Geronimo Unfiltered

Geronimo Unfiltered
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  • Entrepreneurship
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Most studio owners decide to open their fitness and wellness businesses because they want to help people and add more meaning into their lives.  Their heart is in the right place, but scaling a profitable business that feels incredible to own and run is trickier than ever before. So where they get stuck is no one has ever shown them how to run a wildly successful business, without the overwhelm and chaos. Plus, they’re doing it all alone.  Until now. Welcome to The Geronimo Unfiltered Podcast for ambitious boutique studio owners who are allergic to average and know they’re capable of more. They’re just missing the HOW. I’m your host Doza, CEO and Founder of The Geronimo Academy... And together with my crew and my community of owners and managers who are the doers and the implementers, we are on a mission to pioneer a better way to own and operate a health and fitness business, while building a life you love, not hate. So, if you’re ready to push your boundaries, level up your money, meaning and impact & stop doing it all alone… then you’re in the right place ...  This is going to be raw and unfiltered, zero b******t.  So take a deep breath, strap yourself in, and let’s get started.

  1. 5d ago

    How a Mum of 7 Built a 7-Figure Gym (and you can too)

    If your week is whatever walks through the door and the whole studio is being run out of your head, book a discovery call and we'll map what's actually holding you at your current number. Follow Geronimo Unfiltered: ⁠Spotify ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ Instagram⁠ Sophie sits down with Shell, who doubled her studio revenue in twelve months while raising seven kids. This is the logistics episode. How the week actually gets built. Everyone assumes a woman running a seven figure studio with seven kids has something the rest of us don't. More discipline. More energy. Some extra gear that switches on at 4:30 in the morning. The real answer is more boring and more useful than that, and it's the reason I wanted this one in your ears. Shell has four kids she birthed, three stepkids, three year old twins, a firefighter husband on shift work and a gym she bought while it was sitting in the red. In twelve months she went from $40k months to $70-80k, with a peak at $84k. She is not doing more than you are. She decides earlier than you do, she pays for the help she needs instead of hoping the week works out, and she asks for the rest. Her constraint was never time. It was that the whole thing lived in her head, and once she got it out of there and onto a plan, the numbers moved. In this episode you'll hear: The Sunday ritual she runs for the family calendar and the business plan in the same sitting, and why doing one without the other falls over by Wednesday What she actually pays for so the 4:30am starts and the school drop offs can both happen in the same day How she works out whether she can afford a hire before she makes it, instead of hiring and hoping the members show up What changed inside her own job between $40k months and $80k months, including the two things she hated doing until she got good at them The question she asks instead of "I can't," and the handful of standards she will not move for anyone, including her business If this one landed, go straight to the other episode about owners who were doing fine and decided fine wasn't it. Nate and Jacob from Newstrength went from good enough to a $1M run rate, and they did it while juggling kids and 3am training too. Shell went from $40k months to $80k in twelve months, with seven kids and a husband who's never home on the same schedule twice. She didn't find more time. She followed a plan and put the right people around her. If you want the same thing mapped for your studio, book a discovery call and we'll show you where your next number actually comes from. CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Seven kids, seven figures, and no excuses 00:01:43 "We were fine": the most expensive words in her business 00:03:09 How can we, not why can't we 00:05:34 The support network, and the au pair on a 38 hour roster 00:08:37 Separation Sunday: family logistics and business plan in one sitting 00:10:16 Training as the non-negotiable that keeps her sane 00:11:12 What she does when the plan gets punched in the face 00:12:51 Thinking bigger: the Japan trip that made the money mean something 00:15:08 Control freak, mum guilt, and the standards she won't move 00:18:26 Reverse engineering the hire from member numbers 00:19:52 The $40k role versus the $80k role 00:24:30 Buying a gym in the red, and the line from Benny that still gets her 00:29:06 Monday morning: one target, one focus, and why you don't wait for Monday

    How a Mum of 7 Built a 7-Figure Gym (and you can too)

  2. Aug 18

    Your Business Is Stuck Because You Are

    I sat down with personal growth coach Danny Kennedy for round two of one of the rawest conversations I've had on this show, on belief, identity and the team overhaul happening inside Geronimo right now. Follow the show: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Instagram I had a heart attack. Four weeks ago I started therapy. In two weeks I start EMDR. I'm telling you this before anything else, because the biggest jump my business has made all year didn't come from a new funnel, a new hire or a new tactic. It came from the inside, on the exhale of a breathwork session where I genuinely felt like I turned into an eagle, and I came out the other side making decisions like a different person than the one who walked in. Danny is a personal growth coach to some of the biggest names in the game, and he sat me down and called it straight. You're not stuck because of your team, your market or your funnel. You're stuck because you haven't decided who you're being yet, and your team, your revenue and your capacity are all just catching up to that decision. This one gets into the belief work behind that shift, and the very practical, sometimes uncomfortable team redesign that's come out of it. In this episode you'll hear: Why acting as if sold out our newest coaching tier in a week, and the one question now running every decision in my business. The belief test that decides whether you build a $100 outcome or an empire, and why they take exactly the same amount of work. The real reason we ripped out every layer of middle management, and what the research on the top 8% of teams actually says separates them (it isn't talent). The morning non negotiables and the offline weekend that are producing my biggest ideas this year. Why nervous system regulation, not another growth hack, is about to become the real competitive advantage for founders. Chapters 00:00:00 - Why I'm finally airing this conversation with Danny Kennedy 00:00:44 - "Is this empire enough?" The question now running my business 00:02:03 - Normalise the next level before you actually hit it 00:04:15 - Identity shift over pushing harder 00:06:00 - The $100 note test, belief before proof 00:08:09 - Friction vs flow, control, and why $100k decisions differ from $100 million ones 00:14:01 - My morning stack, cold plunge, meditation, journaling 00:19:14 - Why we killed middle management at Geronimo 00:21:10 - A players are built, not bought 00:24:47 - Inside the super team model, psychological safety, experiments, deep work 00:27:48 - Best thinking happens when you stop thinking 00:33:32 - The breathwork breakthrough and the Joe Dispenza retreat 00:36:06 - Nervous system regulation, the next competitive edge 00:42:00 - Hardware vs software, and the real leadership hierarchy

    Your Business Is Stuck Because You Are

  3. Aug 11

    Never Chase Clients Again With This Million Dollar Studio Hack

    Grab the free Avatar Workbook, write your first draft down, then sharpen it with our Avatar Creator bot. And if everyone keeps telling you you're killing it, but your revenue hasn't moved in two months and you know there's more in you, book a discovery call and let's find out what's actually stalling it. Follow Geronimo Unfiltered: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠ Apple Podcasts⁠ ⁠ YouTube⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ Ryan and I are taking over the pod to fix the biggest problem we see in studios: you think you know who you're for, and what you've actually got is a demographic. Every owner we meet swears they know their avatar. Then they say it out loud and it's "35 to 45 year old mums." That's a census field, not an avatar. And it's exactly why the ads feel like shouting into a crowded room of people who don't care, because if your avatar is everyone, it's no one. We ran this exercise as a live workshop this week and watched owners articulate who they're actually for, some for the first time ever. The messages were still coming in that night saying it finally clicked. So we're walking you through the same six steps we take every studio inside the academy through, in about the same 30 minutes we spend doing it with our clients. And here's the kicker: none of it has anything to do with what you do inside your gym. Pen and paper for this one, it's a writer downer. In this episode you'll hear: Why specific is not narrow, and how actively repelling the wrong people is what fills your studio with the right ones The six questions that uncover the fear your best members have never said out loud (the depth of your conversations determines the depth of your pockets) A live role play that starts at "I want more Pilates coaching" and ends at "I want to know I could protect my daughter," and why nobody buys your methodology The cheap-money trap: what uni student deals did to Doza's F45 (churn three times a year, and they crowded out the members he actually wanted) The one-line hook template that positions you as a category of one, plus the cover-your-logo test to check you've nailed it Loved this one? Binge this next: your message is only half the machine, so hear why ads flop even when the avatar is right in "⁠10x Your Leads in 2025: Why Your Ads Aren't Working (And What To Do Instead)⁠" And when you're ready to do this properly, this is the exact process we use to take owners from stuck at the same revenue two months running to their first 20k month, then 40, then beyond 100k, without burnout. ⁠Book your discovery call here⁠ CHAPTERS 00:00:00 You don't have an avatar, you have a demographic 00:04:59 Specific is not narrow (meet Stuck Sam) 00:07:53 Tony and Nat: the two avatars that built a million dollar gym 00:10:00 Step 1: Mine your best members (and the TAM check) 00:13:57 Step 2: Understand their pain, six questions deep 00:16:04 Sidebar: the uni student trap 00:19:53 Step 3: Give them a name 00:21:56 Step 4: From pain to promised land 00:24:41 Live role play: what she actually wants 00:27:10 Excuses and refusals (and how to weaponise them) 00:29:14 Step 5: Why here, not there 00:31:57 Step 6: Create the hook 00:33:26 The cover-your-logo test 00:36:12 Recap and your next move

    Never Chase Clients Again With This Million Dollar Studio Hack

  4. Aug 4

    Back Yourself Before You’re Ready (to build a $1M studio)

    Everyone tells you the studio's going great. Meanwhile you've been rehearsing one conversation with one staff member in the shower for three weeks. If that's you, this episode was made for you. 👉 Grab Annelise's workbook and write the shit down as you listen: https://bit.ly/p-the-studio-owners-workbook-for-backing-yourself 👉 Then book your free discovery call and let's look at what's actually keeping you stuck: https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up Follow Geronimo Unfiltered:⁠Spotify ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ Instagram⁠ Communication coach Annelise joins Sophie and me to unpack why the scariest parts of running a studio, the tough conversations, the camera, the sales calls, have nothing to do with speaking at all. Annelise grew up a shy kid with a speech impediment and went through speech therapy. Now she's got 15 years of training people to speak behind her and delivers keynotes on stages in the US. I know that climb personally, because I had a hectic stutter as a kid myself, and Sophie was so quiet when she trained at my studio that members genuinely asked if she was on mute. None of us got here by finding confidence. We built it, rep by rep, like a muscle. Annelise reckons the real blocker is the fear of being perceived. It's the same fear behind the conversation you keep putting off, the camera you keep avoiding, and the sales call you keep fumbling. She walks us up the ladder she takes every client through, from desire to discipline to evidence to trust, and shows why you already coach your members through this exact process every day. You just haven't turned it on yourself yet. In this episode you'll hear: The banana bread trap: why one botched conversation convinces you you're "just not a leader" and what to do instead Three questions that turn confrontation into conversation: "help me understand", "what would it take" and "would it be helpful if" Why saving the big moments for the big moments is exactly why you're shit at them The evidence list: a two-minute Monday morning habit that changes how you walk into your business "Learn to love all doors": the lesson from Annelise's dad that rewires how you handle rejection, on sales calls and cancellations alike If this one hit a nerve, queue up "Why Outsourcing your Confidence is the FASTEST Way to Close your Business" next. It's one of our most downloaded episodes ever, and it's the same wound from a different angle. And if you're done borrowing confidence, book your free discovery call. Sophie went from members asking if she was on mute to coaching hundreds of studio owners, and I went from a kid in speech therapy to a sold-out room of 300. The reps work. Let's map yours: ⁠https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up⁠ CHAPTERS 00:00:00 The accidental leader problem 00:04:02 Your fear has nothing to do with speaking 00:07:47 My stutter, Toastmasters and The King's Speech 00:13:29 Three frameworks for hard team conversations 00:20:43 Stop saving the big moments for the big moments 00:23:00 Desire, discipline, evidence, trust 00:24:37 "I'm not a runner": the 1k lesson 00:30:28 Writing your evidence list 00:36:11 Borrowed confidence and finding your leadership voice 00:44:30 Sales calls and the fear of rejection 00:46:16 Learn to love all doors 00:53:12 When cancellations feel personal 00:56:35 Rapid fire: speaking up, firing and being on camera 01:12:06 Three Monday morning steps

    Back Yourself Before You’re Ready (to build a $1M studio)

  5. Jul 28

    The 3 Systems You Need To Go from Reactive to $115k Months

    Everyone tells you you're killing it. But your week is back-to-back fires, the business only works because you're holding it up, and deep down you know this pace has a price. Book your free discovery call and let's map out what your studio actually needs next: https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up Follow Geronimo Unfiltered: ⁠Spotify ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ Instagram⁠ Connor built five businesses by 28 and it nearly killed him. This is the story of one cardiac ward, two business sales, and the three systems that turned Athletic Culture into a $115k a month gym. He was doing 16-hour days and hadn't taken a real holiday in ten years when his heart gave out last August. A hole in his heart nobody picked up at birth, two weeks on a cardiac ward surrounded by 70-year-olds, then open heart surgery. Most owners would have used that story as the reason to quit. Connor used it as the reason to redesign everything. He sold the pasta bar from his hospital bed, let go of a cafe, and went all in on the gym he calls his baby. Three months after surgery his partner sent him a video of my heart attack, he inquired that day, and signed the same afternoon. Eight months later Athletic Culture has gone from stuck and reactive to $115k months, and he hit a goal we set for the end of this cycle before we were even halfway through it. Me, Connor and Sophie get into exactly what changed, and then his manager Taylor takes the chair to tell the owner's side of the story back to us. In this episode you'll hear: How Connor built a $100k a month gym with no sales system, no leads and no paid ads, and why that run was always going to hit a ceiling The retention play that turned the slowest weeks of the year into his biggest Fitness Passport month ever The playbooks and structure Taylor now runs, so problems get sorted before they become fires How to prove your culture instead of just claiming it, plus the hiring rule that protects it: character over qualifications, no dickheads What Taylor says owners get wrong the moment they finally hire a manager Loved this one? Binge this next: The Hidden Reasons Your Culture Sucks and How to Build One Built to Win. Connor says culture is his secret sauce. That episode is how you build yours on purpose. Connor went from a cardiac ward to $115k months in under a year, working fewer hours than he ever has. If you're ready to find out what that looks like for your studio, book your free discovery call here: ⁠https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up⁠ Chapters 00:00:00 Five businesses, 16-hour days, then a cardiac ward at 28 00:07:25 Why he didn't quit, he redesigned everything instead 00:11:21 Selling the pasta bar and the second cafe 00:15:00 System 1: sales 00:16:12 Culture is king, and how to actually prove it 00:19:33 How a 21-year-old ends up with five businesses 00:26:05 System 2: retention and the Survivor Series 00:27:57 System 3: playbooks, structure, no more firefighting 00:28:44 The heart attack video that brought him to Geronimo 00:34:40 Taylor takes the chair: the manager's view 00:41:06 The letting-go conversation every owner needs to hear 00:47:05 The 3-2-1 goal game: naming the November number 00:49:58 Final advice for owners and managers

    The 3 Systems You Need To Go from Reactive to $115k Months

  6. Jul 21

    The Studio Growth Playbooks that Took a Dog Training Business from $50k-$100k/mo

    Everyone tells you your business is different too. Your market, your model, your members, your suburb. If that story is the reason you haven't fixed your intro offer or built your rollover process, grab the free Vision Book Template that Nath used to rebuild his business: https://bit.ly/p-vision-book-template And if you want to see exactly how this playbook maps onto your studio, book a discovery call here: https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up Follow Geronimo Unfiltered: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Instagram A dog training business joined a gym growth academy and doubled to 100k months in six months. This is the episode that kills the "my business is different" excuse for good. Every week someone tells me their market is unique, their clients are special, and the model wouldn't work for them. Then Nath called my sales team, said "I'm not your avatar, but I want in," and joined a coaching program built for gym owners with a dog training business. My first reaction was to ring my sales team and ask what the hell they were doing. Six months later he's doubled the business on the exact playbook we teach studio owners, with nothing watered down or adapted for dogs. What almost stopped him had nothing to do with the industry, and everything to do with what he was refusing to let go of. That part of the story is the reason to listen to the whole thing. In this episode you'll hear: The exact model: a four week Calm Dog Kickstart, a 70% rollover rate, and a $148 a week membership (yes, for dogs) The moment he rang his coach to quit at 75k months, and the answer that turned it into 56% growth in two months The identity shift from doing the work to owning the business, and what was actually underneath the refusal to let go The 70% rule in action: he launched his vision book, lost four of his twelve staff in a week, and kept going anyway Why "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a lie, in dogs and in business owners (including a live fix for Doza's whinging Labradoodle) If this one hit, binge this next: STOP Playing Small. It's the other half of this story, because Nath's real unlock wasn't the kickstart or the rollover process, it was refusing to stay at the level everyone said was already good. Nath came in at 50k months running a dog training business, and the same frameworks took him past 100k with a mission to save 10,000 dogs. If he can do that in an industry we'd never coached before, imagine what the playbook does inside an actual studio. Book your discovery call here: ⁠https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up⁠ CHAPTERS 00:00:00 The dog training business that broke our avatar 00:02:03 "I'm not your avatar, but I want in" 00:04:50 The business model: entry points and the Calm Dog Kickstart 00:07:47 Inside the $148 a week membership 00:11:31 Recap: 50k to 75k, then the bottleneck 00:12:28 The call with Rob that nearly ended it 00:14:47 Why he couldn't let go: the identity underneath 00:16:46 PSA: "my business is different" 00:20:58 The mission: 10,000 dogs 00:22:20 The 70% rule: losing a third of the team 00:24:57 What's next: the 10k Dogs podcast 00:26:33 Live demo: fixing Duke's whinging 00:28:44 Burnout, Separation Sunday and family 00:33:55 Moving the goal: 300k months 00:37:08 Business principles, not business models

    The Studio Growth Playbooks that Took a Dog Training Business from $50k-$100k/mo

  7. Jul 14

    The Forcing Function: From Backwards for a Year to Best Month in a Decade

    If nothing is technically wrong with your studio but nothing is really moving either, that's the exact position this episode is about. Book a discovery call and I'll tell you what I see. Follow the show: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Instagram Hassan had four weeks to move a gym he'd been in for ten years. He lost 24 members, went backwards for a year, and then recorded his best month in a decade. He wasn't in trouble before the eviction. The gym was healthy, the community was strong, the reviews were good, and people found him because they'd been driving past him for years. He was comfortable. And he sat in that comfort for six years, growing on word of mouth and a Google rating, right up until a developer activated a demolition clause and took the choice away from him. He told me straight out that he needed the forcing function. Without it, he'd still be there, still fine, still not moving. Sophie and I take him through what actually turned it around, and none of it is a hack. It's a media-first approach that stopped him being invisible, a decision to stop dabbling and start showing up like a professional, and a weekly ritual that gave him direction. Then we do the maths live on stage and prove that the goal he thinks is enormous is eight leads a week. In this episode you'll hear: What it feels like to lose members and momentum at the same time, and why the momentum costs more. Why he kept doing exactly what had always worked, and why it stopped working overnight. The moment the content flywheel clicked, and what he changed the following week. The three beliefs a buyer has to reach before they'll ever call you, and how content moves all three. Why the comfortable studio owner is in more danger than the one in crisis. Chapters: 00:00:00 Four weeks to get out 00:02:05 Losing 24 members in a five-minute move 00:03:24 The twelve months of grinding that didn't work 00:04:52 Coming in skeptical and broke 00:05:55 Best month in ten years 00:08:17 Fix one: going media-first 00:10:17 The content flywheel moment 00:15:30 The three beliefs every buyer needs 00:18:05 Live maths: 35 members down to eight leads a week 00:21:18 Cost per lead, price, and why he's underpricing 00:23:26 Fix two: leadership and turning pro 00:32:21 Fix three: clarity, Power 12 and Separation Sunday 00:34:14 Raising the stakes with the people you love 00:38:58 The forcing function, and the love letter to the developer If you liked this one, go back and listen to this: Coming back from ROCK BOTTOM with Travis Young from Reborn. If you want me to get specific about your studio, book a discovery call here.

    The Forcing Function: From Backwards for a Year to Best Month in a Decade

  8. Jul 7

    How She Went from 9k to 41k By Getting Off the Floor

    Everyone told her she was killing it too. Book a free studio check-up and we'll show you the moves between where you are now and a studio that runs without you. Follow the show so you never miss an episode: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Instagram From $9k to $41k a month, 100 new members, a full team. And the hardest part wasn't the growth, it was working out who she is on the other side of it. Everyone told Abbey she was killing it. Full classes, high vibes, happy members. She was also up at 3:30am, finishing at 7:30pm, stress rash on her hands, $9k a month against $4k rent. Today her Central Coast CrossFit box, TWA, is at $41k a month. But this one isn't about the revenue. Sophie and I take Abbey somewhere most growth stories skip: what happens to who you are when the business finally works without you. She hit $41k and the ground got shaky, not because the numbers were bad, but because her whole identity was welded to the work. We call it the 40k f*****y. It's an upper-limit problem, and it stalls owners right when they should be flying. In this episode you'll hear: The three moves that took TWA from $9k to $41k a month (and why none were "work harder") Why hours and effort stop equalling growth, and what to focus on instead How Abbey made sales her superpower, then handed it off to her first hire The identity trap that hits studio owners the moment the business starts working How to separate who you are from what you built, so scaling doesn't feel like a crisis If this one landed, go back and listen to Indi's story next. 👉 From Burnt Out to Booked Out: How Indi Took Back Control of Her Studio Abbey went from $9k and burnt out to $41k with a team running the floor. If you want a look at what's between you and that, book a free studio check-up and we'll map your quick-win opportunities. Chapters 0:00:00 "Everyone said you're killing it" (the $9k trap) 0:04:12 The wake-up call: fine is dangerous 0:06:06 Busy as a badge of honour, and the identity shift 0:08:28 Elevate: from trainer to manager to owner 0:13:09 Rewind to $9k a month, doing everything solo 0:14:53 The three moves that changed everything 0:15:50 F**k free trials: the intro offer that replaced them 0:17:06 The first sale she didn't make 0:22:41 Building the team and the rollover system 0:23:15 Why the room you're in decides how big you think 0:26:37 The identity wobble nobody warns you about 0:29:22 It's not an Abbey problem, it's a design problem 0:31:07 Welcome to the 40k f*****y 0:33:02 The upper limit: self-sabotage near the goal 0:36:41 Where to from here: 250 members and the vision book 0:40:03 Look at the proof: reflecting on how far you've come

    How She Went from 9k to 41k By Getting Off the Floor
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About

Most studio owners decide to open their fitness and wellness businesses because they want to help people and add more meaning into their lives.  Their heart is in the right place, but scaling a profitable business that feels incredible to own and run is trickier than ever before. So where they get stuck is no one has ever shown them how to run a wildly successful business, without the overwhelm and chaos. Plus, they’re doing it all alone.  Until now. Welcome to The Geronimo Unfiltered Podcast for ambitious boutique studio owners who are allergic to average and know they’re capable of more. They’re just missing the HOW. I’m your host Doza, CEO and Founder of The Geronimo Academy... And together with my crew and my community of owners and managers who are the doers and the implementers, we are on a mission to pioneer a better way to own and operate a health and fitness business, while building a life you love, not hate. So, if you’re ready to push your boundaries, level up your money, meaning and impact & stop doing it all alone… then you’re in the right place ...  This is going to be raw and unfiltered, zero b******t.  So take a deep breath, strap yourself in, and let’s get started.

Information

  • Creator
    Geronimo Unfiltered
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    175
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Geronimo Unfiltered 2023
  • Show Website
    Geronimo Unfiltered