We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rob Colon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rob, appreciate you joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

Hiring staff for a brand new business is the most important thing you will do in the startup process. In order to set the tone for your clients about who you are as a business, you have to have the right people on your team. As a small business owner, you may plan to be there all day every day and be able to monitor and influence the experience provided by your staff in every interaction. This is a normal and necessary plan. It is, however, crucial that you are spending more time contributing to the experience rather than correcting it.
When I started recruiting for staff, I started with the manager first. It was imperative that the manager be able to understand and identify with the experience I envisioned our customers having. The business world is ultra-competitive these days, especially in the small business world. If your business provides an exceptional experience, the client may tell a friend or two. This can add prospects and clients to your business without additional advertising expense and help you grow more quickly. If your business does not provide an exceptional experience, they can tell an average of 200 FaceBook friends with the touch of a button or even more with a Yelp or Google review. One negative interaction could set you back months in your initial growth.
Once I found the manager I believed was the best fit and in alignment with my vision for customer service (after dozens of interviews), I included them in the recruiting process for the balance of the team.
We would interview together and never committed to a candidate on the initial meeting. We had discussions about the pros and cons of each applicant relative to the vision of the business operation and developed a score for them based on what I call my top 3:
1. Teachability
2. Authenticity
3. Goals and desire for growth
When you recruit based on these fundamentals rather than just job history/experience, education and accreditations, you find people you can train to work your business the way that will most likely create the best experience for the client.
Once your team is selected and before you begin training, I recommend having group meetings in a social place like a restaurant. The key to building a team is establishing a culture. That is started by having the team get to know each other and learn about them. What makes them unique? What special skill or talent do they bring? What are their goals? Start by asking lots of questions and asking everyone to answer in turn. It helps them learn to follow your lead, work together and the most import skill in customer service, LISTENING.
When training begins, do it as a group whenever possible. Online training has created an avenue to complete a lot of basic information exchange in a very efficient and timely manner. What it doesn’t do is help with social interaction, problem solving and utilizing the teams strengths in problem solving. The best teams are built of a group of individuals who go out of their way to make each other look good.
Following these basic principles will create a team that is well prepared to work together, understand the vision/mission of the business and set you up for success on day 1.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into th fitness industry after a 30 year career in automotive retail in the Seattle area. I retired early (49) and moved to Phoenix to enjoy 330 days of sunshine and focus on my personal health and well-being. After trial periods at multiple big-box and boutique fitness franchises and individually owned and operated facilities, I noticed that something was missing: COMMUNITY. Phoenix is a large city with a population of more than 2Mill people. A lot of these people are transplants and transient in the sense that they moved here for retirement, snowbirds who live here part-time or people transplanted for work. This fact means that they move here and don’t always have a strong core group of friend/relatives. That was me. I was looking to establish connections with like-minded people so I could make acquaintances, find friendships and build a social core group. I couldn’t find that in the spaces I went to for working out. I identified a need.
I chose Jabz Boxing as a franchise to own and start my business with for their low start up costs, strong support and uniqueness of the concept. I was always interested in boxing but never pursued it, mostly out of intimidation. I didn’t want to get hit and I didn’t have any experience. This concept allows adults (16+ with parent waiver) of all ages, skills and experience levels to be introduced to boxing in a constructive, non-competitive environment.
I believed with my vision for client experience, community and professionalism, Jabz could be that community building opportunity for clients.
We started with a purpose statement: “The mission of Jabz Boxing Chandler is to create a safe space for like-minded individuals to maximize their potential physically, mentally and spiritually through community”. And we live and breathe that in the studio.
The thing I am most proud of, besides the 20% growth we’ve had every month since we opened in March, is the results and feedback of our clients. EVERY client of our studio has gotten faster and stronger since joining. We have Punch Tracking technology that gives us real time and report-based feedback of every clients’ performance in every workout. This is what we use to prove to ourselves and our clients that what we do in the studio produces results. The feedback has been outstanding as well. We do social, out of studio events each month and a large number of members come every time. They love getting to know each other, becoming friends outside of the studio and taking on new challenges together. We have done dinners, game night, food truck events and even a craft beer and music festival.
Realizing your dream in business has to be more than just making money. It has to be realizing your mission and achieving your purpose. At Jabz Boxing Chandler, we are seeing that dream come true!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson I had to unlearn is using conversation, closing skills and justifications to make sales. In the ultra-competitive fitness industry, clients are used to being bombarded with in-studio closing pressure, aggressive text, email and phone call follow up and high pressure tactics. The problem with this strategy is that people who are pressured into a membership usually don’t stay in one for more than 90 days. As a result, studios are always paying for advertising, always working on new membership sales to replace the lost ones and they expose their community to uncommitted, not like-minded short timers. This is a tremendous expense and toll on the staff. To stand out, we had to really let the experience be the closer, well that and the membership. Our strategy is the First 3 Classes are Free and we encourage everyone to take all 3 before making a decision. This allows us to make a decision as well. Does the client show up for their class reservations? Are they on time? Do they add to the community or are they a distraction?
By having three experiences, the client and the studio are able to determine if this is a great fit, and you know what? At the end of 3 classes, it usually is.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is our main source of advertising. We contract with a vendor to handle targeted ads designed to inform prospects who we are, what we do and how to get get started. That’s the easy part.
The hard part of social media is building your brand in these spaces where people who don’t receive your target ads can be entertained, engaged and develop interest in attending. For me, finding the right person to manage the studio account was the most important decision I’ve made. This person has to be someone who uses social media in their day to day lives, understands what is trending and/or how to find it. There are so many variables: content, music, graphics, post times, cadence and consistency. The bottom line is this: you have to have a two-pronged approach. You must advertise on social to targeted audiences and you must entertain through your business page for engagement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jabzboxing.com/locations/chandler-AZ/
• Instagram: @jabzboxingchandler
• Facebook: Jabz Boxing Chandler
• Youtube: Jabz Boxing Chandler
• Yelp: Jabz Boxing Chandler