#8: Leading Under Pressure with Bryan Klein, Founder & CEO of The Max Challenge
Bryan Klein, Founder & CEO of The Max Challenge, made the decision to close all 80+ of his locations and switch to an online model before non-essential businesses were ordered to close.
Three days after making the decision to switch to online classes, Bryan and his team had already created training materials for their franchises. Three days after that, they had created a library of prerecorded fitness classes.
He felt a social responsibility to keep both his customers and instructors healthy and safe. The Max Challenge has also offered to lower all membership dues by 25% and help any customers who may be struggling financially with their dues.
You can learn more about The Max Challenge here: www.themaxchallenge.com or on Instagram @themaxchallenge.
What is the secret to scaling with joy? It’s simple- making more profit with less stress. To find out how to make more profit and work less, visit https://tenprofitdrivers.com. Yes, it’s possible to grow your company without adding on complicated programs, products or divisions. These are the same simplified growth methods that I have used over and over with my own private consulting clients and national brands, in info products, retail e-commerce, and service.
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Laura (00:00):
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know about a very special, limited time only, live master class that I'm currently teaching on exactly what you should be looking at to not only survive but rise up in your business over the next weeks and months. In this rare training, I'm going to be showing you exactly what I do to help many of the national brands that hire me capitalize on the incredible growth that a downturn can bring. To sign up, go to www.joybrandcreative.com/shift. I can't wait to help you create the biggest success in your business yet.
(00:43):
This is the Scale with Joy podcast, episode eight: Leading Under Pressure. Welcome to the Scale with Joy show, a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life. Because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started.
(01:17):
In recording this podcast, we are making some quick changes, probably much like what you're doing in your own business. Last week, my friend Bryan Klein posted on Facebook the changes that his organization made of 81 locations in just one week's time and I had to share it with you. I text messaged him right away and said, will you please come on my podcast and share with our listeners exactly what you did and how you did it? Because the way in which he went about change, the speed, the agility and the leadership that he provided to the people who are relying on him for all the answers is so inspirational. If you're an entrepreneur, you are a leader and if you are looking to lead what's happening right now from a place of strength, no matter what type of pressure you're under, you are definitely going to get a lot out of this podcast. Coming up next, Bryan Klein.
(02:17):
Hi. Welcome to the Scale with Joy podcast. I am here with Bryan Klein of The Max Challenge. He is a leader in his organization. He started the company from scratch and now they have, how many locations do you have open now Bryan?
Bryan (02:32):
We have 82 opened. And, if it wasn't for this pandemic, over a hundred by the end of the year, but we're marching forward.
Laura (02:41):
Yes, he is the person who started it all, now he has moved into that leader CEO role as many of us do when we start off as founders and Bryan posted something to his Facebook page the other day and I texted him immediately and I said, can we get you on the podcast fast and the reason why is because your leadership response and then your subsequent responses of the people that you lead was incredibly remarkable. And I wanted to ask you just to kind of start with, when did you know that we were going to go into a really significant economic downturn in a short period of time? And what were some of the initial steps that you took in response to that realization?
Bryan (03:29):
Sure. So it was becoming increasingly obvious as the story continued to develop that the same situation that took place in Europe, that took place in China, that took place in great Britain was now taking place in the United States. And as much, as many of us, myself included, wanted to bury my head in the sand and hopefully this thing is going to subside. Hopefully it's going to just go away on its own. I knew deep in my heart that chances were this was going to take the same path as it did in these other countries. So, you know, we decided that we were going to get ahead of it. You know, as the number of cases started to slowly rise about a week before the governor of New Jersey, the governor of Pennsylvania, Delaware, you know, in the Tristate area where the large majority of our locations are, prior to them announcing the mandated closures, we closed every single one of our locations and began to shift to a virtual platform.
(04:36):
We did that because we felt a large degree of social responsibility and we have rooms packed with people, you know, 30,40,50 in some of our classes, 60 plus people, you know, packed into the room. And our role in this whole thing is to help people be healthier and happier. And here, you know, we would kind of getting the idea that we weren't ultimately helping them to be happier and healthier if we weren't helping to what they call flat in the curve.
Laura (05:03):
Yeah. So the first step was that you were just proactive before you were required to close, you were already in action of keeping the people who you feel that responsibility for as a leader, safe and out of harm's way.
Bryan (05:18):
That was first and foremost and a close second to that are all the livelihoods, I'll say, of all the people that have entrusted their financial futures to the max challenge. I mean all the way from the trainers that operate the classes and all these individual centers, the managers that run these businesses, the owners that invested their life savings into these businesses. You know, even though there was a contingency of those people that questioned my sanity, they said, you know, what are you doing? How is this reasonable? I said, let's get ahead of this and be proactive and shift to an online platform on our terms. Let's not let the situation dictate the actions that we take and let's get ahead of this by a week. Everybody's going to be doing this a week from now. Let's get ahead of it. It's going to be raw. You know, there's going to be a lot of work.
(06:14):
This will be some 24/7 days and nights and they're coming in the coming days, but it's going to be well worth it because we're going to be ahead of the curve in our customers. Our members are going to say thank you and in business to me, you know this incredible business that has been built not just by me, but by all the incredible people I'm surrounded by the franchisees, the corporate staff. It takes a village to create something so amazing. You know, it's founded on the principle of delivering on your promise, our promise is to help people be healthier and happier. And in a time like this, you know, your challenge is, are you going to stick to your corporate values? Are you going to stick to your mission statement when your back is seemingly against the wall? And I think just putting that out there in that way, you know, it was the opposite. They weren't, you know, saying how dare you close and all this, the members were literally pouring in with, with comments saying, thank you so much, you're putting us first. We really appreciate this. And it was really incredible to see.
Laura (07:23):
So many business owners are feeling that conflict between taking care of their community and the health of the people in their neighborhoods and their responsibility to their team members to keep everything afloat. And I know that that conflict can be really challenging and really probably difficult for somebody who's never been an entrepreneur to truly understand. And what you've done is successfully addressed both in such a short period of time, which is why I wanted to feature you here on this podcast so that other people could see what that looks like in terms of leadership and really be inspired by it. And tell me a little bit about in addition to your customers' response, what some of the other responses that they had when you were so proactive in giving them an alternative solution.
Bryan (08:14):
So beyond giving them the alternative solutions, something else just to add to what we're talking about. We also went to them and said, we're going to lower your monthly membership fees by 25% because we feel deeply that in times like this, it's even more important to stay healthy, to stay happy, to stay active, healthy, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Right? And that's what The Max Challenge is about. So we're going to lower everybody's a monthly membership by 25%. And for those of you folks that are struggling and may have a hard time even paying it after that, don't disappear off the face of the earth. Call us and we'll do whatever we can to keep you engaged. Right?
(08:57):
So in other words, we're going to help every single person to stay connected and involved virtually may it be, but they're going to have the opportunity to stay connected with the classes with the people in their class, with their instructor. Cause it's virtual. It's just like this, right? When we're doing a class, we're calling out the names. Hey Laura, Hey Jim. We're actually correcting their technique, et cetera. It's absolutely amazing and we want to keep people involved with them. We asked them if you haven't been financially impacted by this event, hate the difference between what you're paying now and what you used to pay and pay it forward. Either give it to a friend who can't afford to attend The Max Challenge anymore and let them, you know, continue to attend that way. Or, you know, go to the local food bank and buy food for the food bank so that senior citizens could continue to be fed during this time where.
(09:49):
We gave them all these different suggestions, but that's like the spirit of the company is to pay it forward. And truly, I think, you know, for me it's not really a struggle. And luckily, uh, I've surrounded myself with franchisees that have a shared value system, right? We're all cut from the same cloth. So, uh, you know, they are very collaborative in this way and they were literally, like, when I suggested this idea, it was like all hands went up, all hands went up, you know, and the few people that were fearful and nervous, et cetera, we just kept reminding them, you know, what made us so strong as a corporation, as a company, as an organization so far, is we've cemented the relationships with our customers, with our members. Right? You know, they have such deep feeling, you know, that when we put that email that I just described out where we give the 25% discount, there were literally people that were emailing. I'm talking dozens and dozens of people, not just a few dozens and dozens of people that I'm positive amounted to over a hundred that just came back and said, I don't need the discount.
(10:57):
I'm still going to pay it forward and I'm still going to pay the full now because I want to make sure that The Max challenge is here for me when I'm done. You know how you do it? You cement the relationships about people you build trust over time, and now it's time for us to cash in on that trust. Those people believe in us. They believe in The Max Challenge, and they're willing to stand behind this brand because they want this brand to be there for them When this is all over. And now, it's up to us to honor that trust that they put in us and to continue moving forward in the manner which we always have. You know, when people get anxious fear of the unknown brings anxiety. And when people get anxiety, sometimes they act contrary to their values. Contrary to the beliefs. It's very important to stay focused to who you are: stand tall. I think that's what leadership is about
Laura (11:54):
This is unbelievable. And I also want to point out that you are very close to the epicenter, your just outside of New York city. So that is where fear could even be multiplied and just share the speed in which this happened. So you go online, you take 81 locations online, you send out this email to members. What was the timeframe in which you started to make this decision to when you were pretty much fully operating online?
Bryan (12:26):
We made a decision on a Monday, let's say, two, three days later we had all the training materials up for our franchisees. That Thursday, the large majority of them actually, we went into production on video. This is crazy. It's actually insane when you, when you hear like how people really rally behind an idea. And I told the franchisees, I get in front of them. I said, you know, Sabrina, she's our director of fitness. Sabrina isn't working hard for me. She's just not, I think she likes me. I mean, maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. I think she likes me. She's working hard because she loves the franchisees. She loves the members. She wants to see you guys be successful. She knows what's on the line. So Sabrina and her team and our team of videographers and our editors literally went to work.
(13:20):
This is crazy. And within three days’ time, they had a repository of pre-recorded fitness videos. Forget the live. We didn't go live at first. We had pre-recorded fitness videos a week and a half. Now to put it into perspective, to film one video is 45 minutes, right? Because it's actually real time. It's a 45-minute class. They film it. But a script has to be written for that video prior to, so Sabrina would have to spend maybe an hour writing a script for just one 45-minute class. Then that script needs a pre-production meeting, right? Which angles are we going to film from? What's the background going to look like? How are we going to put, you know, who are the people that are getting, this is like a professional production in a matter of days?
(14:06):
Then there has to be a post-production and meeting after the filming. Okay. You know, looking at the editing and session, giving the editors some ideas and then the editor puts it all together and literally for one video it takes about five, six, maybe seven hours depending. So it's absolutely insane. And the product that they put out; it was amazing. It was amazing. Now people might be saying, saying like, okay, how could this happen? It happens for one reason and I think you're going to appreciate this Laura, cause I have known you a while, but, that was because Sabrina, Ian, all the wonderful people that stood behind this idea, they love the franchisees, they love the brand, they love the members, they love the concept. They love the idea of being part of something bigger than themselves. And then when the opportunity came to rise to the occasion and help this brand, the everything that it deserves to be when, you know our back is literally almost up against the wall, even though we were ahead of the curve, you know, they rose to the occasion and they did it.
(15:10):
I want to add one more thing to it because I hope that my staff watches this, but Sabrina had a trip to Florida planned and I sat her down and she's like the type of person that likes her vacations. I'm not going to sugar coat it. You know that there's certain people like you know, so I'm a little nervous about having this conversation with her. So I was like Sabrina first, this is what I think is happening because it didn't happen yet. In other words, it wasn't really, the pandemic didn't hit the magnitude that we're at right now. The number of reported cases wasn't as high. The government didn't say that you have to close. I said, I think this is what's going to happen in the next week. I, first of all, as a friend, I don't think that you should be leaving the state.
(15:49):
You have a young teenage son. I think you should be home. I don't want you to see you separated. But besides that, we need your right now. This is what's happening. And the woman looked like she was going to cry, like really. Like I said, look, it's not me. It's this situation. I don't have a crystal ball, but I got a pretty strong intuition that this is going to go north and there's going to be a lot more cases and we're going to have to shut. She canceled her vacation; she went right to work. Her and the team made that happen. And then we in tandem with that began working immediately on training the franchisees up on the technology we were going to use to go live. Because ultimately these recordings are amazing and there's a lot of people that really enjoy, you know, exercising to a recording. But it's that live interaction that I was looking for. It's that connected, you know, we could connect here on this podcast. If this was a video it would be not the same thing so I wanted to make sure that that was like kind of like a stop gap and then that gave us about a week to get all the franchisees in play and you know one by one we start chiseling away at it, helping them to become more familiar with the platform and it's worked out wonderfully.
Laura (17:05):
What is the secret to scaling with joy? It's simple: making more profit with less stress. And to find out how to make more profit and work less visit tenprofitdrivers.com or head to the link in the show notes where I share my top 10 favorite ways to create more financial margin and time freedom using the resources you already have. Yes, it's possible to grow your company without adding on complicated programs, products or divisions. These are the same simplified growth methods that I've used over and over with my own private consulting clients and national brands, in info products, retail, eCommerce and service. That's tenprofitdrivers.com Also available in the show notes. Now back to the show.
(17:53):
You are very good at making sure that you don't give yourself too much credit with all of this. And I would give you a lot of credit. What do you think you did right culture wise that put you in a position to be able to pivot a large organization fast? I've seen smaller organizations pivot fast. The larger organizations seem to be really struggling with it. What do you think you did right culture wise?
Bryan (18:19):
Two things. Number one is the first thing that we look for in a franchisee is a growth mindset. That's number one, right? So, you know, you have a fixed mindset, you have a growth mindset, and over the years, every franchisee that we brought on board, what makes this person successful? And it always comes back to first, does this person have a growth mindset? So we're very careful to take people on board that they do really have this growth mindset that they're willing to step out of their comfort zone. They're willing to consistently learn, try new things, et cetera, so we've got a good group of people with a growth mindset that are looking to constantly improve themselves and their conditions. All right? Number two is we have a very clearly documented set of corporate values that's also capped off at the top of it with what we call the higher purpose statement. And some people may call it a mission statement, but I like to call it a higher purpose statement and our higher purpose statement is to help people live happier, healthier, more fulfilled lives.
(19:28):
Now when those words roll off my tongue to a lot of people, it's like, okay, they may even have the same thing. I mean, it's true. Like I see it, I see other fitness companies that say we're going to help people live happier, healthier, more fulfilled lives, and they've got this gigantic poster, or they've got their coffee mugs, their mouse pads, you know, it's all over. It's on the t-shirts and all this. However, when push comes to shove, right? We never had it on the wall. We never had it on our website. We didn't have it anywhere. You know where we had it in our hearts. And then every person that comes in, I'm looking to see is this person a culture fit as a corporate employee, is it a culture fit? Is this somebody that truly wants in their heart to help people live happier, healthier, more fulfilled lives?
(20:11):
Do they have a passion, like an undying passion that's going to fuel their commitment? I mean, these are all words that we use every day at The Max Challenge. Is this someone that has passion, that can really commit themselves to helping people live happier, healthier, more fulfilled lives? Now when you come into a situation like this where you need people to dig deep, right? And at the same time as a leader, I have to make tough decisions. I got to cut back on salaries, you know, and people are fearfulness in that. So I have to instill hope, have to make sure that they understand that they're all going to, we're all going to be okay, we're going to get out of this together. But when people come for the money, they leave for the money also. They're not here for the money. They're here because they were carefully chosen and selected on both sides. They chose the max challenge because it really rang true to them in their heart that this was where they wanted to be. And we chose them because they were a person that we felt could deliver on the promise in an extraordinary manner.
Laura (21:19):
What would you say to a leader right now who realized that they may be underestimated the importance of a really strong set of core values, or maybe they have people on their team that they thought had a growth mindset and they actually don't, they're putting up resistance, or they're saying, well, if we're going to implement a new program to bring 81 locations online, we need six months to plan it. We can't do that. How would you help that leader? How would you guide them in this moment?
Bryan (21:49):
So number one is we all have values, right? They might not be written down. We didn't write ours down at first. I might've mentioned that a few seconds ago, but I didn't, I didn't write them down. I was in touch with them. I knew what was important to me. I knew the types of people that I wanted to surround myself with and I was refining my ideas. I was writing them down. So I would begin doing that. Now, I would say in a pressure situation, you start seeing how people respond under pressure. Their true self comes out, right? So you start to see the goodness. Like a friend of mine once said to me, he goes, you know when you're put under pressure, you've got a choice. It's kind of like a piece of fruit. If it's ripe right piece of fruit, when you squeeze it, all the good stuff comes out. But if it's sour and if it's, you know, been sitting around for a long time, you squeeze it and some nasty stuff is going to come out of there. Right?
(22:41):
So in this situation, you could start, start writing down, okay, this person, I see strength, I see leadership, I see commitment, I see consistency. Then I would do that every day, every day for this period of time. Write down what are the attributes that I think are most important. Look for those attributes and other leaders too from other organizations. Write them down. And then when you wake up in the morning, start living out those values as an example, every day at one o'clock without fail, Monday through Friday, no Saturday and Sunday, but Monday through Friday at one o'clock during this period of time, without question, we have a companywide zoom meeting and when I tell you there's over 100 people on this meeting, it's absolutely amazing.
(23:34):
And it is a mastermind meeting. Now there are days where my body and my mind is telling me, delegate this to somebody else just for today. Take a break, don't do this. And then we're going into our third week because of the way that we took that action earlier. So we're going, we're ending our third week now, right? So it's been, you know, 15 days straight, it starts to get stale. You've got to start coming up with new ideas, let me get somebody else to do this for one day. But then I realize, you know, what are the leadership attributes that I need to display: strength, consistency. I need people to trust me. Trust happens when you do what you say that you're going to do from the smallest thing to the biggest thing. Then there's takeaways from those meetings. People have questions.
(24:19):
They say, can we get this vendor bill reduced? Can we get this item reduced? Can you help us manage our cashflow? And then at by the end of the day, I do a Facebook live and I say, these are the answers to your questions for the day. If I don't have an answer, I say, folks, I don't have an answer to that particular question, but I should have an answer to you by Friday at noon or whatever it is, right? The vendor's getting back to me, et cetera. So, you know, start living out the values, consistency, passion, faith, whatever the values are that you deem as being appropriate, right? But start building incredible levels of trust with your people right now. This is the best time to do it actually. There's incredible opportunity all around us if you just look for it.
Laura (25:05):
I have seen that already. At the time of this recording, we're about two weeks, actually two weeks to the day on when all of a sudden things started shutting down. Schools started closing. Our school closed two weeks ago, my children's school and I have already seen so many companies, not just survive what's been happening but profit in the last two months, significantly more than they had all year and it really comes down to how fast can you take action and how quickly can you make your current product or service relevant to the market because wealth doesn't disappear. It just moves. It transfers around when these things happen. Knowing that you are a future thinker, you're a futurist, what do you think is going to be next? Not can you anticipate when you'll be able to open again, but when you do open again, what are you thinking right now? What are you expecting? How are you preparing?
Bryan (26:12):
Oh, we are super excited to reopen for many reasons. I truly feel the rebound as a company is going to be twice as exciting and twice as powerful as our initial rise. I believe that for every single one of our franchisees that applies themselves fully and the large majority of them are totally knocking it out of the park. I see that people are going to come back not only to The Max Challenge but to businesses in droves. They're cooped up in their homes, they're tired of being locked in and our economy is going to rebound fast as well. It's going to support local businesses. I also think that the changes that we're making right now in The Max Challenge and in other companies, IN our culture in general is positioning ourselves to take advantage of technologies that many of us just never took the time to really master.
(27:07):
Just like we're doing right now, right, with the zoom meeting, you know, and the companies that take their learnings and when I'd say take learnings, I mean technological learnings for sure, right? Like we've created an entire virtual platform. That's something that we could potentially, and we will, use moving forward after the event. Right? However, at the same time, the fact that we came together stronger as a team, it's like they say in those commercials, priceless. The fact that people are rising up in our organization and their leadership skills are being put to the test and they're being developed because they're under pressure, right? So true leaders, they're under pressure. They're rising up, they become even stronger, right? And I'm looking at these young franchisees. We have one woman; her name is Amanda. She's a young woman. She's in her mid to late twenties and she is just, she was great to begin with, but I see this woman rising up strong, right?
(28:07):
I see people my age in our organization that were kind of quiet beforehand. Now in our one o'clock zoom meeting, man, their voice is coming out and they're painting a picture of the future that's hopeful. They're instilling faith and hope in the minds of their peers. Now that's a skill that that person is going to have and bring to their business, bring to The Max Challenge as a whole bring to their community that is literally priceless, right? And this situation is what we make of it. And if we focus on all these opportunities that are abound, right? We are going to come out of this stronger beyond a shadow of a doubt. Everyone that takes, we should all be taking full advantage of this time. You know, not just to better our companies through you know, the technology and all the other things that are available, but to better ourselves and position ourselves for a rebound that is second to none.
Laura (29:07):
I completely agree. One thing I've been thinking over the last few days is people are going to invest in their sanity over vanity and as individuals, and not to say they won't invest in beauty services. So for example, being live on video all the time, my sanity is going to be investing in beauty services when all of this is done and getting my roots covered up and things like that. But how you position, how you message, how you communicate, what you have to serve the world with from that place of and sanity of let me help you with whatever it is that you're struggling with right now, which The Max Challenge is of course great at is going to be, I think the key message that your community needs to hear most. So I'm just so grateful that you were here today. Bryan, this has been awesome.
(30:02):
I know so many people are going to benefit from your message and just remind me of your site again just to make sure that I have it right in case anybody wants to learn more about The Max Challenge, either being an owner or being part of the membership community.
Bryan (30:15):
It's very easy: themaxchallenge.com. Google it and all our information will come up that way too.
Laura (30:23):
Wonderful. Thank you, Bryan, for being here. I really appreciate it and again, I know that your message is going to help so many people.
Bryan (30:31):
Thank you, Laura, I really appreciate it.
Laura (30:35):
Make sure to visit our website, www.joybrandcreative.com/podcast where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS so that you'll never miss an episode. While you're at it, if you find a value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on iTunes or if you just simply tell a friend about it, that would help us out a lot too. Thanks so much for listening.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.