That was how fast Good Juju Barbell Club – a PT studio grew within months of opening its doors.
Walk into Good Juju and you'll be greeted with colors, an uplifting mood, people greeting you, and the nice smell of coffee. Suddenly, I forgot I was in a gym.
Watch our recent interview with Sara, co-founder of Good Juju
Scaling in a heavily saturated niche
Ask any regular personal trainer and he'll tell you that his industry is oversaturated. The entry barrier to becoming a PT trainer isn't high. Anyone could start training someone else anywhere – without a gym.
And what does Business 101 teach us?
Don't put yourself in a saturated market.
Yet, that's what Good Juju Barbell Club did. However, instead of being a vanilla PT Studio that's just the same as everyone else, they decided to spice things up by doing everything the opposite.
- Most gyms are dark themed. They paint Wes Anderson inspired colors on their walls.
- Most gyms promote masculine energy. Good Juju promotes a safe space.
- Most gyms offer a place for you to work out and then leave. Good Juju uses a science-backed methodology for fitness training.
3 lessons from the interview
You'll have to watch the interview and attend Underdog Influence Con to get the most, but here are 3 quick lessons in the meantime.
You're first, or you're last.
You're either first or last. People aren't interested in what's better. They are interested in what's new.
Should Good Juju position itself as simply a "better" gym, it wouldn't have the success they have today.
Instead, they created a whole new category by being different and became first in it.
Customer experience above all.
What makes people care?
The truth is everyone is just trying to make their lives better. As a business, you exist to serve that goal. And when you succeed in that, people start caring.
Optimizing your business for customer experience sounds simple enough, but is hard to execute. The 22-person team at Good Juju constantly runs reviews and internal meeting sessions to improve their customer service.
And it shows. From the moment you walk into the gym, to leaving. You feel welcomed and not judged.
What are you really selling?
If you're a gym, you might say you're selling PT services to customers.
But what are people buying, really?
For Sara, they sell a safe space for people to improve their lives and feel better about. It's a place where people can go for a workout feeling happy and accomplished, rather than feeling dread.
What I take from this is to think about what you're selling and figure out the real reason why a customer buys from you.
