To be a successful gym owner today, we’re led to believe we need complex marketing plans, online advertising, and fancy software solutions with automated lead nurturing.
We need to go through sales training, and we most definitely need to hire a business mentor. Oh, and group classes aren’t enough. We need a minimum of four revenue streams, including personal training, individual design, and nutrition coaching.
Or do we?
Preston Soechting hasn’t done any of the above, and today, he is the owner of two successful gyms in Nashville, TN: CrossFit Nashville, which he opened 13 years ago, and CrossFit Nashville West.
In nearly a decade and a half of being an affiliate owner, Soechting says the secret to his success has been to keep it simple.
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CrossFit Nashville’s Story
After serving with the U.S. military in Iraq, where he discovered CrossFit, Soechting returned home and opened the first affiliate in Nashville in his garage in June 2011. By the end of the summer, he moved into a commercial space.
Soechting explained that it was a simple time. Gyms weren’t using sophisticated software to nurture leads, nor were they hiring the latest and greatest marketing firm that promised 50 leads a month or paying for carefully crafted online ads. Instead, old-school word of mouth and referrals were the backbone of attracting and keeping clients.
Further, nobody cared who the fittest person in the room was. It was just about showing up, working hard, feeling good, and having fun, he told the Morning Chalk Up.
Thirteen years later, this is all still the case for Soechting because, as the saying goes, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Soechting has never hired a marketing company, he doesn’t pay for social media ads, and he doesn’t even use a management software system to communicate with his clients.
- “It all feels so used car salesman-y,” Soechting said. “I respond to every email personally. It’s so important to do that. And that’s my job.”
What about offering other revenue streams like nutrition coaching and individual design? Soechting shook his head.
- “We just do CrossFit,” he shrugged.
“Just doing CrossFit” for 13 years has led to two successful gyms — one that is 5,100 square feet and the other 10,000 square feet — and an owner who is still as committed as ever to what he’s doing.
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It’s a rarity in an industry where small gyms come and go or change owners, often multiple times in a decade. Soechting has witnessed this firsthand.
At about the five-year mark, “that’s when it turns into work,” he said. This is when he said he sees many gym owners start to lose their passion because “it isn’t fun anymore,” and it often ends in the gym’s closure.
Though he has to work long hours, the reason he still enjoys what he’s doing is because he has been dedicated to finding the right people.
- “I don’t care how good you are at fitness. I just want good people. I have had people who come in who are really gifted athletes, but they were not cool people, and not the type of people I want my children to be around,” Soechting, a father of three young children aged 3, 5, and 8, said.
The key here is to eliminate the big egos.
- “In a competitive environment that sometimes the CrossFit gym becomes, it can turn into whoever is the best at CrossFit is going to be the most important person in the room.”
- “And no one should feel like they’re the most important person in the room, like ever. That’s very toxic to the culture,” he said, adding that he has made it his mission to stamp this out.
The same is true of sourcing coaches who are good people. He has never put out an ad to hire a coach, as he wants to get to know the people he hires first.
- “I’m not going to hire anybody unless you have been here for a minimum of six months,” he said. “And that’s why we have an awesome group of coaches who all started here (as athletes) and built up. That’s why I trust them completely.”
This approach has paid off. Soechting has a team of 20 coaches, most of whom have been on his staff for him for at least seven years. As for his clients, Soechting still has members who started with him in his garage in 2011.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
While Soechting might be humble about what he’s doing in Nashville, his long-time coach, Sarah Topp, said Soechting is a huge reason for the gym’s longevity and success.
His passion is at the heart of the community, she said.
- “He is still so consistent with it and committed to it, and he himself is still excited about it…He’s doing the workouts himself, as well, and is still excited about doing them and trying to improve his own fitness and get better at CrossFit. And when you have an owner like that, it gets everyone excited about it and makes people want to work hard, as well,” Topp said.
She added: “Preston is the key to why CrossFit Nashville has been so successful for so long.”
The Big Picture
To anyone looking to open a gym now, Soechting’s number one tip is to keep it simple.
- “Everybody wants to go big, and I would say just stay small. Just provide super effective coaching and be as minimal and streamlined as you possibly can just build a solid base of community,” he said.
For Soechting, this means just providing “the best service I can to the most people I can effectively provide it for,” he said.
- “I’m just a gym guy. I don’t see myself as a fancy entrepreneur…We’re just doing CrossFit. That’s why I signed up for this. I’m dedicated to CrossFit and I’m just doing that.”
More CrossFit Stories
Read the latest CrossFit stories from the Morning Chalk Up below:
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- Caitlin Stevenson: From 350 Pounds Bodyweight and Bariatric Surgery to the CrossFit Open
Featured image: @crossfitnashville / Instagram
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