We recently connected with Timothy Meyer and have shared our conversation below.

Timothy, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

In the earliest days, I was entirely on my own. I ran all of the training sessions and worked with every client. I created the website from scratch. I managed all of the money and paid all the bills. I did all of the social media and spoke to every potential lead.
After a couple of years, I started taking college interns and began teaching them about the program that I had created. I had met a fantastic professor from the University of Texas at their internship fair and she invited me to present to her Personal Training class. So every fall and spring, I would drive to campus and speak to a small group (around 20) of students who were interested in working in physical therapy or personal training. I promoted our training program and the fact that I offered internships to anyone who was interested in learning more. That started over 10 years ago and I still visit that class every fall and spring and have had over a dozen interns from UT come and work for me.
Every intern has been different. Some have come in with no experience and just a fantastic mindset, ready to learn. Others are capable of being hired within the first couple of weeks. Every intern is different and the key for me is to cater the internship to the area that they need the most help in, whether they’re fully aware of it or not. Yes, they will learn our program, how we coach athletes and adults, how we organize workouts for different populations. But, the most important part for me is helping them to fill in the gaps that they have in order to better serve our, and potentially their, clients.

Timothy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My father taught me how to lift weights when I was 13 years old and I have been in love with it ever since. As a kid, I played soccer and was always fairly active. In college, I minored in Kinesiology and liked it so much that I decided to go to graduate school to get a Master’s Degree in the field. After I graduated, I started personal training at gyms and eventually decided to start my own business.
It was slow going in the beginning and I trained people whenever and wherever I could. After a couple of years of subleasing space and working as a contractor at various gyms, I opened my first brick and mortar location in 2014. We offered group classes and private training and began to make a name for ourselves in our city. After 3 years, we moved into a bigger space, started training soccer and volleyball teams, and even took on a massage therapist as a permanent tenant.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I feared the absolute worst. Fortunately, our clients stayed with us and kept training virtually. I rented out gym equipment to clients and non-clients alike in order to make ends meet. Thanks to their dedication and my resilience to keep offering the best service possible, we survived and are thriving now.
Our training programming is designed to meet each individual where they are at when they walk in the door on the first day. Whether you’re an athlete needing to improve at your sport or an adult looking to feel and look better, our coaching staff’s number one job is to empower and educate our clients in order to help them reach their goals. One of the biggest things that I pride myself on teaching to my staff is how to relate to each individual client, how to think outside the box when it comes to problem solving for them, and how to build better relationships with them.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

At the end of 2020, I moved the business from a large space we could no longer afford into a smaller one that fit our budget. The intention was to keep offering small group classes for athletes and personal training. However, after 5 months inside the new space, it became quite clear that running group classes was no longer a profitable option. I decided to give the handful of group class clients 1 month to finish their sessions before I cancelled them all together.
It was a decision that was overdue, but it was the right one. We have developed an even better reputation as a personal training studio and have never missed the income from group classes.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

In the business of personal training, I have always believed that having a strong referral network is the best source of getting new clients.
In youth athletics, parents talk to each other at practice, They talk to each other at games. And when one child starts to get stronger or faster from our program, or shows significant physical improvement, it’s a billboard for my business. Ideally, the parents can do as much or even more “selling” of your business to each other than I can do. And, because they’ve seen the results first hand, many times it has more weight than a phone call or marketing material from me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.madtraining.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madtraining/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madtrainingaustin