Building a company from the ground, up.

“La..la, la la, wait ’till I get my money right”. Those were the first words I heard every morning for a full year as I trekked through knee-high snow to the bus stop. Four years later, Kanye West’s “Graduation” is still one of my favourite albums of all time. More so because the words in this album felt like they were written for me, especially “Can’t tell me nothing”… “You can’t tell me nothing”. I tried singing it grammatically correct, “You can’t tell me anything..” but it just doesn’t sound or feel the same. Still, even when I hear this today, I remember the snow, I remember the walk, and I remember the hunger I still feel now, to succeed.

Fast forward to 2011,  my team and I are about 8 weeks away from opening the first of two, and hopefully more, 24 hour gyms. It’s been a fascinating journey getting to this point, filled with events and stories that seem too outrageous for belief, but they happened – and over time I’ll share all of them with you. I want to say thank you for visiting! I’m really excited for the opening of our North Ajax Anytime Fitness club. It’s been a year of planning and hard work but it’s all about to pay off, hopefully!

Going from no money, no collateral and loads of debt to owning a 24 hour gym in 12 months

THE IDEA:  Creating opportunities… sometimes all you have to do is ask.

July 27th, 2010 – I got a text from my friend Carol. She asked if I had a few minutes to have coffee before I head in to work at Extreme Fitness. When we meet she asked if I’m still open to the idea of going into business for myself by opening a gym (In 2008 we tried to open a personal training studio, but nothing materialized because of the economic recession and overall bad timing). Honestly, I wasn’t interested in being a business owner, not in the traditional sense anyway. After our failed personal training studio attempt, I had tremendous success making money online and saw the potential to make a very comfortable living from my home. I decided to focus my energy on this blog and a book I had been working on for a long time. But I didn’t tell Carol that. Instead, I listened to her idea. I wish I could tell you that from the second I heard her vision, I was excited and ready to go. On the contrary, I had a raised eye-brow and a puzzled look on my face, “Anytime Fitness? Never heard of it”. I thought Carol was asking me to manage her club. Though I wasn’t completely sold on the idea, I thought it would be cool to at least manage a gym and still have time to generate income online. But she wasn’t interested in hiring me, she wanted a partner. In addition to not being completely sold, there was another problem… I HAD NO MONEY. I wasn’t flat broke but I certainly didn’t have $100,000 lying around. That was the rough estimate of what I would need to contribute.

However, never being someone who says no to an opportunity before looking in to it, I said I’ll think about it. I was flattered that she’d at least think of me for a big venture like this. Now, common-sense would suggest that I should have just said no and stop wasting Carol’s time; after all, I had no money. That was true, but I knew people who did. So I looked into the Anytime Fitness website, learnt a little about the company and was impressed. I sent some basic stats and general information about the company to a few friends to see if they’d be interested in backing me. That very night, a good friend of mine said that I could make a pitch to her and her financial advisor. I wasn’t handed a cheque, but I was given an opportunity.

I never ended up getting funding from my friend. Her financial advisor “advised” against investing in a 27 year old personal trainer with no collateral, no business experience and a one-page, half-baked spread sheet. But here’s the funny thing about getting an opportunity; whether it works out or not, the vision begins to feel real. Once that vision feels real, then it becomes possible. When it feels possible, you discover that it’s doable. I still had no money, but I was given the opportunity to get it. Less than 12 months later, we’re 8 weeks away from opening the doors. It all started by creating an opportunity. All you need is the opportunity to make your vision feel real. Create your opportunity.

Next Post: Read about the investment pitch that went terribly wrong. Sometimes people just don’t believe in you. Learn how to handle defeat and discover the mistakes I made, along with the positive things I learned from the meeting.

CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO