anything else if you run out money (profit in particular). Most of your colleagues are probably bragging about their top-line revenue, but it’s not how much you make, but how much you keep that matters to your family.
As a business owner you already started a business because you’re not going to wait for someone to do something for you, and your financial health is no different.
Profit First is great for small businesses because it is simple and useful (and doesn’t endorse anything legally questionable).

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

We sold our hybrid personal training studio about a decade back. (Hybrid = it had personal training, large group classes and open gym and was 5x the square footage of our current business.). We learned a lot, and here are some of the most important: (1) your business probably isn’t worth that much. The 5x EBITDA valuation formula that you heard for “how much is my business worth?” is academic wishful thinking. The reality is that your business (like all things) is worth what someone else will pay for it. Unless you’re doing $5M+ in annual revenue the only prospects you have are vendors, customers and employees.

A personal training business, for example, is only going to be slightly appealing to one of your employees, or one of your clients who wants to keep their trainer (or who wants to buy a job for the chronically unemployed child). None of these people are going to be willing or able to pay very much. No private equity firm wants to buy a personal training business because they don’t want to run the business or do any of the personal training, and the business depends on the skill, professionalism, etc of the providers.

(2) The implication of (1) is that you need to be saving and investing outside of the business because the proceeds from the sale of the business will NOT be funding any retirement. In other words, do not count the theoretical value of your business on your personal net worth worksheet – stick to liquid assets.

(3) Be meticulous and suspicious. Get a letter of intent, non-disclosure, earnest money, etc. Ensure you have more than one prospect, and ensure the other people know they’re not the only game in town. Use a lawyer. Use the power of negative thinking – is this person trying to get access to your customer base, is this person going to renege, etc? Pessimism (combined with action) beats optimism when it comes to getting it “done.”

(4) You’re not “done” until you get the last payment. One way to get a better price is to set up a payment plan, but just because someone signs a document doesn’t mean they will follow through. Running a business is hard work, and most people don’t want to work that hard, so if the somewhat lazy new owner runs into money problems, you are the first person they’re going to cry to. One way to ensure the checks get mailed (and don’t bounce) is to volunteer to be their bookkeeper for the term of their payments to you. It’s a pain, but it’s the best insurance policy available.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://true180personaltraining.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/true180forwomen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/True180personaltrainingforwomen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/76139828/admin/dashboard/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6PZRu7idE1ef5Rlc386GLg
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/true-180-personal-training-for-women-charlotte-2

Image Credits

Elias Rauch Media