Back in the day, I was actually a personal trainer.
When I left my career as a large firm lawyer, my next move was actually to become a $12 an hour personal trainer so I could learn a new industry.
I was fascinated by the fitness industry.
The wellness industry had been pretty much a lifelong entrepreneur before then, and I wanted to understand what is the dynamic that is happening, not just from the level of management, but from the most basic point of service.
So I became a personal trainer and worked one on one with a lot of clients and then eventually split off and started my own practice before I ended up then a little bit down the road from there, opening my first facility.
And I will always remember this one experience.
I was building a practice where I actually visited people in their homes.
And marketing is kind of like a really fun human behavioral puzzle for me.
So a lot of people despise marketing.
To me, it's just kind of this fun puzzle, like, how do we move the pieces around in a way to inspire people to take an action, behave in a way that is in some way beneficial for them.
And it's not an easy thing to do, especially in the health and fitness world.
And there's one big, big lesson that I learned really early on.
So I had actually, I believe I sent out a direct mailing and found a list of people in a great neighborhood and targeted demographics that seemingly would be great for me.
And I got somebody to call and they said they want to set up a first appointment to try it out.
So I got my gear together, I got my bag, and I'm wearing all my stuff, and I'm excited to go and meet a potential new client and see if I can help them.
I'm in a big building on the upper east side of Manhattan, and I take the elevator up to the floor.
The elevator gets out.
It's a really long hallway down to the end.
And so I realize that the apartment that I'm going to is at the very end.
And I start walking.