#14 with Russell Harrison CEO Spartans: Mastering the Boxing Gym Franchise

[Applause] [Music] hi guys today I had the pleasure sitting down with Russell Harrison the CEO of Spartans boxing gym he and his business partner NZ run a fantastic franchise business here in the region where they've got multiple locations of many boxing gym franchises Russell explains his fantastic Journey from recruitment right through to the Spartans boxing gym it was an absolute pleasure and I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did Cheers Russell thanks so much for making time this morning how you doing I'm good mate how are you thanks for having me oh my pleasure you looking short man thank you thank you I thought you know the standards to uptain here well normally normally when we see each other the weekends we're both in casuals right casuals in the gym yeah with pads smacking in the background listen no sweeter sound yeah so please give the audience a little bit of an introduction like who you are and what you're currently doing if you can yeah sure so uh I'm Russell Harrison um I'm the CEO of Spartans boxing clubs um so I'm based here in Singapore but when anyone sees me they'll realize I'm not Singaporean um I'm from Melbourne from Australia um but moved to Singapore 14 years ago um and have got a wife and businesses and kids and a couple of cats um so Singapore's Singapore's home now good man um and yeah I'm fortunate mate I'm I'm depends what day you ask me yeah but I'll tell you I'm living the dream I feel you well listen we got a lot in common apart from our hairstyle and and our lack of height um but a lot of people don't know that your background actually historically was in recruitment yep how did you even fall into it back in the day yep good question and I think um the choice of words there you can tell that you're a seasoned vet fall into it I don't think anyone's ever woken up in the morning and said I'm going to be a recruiter you know it you know it um so look I um I I was born in Northern suburbs of Melbourne working class family and friends pretty much um and most of my mates when we got towards the tail end of high school um were Tradesmen and doing apprenticeships and stuff like that yeah um lucky for me although I was a bit of a smartass I was clever enough at school um and so I went to UNI um and that was kind of like um it was that was more of the exception than the rule with the kids that I sort of grew up with in any case towards tail end of uni I thought I wanted to okay what do I do now I studied um HR and psychology oh did you yeah yeah um and I thought that the role of a consultant sounded cool okay right I had no idea what a consultant did yeah right um I wasn't smart enough to get any into any of the big for with their in tune programs um and then what was it back then was it Arthur Anderson still kicking around back then yeah Arthur Anderson PWC you know those yeah I can't remember the dels and how they all merged and all that kind of gear but I just I I knew I wasn't clever enough and obviously I didn't do accounting or anything like that um but I still thought that some now a consultant was like a cool job and that's what I wanted to do and I saw an ad I saw an ad online which said recruitment consultant had no idea what it was this was in Melbourne still this is in Melbourne yeah so this is back in 2003 yeah right um so yeah so um saw this advert for recruitment consultant um it was uh for Hayes um which is Ed up for my first gig a lot by the way a lot of people two of my very good friends from uni one of my best mates Mark Collins he went straight into Hayes and actually they had a program where like in in uni if you have a vocation like one year out in between you go and work there and they they actually pulled a lot of grads yeah but their grad program at least in ours um was was the best grad program that you could get into yeah um so I was fortunate that I sort of landed there but it was completely by accident um I still remember I went in for the interviews um and even when I went in for the interviews I didn't know what I was interviewing for um but of course you know knowing what we know now yeah um the guys that were interviewing me they weren't looking for me to um know what the job was about um they're Pro probably more interested in my drivers right and which later on you would probably term as a PhD poor hungry and desperate I've not heard that I like that right so um and you know that was kind of not poor but hungry and and desperate and had a lot going on so I needed you know I needed to work um did you did you have when you go back and think about your time in High School uni did you have hustle already yeah yes from day one well from day one yeah so I was never that clever um and even what did Mom and Dad do uh dad is well he used to work in logistics warehouse management okay um and then he was a tow truck driver okay so proper old school working class my dad my dad was Builder so yeah right there you go um and mom was a teacher okay um so she was a primary school it teacher for many many years uh both of them both recently retired okay um third yeah I don't know I told my old man I'm not sure you know he's been working hard his whole life I was like it's going to be that's a thing for you mate he's not going to go out and play golf but anyways um so yeah so but to your question whether it was Sports or whether it was school or later on in life whether it was work I was never the most gifted um I was never the smartest um but I always had graft yeah right um so I worked hard and I was also ambitious and they were probably the two traits that had kind of gotten me through whether it be Sports whether it be career or whatever else it was just that hard work and ambition what was the desk that you worked on for Hayes uh good question my first one was a temp Facilities Management desk okay right had no clue what facilities management was um but I did I did really well there so I grew a really good contracting business good man um and cont it's temp business lot faster paced lot faster paced a lot less glamorous yeah right so you know I I was always looking over at the guys on the perm desks going oh these guys are banging in all these big fees and then here's me just chipping away but obviously as we know once you get the contract to book up and running right then it's days yeah 100% um so I did the I did Facilities Management um for the first part and then I went on and did um commercial construction okay um which was a whole bunch of fun I really L that sector so like if someone was like building a hotel or something your guys would be on the job for a couple of years maybe correct so so I was typically doing project managers site managers estimators qu surve the big ticket guys big ticket guys um did you ever get your hands dirty and go out on on field so I didn't so I I did like you'd go out on site and visit clients and all that sort of stuff but I think um in between high school and uni um I did a gap year okay and so I did all sorts of interesting Jobs go and give us a few well that's the year I found out that I needed to work in an office cuz I didn't want to work on side so a few of the highlights or low lights of that experience that one year Gap year was um I was a builder laborer on residential commercial sites um if there's anybody listening at home and if you've never dug a hole yeah go and dig a hole yeah um and you have an appreciation for been in the office it's that's hard work um so I was a Builders laborer for a while um I worked in a door manufacturing Factory okay and that is exactly what it sounds like they doors yeah um and so that was you know in Melbourne at the time winter you're up at 500 a.m. you're in the factory it's freezing cold or it's winter H sorry or it's summer and you're in there and it's hot yeah um so that was just hard graft I did I tell you what else I did during that year which um was great for recruitment later on um I did door too sales for a while okay that's where you cut your teeth up in the and I I worked with I don't know if they're still around now but I'm sure you'd be familiar with them um I work for Cobra group okay right so Cobra group was then one of the largest direct sales companies in the world and so you know I'd pack up my old shitbox Commodore I have to drive what were you selling H that's the point I was just selling tidbits there was children's books there was Sports memorabili on some days do you know do you know it was this is quite funny because there um in England the big thing back in the day was um double glazing for Windows right right and I worked just I only did it for about a month for a company that sold sofas okay and um really what they were selling was Finance right and um in the weekends and in the evenings I was selling vacuum cleaners and I remember one day I knocked on the guy's door and he said f off not interested yeah and I knocked on the door again and I said listen it goes F off I'm not interested it starts chucking down outside I go around the back open the door and I knock on the door and he goes what are you doing I said let it's rain it I'll tell you what make make make me a deal I'll vacuum cleaners the Mrs in he goes I'll vacuum clean the living room you make me a cup of tea you don't need to buy it but it gets me out of the rain for an hour and I bloody sold it on it it was brilliant perfect perfect right so there you go and that's how you end up in recruitment kids that's that's the journey now when they gave you at Hayes do they give you proper training I'm sure they did right M it was it was one of the things that I'm really grateful for I love my time at Hayes I was there for about um seven or 8 years yeah um and they the their program the training program was just it was really solid um and it was solid in that they' take a bunch of kids you know I was in Melbourne they'd fly everyone up to Sydney and you know you'd do sort of blocks of training for a week or whatever else so there's a little bit of prestige about them putting you on a plane and you you know do the training in the corporate offices and all that sort of stuff but then I think probably one of the other things that um and this sort of ingrained in me for the rest of my career whether it was recruitment or anything else um they you know the way that it was set up you had a mentor um and that person was for want of a better term and I really hate this term um they were micromanagers um and they were looking at every single thing that you did know as we know recruitment is a heavily kpi driven business yeah um but learning to structure your business and understanding like you didn't know it then right but you were learning how to understand sales funnels and you're learning how to understand conversion ratios and you're doing all of that sort of stuff so all of that training um from stays with me to this day yeah and the other one as well which I you know whenever I recruit youngsters these days um it was you know time management um because as you know recruitment can get pretty hectic pretty quickly yeah um and so but obviously there was a whole bunch of other stuff but you know they were the highlights and they did it very very well um and the other thing I I I quite liked about the experience there was um you could be a top performer but if you weren't exhibiting the right behaviors to be a top performer yeah then there were no accolades yeah right so I we were talking about this just before right that's a very interesting concept right you you could be um you know you could be top biller for the month yeah but if you hadn't put in the work to get there they would know sooner or later that the wheels would fall off it's kind of like a kids school report where you got that e effort column correct yeah y y cu cu other because you can't be a top biller consistently without that effort column correct correct and so as you know right that's something that will stay with you all throughout your career you know what's interesting is when I look at uh recruitment I don't know when this happened I was probably about 25 when I realized oh man I'm just not making the improvements I'm hoping to and I wasn't I worked for small firms I really wasn't learning enough so I I took it upon myself I bought every book I could find on Recruitment and sales and I guzzled them and then the thing is um when I speak to a lot of recruiters I'll do a role play so I'll say well call me head hunt me yep oh you know tell me your your desk specialization right you're calling a tax account fine I work at PWC call me and a lot of people get stuck at the very beginning right that that first bit and um so did you have to learn scripts yep there was there was scripts I mean right down to the point where um you'd have a day planner yeah all School Isa are you hearing that I I I tell all my guys that you can I can dictate you know how successful someone's going to be and determine just looking at their action planner exactly 100% right so it was that old school it was an old book it was a book on the table day planner you had to sit there you had to plan out your day the night before yeah um every single moment of the day was accounted for yeah um it was um it was time blocking rather than to-do lists yes cuz as we know to-do lists just go on and on forever right yeah um so it was about you know allocating the right time on the right tasks and all of that sort of stuff so it was a really good experience and um I worked with some great people too people that became really close friends wonderful um you know even to this day um and just seeing you know how people sort of go throughout their life everyone that I worked with during that period and it was a bit of a Heyday for us then it was you know early 2000s in Melbourne construction and engineering resources mining sector was going mad yeah um but just seeing where a lot of people ended up up um most people that um you know were there for a while and got through the training and did well there they did well in other endeavors yeah yeah yeah I always say if you if you get a black belt in one area you can take that and migrate it to something else absolutely totally you know the interesting thing is so the the first firm that I worked out of Singapore I was only 22 when I moved here they took away your chair so you had to stand yep if you weren't on the phone 2 and a half hours a day and they measured it two days in a row you were fired Y and um it got to the point it was absurd but we couldn't send our own emails we would have to handw write them give them to a centralized uh secretary and she would send them yeah and it was um but their their concept was I felt um very shortsighted because they weren't doing client development because I think if you if you have a good client relationship it can last a lifetime y do you know what I mean and um but man those were the days that was a boiler room yeah yeah well exactly what you know when you said that take away the chairs yeah that was a practice Yeah was it yeah yeah that was a practice we would do which I'm sure you would have done it that we'd do marketing Blitz days right yeah every sort of you know whatever you want to call it Hour of Power all this sort of stuff right and it was proper boiler room right it was Revenue boards up on the wall yeah those who were doing well were getting pets on the back those who weren't well they'd want to get their together cuz otherwise they weren't going to be there for long yeah it's funny I'll tell you how I got my start so when I was 17 my my dad had had had Strokes it wasn't working and he was a builder and Mom said you know she was always working uh you need to get a job was Friday like 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning and she said honey you've got to get a job on Monday and it's got to pay weekly and I was 17 so the problem is if if you're under the age of 18 you um can't just walk into any job right and if I had applied for a job at the local supermarket I probably wouldn't get a job for two or three months so I went to a High Street employment agency and they don't have them here but made agencies the equivalent and the only job that they had starting that day was toilet cleaner um and I say yeah please I'll take it and they they laugh cuz no one says please for that yeah yeah and um so I would so the thing is you need you needed police clearance to work in a hospital and I used to assist my sensei in teaching uh the police martial arts and combat so I had that and anyway so I for three months I was working in three different hospitals around London and um this is the old days where you would hand your time sheet in you stamp it and then the phones were ringing it was in Baker Street in central London and uh so I thought you know I'll pick up the phone good morning hm Services how can I help you and uh this fellow the the boss there Richard Gordon says what are you doing I'm answering the telephone you stupid idiot was it little and it goes you speak English and I said probably better than you do and I was say you know like englanders and he he loved the banter and all all the toilet cleaners were foreign refugees typically yeah so said what's your story I said look I'm studying full-time at college and he said look do you want to come and work with me in the office I said doing what he said recruitment I said what's that and he explain it I said well if it gets me out of the the let's let's do it but um so yeah I'm still in it 29 years later and that's you know that's what I was saying before right like that idea of um well what depends on what you want to call it right PhD sort of you know in a jovial manner yeah um but you know any any sales role I think a prerequisite is that you've got to have some kind of burning hunger and ambition and whether that comes from a place of you know Mom's telling you at 2: a.m. hey you got to get a job cuz we need to get some cash together yeah um or wherever it may come from because also um you know being a workingclass kid I you know when I sort of got into the workforce I'd look at kids at come from private schools and stuff like that and I'd be like don't enough this guy's going to cut it you know doesn't have the minerals um but you can find the hunger and the ambition from different places right really can um so but I think that's a prerequisite you've got to have that burning hunger and ambition from somewhere you have to it's it's weird it's like so when um you know I want to know when what your journey was like but I remember um the company I work for before I set my own company I said to to the owner look this is what I would like I want to become the GM within 6 to 12 months if I beat you know 75% of the company records within the first six months will he give it to me and um so I went and asked the finance manager to print off every uh record that they had the smallest deal the fastest deal the biggest deal the most number of candidates placed in one deal so my my thing was I will beat all the records except for the slowest deal and I did it within 6 months and I I got them all laminated and put on the wall and I was the youngest guy in the office and everyone thought what this guy's a numpy yeah and I said I'm going to smoke you all I'm going to eviscerate all of you yeah and um and the thing is I the thing is they thought I was joking because I I said it with a smile but I got in three times a week at 5:00 in the morning and the bus will turn up about 7:30 so I would always duck out just before he arrived I didn't want him to know I actually wanted to make it look easy yeah but it it it wasn't easy so that's why sometimes I say to the kids you know at the end when you're NAU put an extra 10 minutes on the on the skipping rope or on the basketball court Y and let everyone else know you're the one y you know you're going to have a you're going to have you know an arrow you know on your back but you you got to go for it but yeah but that was so so hold on so you in that when did you come to Singapore then many years later yeah I'll talk about that in a sec but before you say that because I'm just really interested in the similarities between your and my experience and I think it will be for anybody that's listening and especially maybe kids getting into their career right it's that mindset so you had this Burning Obsession to beat the records right yeah I remember in my first gig in recruitment um you know they they say Okay um you're going to get paid I think at that stage it was like 21 Grand a year was basic yeah all right and they said um so that's the basic but a good recruiter should do about 50 55 grand a year all right and so I became obsessed with this idea well that's what a good recruiter will do and I'm just going to I'm not a good I'm going to blow them out the water love right so I just became obsessed with this target so my first year personal earnings Target was look I want I want to make 80 grand yeah right good guys are making 55 yeah I'm going to hit 80 I'm going to hit 80 and you know similar to what you were talking about I became obsessed with it when I was out on my runs doing my road work I was just thinking about this number right I became obsessed with it if I went into the office and they said right kpi is 30 calls a week yeah I'd make 50 calls a week yeah right and just went over and above with everything yeah became obsessed with it and first year knocked it out of the park and then fast tracked from there don't but don't you think you see CU sometimes you know I talk to a lot of people so I do career coaching as well Y and um to be fair 90% of the career coaching guys I work with are pH normally motivated y um but when I do talk about motivation to younger people sometimes they just don't know and I I think it's a say but I think it's the functioning that they grew up if you grew up pampered and you're not having to hustle um but that's why I think if you've got a sporting background like like like I tell the only bet I've ever lost is to my best friend Andrew so I met him at Uni and he's a Chinese guy and i' never gone to school with a Chinese guy ever and he was in shape and I said to him oh mate look like you work out a little bit he goes yeah a little bit and um I said I'll bet you a tener I can um beat you on the bench press and um we had the same set of weights from Argos which was like a a Home Depot kind of delivery thing and uh the maximum we had was 72 kg we had the same set so we went this the first time we're in a commercial gym at Uni and um we had read you know 100 kg 225 was the weight and I said yeah let's do that so I got to 12 reps and I thought flipping oh yes mate I've smashed it and i' I've never done 100kg before so I thought wow and he got to 25 reps and he's and he had more in it and I gave him the 10 quid I and I learned a very valuable lesson that day and I've never beaten him ever by the way you know when it comes to weights but it's just sometimes you need something to fixate on right and whether or not it's the numbers um and even I think a lot of people talk about quantity versus quality but the beginning you don't have quality you need a certain it's a contact sport you need a certain amount of momentum to get a business going absolutely and and they're not they're not mutually exclusive yeah and that's sometimes the way that it's framed right I I can't do a lot cuz I want it to be good yeah well you can you can try and do both yeah you won't always hit it yeah for sure um so yeah agreed so going back so Melbourne 78 years hay yep so and and look I think one of the things for me when I got into recruitment that was was interesting for me is they said look you've got these opportunities to go and you know travel the world and you know and that for me was very appealing um I was talking to my wife the other day and I said do you know at 24 years of age I'd only ever flown to Sydney from Melbourne yeah and that was in the context of um I've got kids that are back at home in Melbourne now studying and you know they've been jet setting and traveling around since they were young as I've been here um and my uh my my son was over here um for a couple of weeks and anyways the topic came up I said to my wife this is it's crazy you know he's 19 he's traveled around the world and yeah I hadn't traveled anywhere amazing except for Sydney by the age of 24 but I had this idea that I wanted to travel and I probably wanted to go and live and work somewhere else and that for me was one of the other attractive things about recruitment so um in I think it was 2006 um I got offered a job to go to Hong Kong nice um with Hayes as well went over there checked Hong Kong out loved it went on my own had a ball first time in Asia what what's not to love man right what's not to love um and then but I didn't end up going I ended up um they kept me in Melbourne okay and then a couple of years later I got offered uh an opportunity to go to Shanghai um so I flew over there wrecked it the job was amazing but I was like I don't think I can live here yeah um 2010 um I had a bunch of stuff going on at home I was now um working for a different company okay um I was with Drake International then um I was running uh part of their business in Australia um and an opportunity came up to take over the singap business I went right third time's a charm never been to Singapore didn't jump on a plane that put the business plan together submitted it to the president of the business they give it the green light off I went right I see you moved it never having never been wow right um and I had it I had uh I had young kids at that stage uh in Melbourne okay um and I was like no I'm going I want to give this I want to give this a real go um so I came over and I left them for the first um year or so hey tough right um ballsy move yeah um but I'm I I I took the plunge and I did that and so I ended up in Singapore beginning of 2011 um which was to run a Singapore business which was an underperforming Singapore business um which kind of uh became something that I did over the years I took over underperforming businesses and then sort of grew them um so that was 2011 um and then I ended up um taking on Hong Kong and then the Philippines business and then ended up running the region for that company um so it was a it was a it was definitely a plunge um but looking back now and the way that things have gone I mean I love Singapore I love everything about it um the weather the food the people um it's just I just love the place so Russ one of the things I wanted to ask you about was you know with recruitment most of my peers who or by the way they're all older than me at least 5 years older than me most of them got to the point where they were burnt out and left industry some of them came back um a lot that are out glorify what recruitment was and the reality is it's it's tougher than ever I think but what was your experience with that because it's it's a tough gig sales recruitments it's not easy yeah it is it's a tough gig um and I think probably um for for me making the career switch out of recruitment um and into the the boxing business which I know we'll talk about um that was probably the thing that I needed to understand um and maybe you get this as you get a little bit older right but to understand that no matter what you do if you want to do it well or if you want to do it for a long time it can be really difficult um when I got into recruitment you know I thought it was the best job in the world I couldn't believe that one I got to wear a suit um which now these days I'm like geez I hope I never the OB suit again right I was like you know I get to wear a suit and I get to run around town and drink lattes with people and you know on the weekends everyone's going to get on the Lash right um I thought that was amazing and you know Work Hard Play Hard kind of uh lifestyle as you get older that kind of wears on you a little bit um but throughout my recruitment career and probably um I've still got a recruitment business here now okay um I'm not Hands-On involved in it anymore um but I think it does get really really hard what I've probably learned now is the things that let us down in Recruitment and sales um are the same I think across all Industries and I think if you talk to most people you'll kind of find that yeah um but I think maybe one of the other things is um I don't know if you've had this before but when I was sort of at least in my sort of early to midcareer in recruitment I listened to a lot of the noise from external parties and that was always you know who what what when I say what I'm going to say you you'll understand exactly what I mean recruiters were always painted with the same brush as real estate agents and lawyers right and Second Hand Car Sales and secondhand car salesman right and for me was kind of that that bothered me for a while yeah um and then what I realized is I went through my career I knew heaps of awesome real estate agents and I knew heaps of great lawyers and you know some good car salesmen as well right um every single profession that people do if you listen um there'll be people that have got um negative stuff to say about it there'll be people that have had negative experiences and there'll be people who've had great experiences so I think probably just like in terms of maturing in my career whether it was with the career shift or not but for me now you know I tell my kids this and I'm sure you tell yours the same thing it's like whatever you do yeah it's going to some days it's going to be hard yeah some days you're going to absolutely hate it um and pushing through and being able to reinvent yourself find the juice again to kind of keep going that's usually where you have your biggest breakthroughs as well right very true very true true so like when you managed guys that were struggling with motivation on the recruitment side what did you do to unpack that smacked them out the head mate I love you thank you um but I still talk about this now right you have to first of all people have to understand their why y right and just if they know that reminding them of that is usually but it's surprising a lot of people don't know because cuz people you know go to school go to un because you have to get into work because you have to and they just think I'm going to climb the corporate ladder but they never sat down and introspectively ask them what do you want from Life correct I'm sure that you know cuz I know that you've done some um you would have done a bunch of sales training yeah for your guys um and in any of those trainings I think one of the early things that you need to do is get people to understand their why um but it's also a privilege to be able to sit there and ask yourself that very true right like so for instance you know the 17 18y old Paul went into the High Street recruitment company to clean the toilets you probably weren't sitting there going what's the why right yeah um but you know I think so for me in terms of managing people that are that are struggling I think that's probably the first thing and then the other thing which I'm you know I sound like a broken record any of my guys that have worked with me will have heard this a million times is you got to trust the process yeah and that for me it because I'm predominantly in sales and client facing roles um that for me is the one that I always revert back to yeah um you know sometimes you're absolutely knocking it out the park and everything's going well quite often it's not um but knowing the process trusting the process and being able to just keep tick the boxes and go through all of that yeah right regardless of what's Happening then I think that's probably one of the things that I always try and my guys and um probably the other one that I'd add in my business partner Nas Musa in um in Spartans now serial entrepreneur he and I are very very different in terms of our Styles how H so I'm the eternal optimist I'm the you know the high energy like you know it's we got to go we got to go right and and so Nas is a Serial entrepreneur he's had businesses good startups and exits all around the world different Industries um he's a little bit older than me as well and he's just more measured M right he never each other out nicely yeah correct and you know he never goes over the top in celebrating the wins yeah and he never really feels the losses too much and how did you guys meet um well can you share yeah no I can I can no it's it's a really it's an awesome story tell us a fateful White Collar boxing event okay in Singapore ah is this is this the Genesis everything yeah right so before we get there yeah I want to know were you because you know like a lot of people in their careers when you probably hit your late 30s early 40s a bit of soul searching happens yeah you know typically if you're lucky you got married got kids what was that Journey like for you when were you asking yourself I want to do more I want to do something different yeah well my soul searching probably happened a little bit earlier all right so um maybe for context CU we when we start talking about the boxing business so like most Aussies you know i' done sport since I was young what were the main sports you grew up doing so the first sport that I did was martial arts okay so my parents put me into it was called Australian freestyle combat karate oh nice um and that was in 1988 that I started that okay now if that was called something today it would be called MMA because it was boxing Muay Thai Jiu-Jitsu wrestling there weapon stuff in there as well it mixed mixed martial arts yeah um wasn't really sort of the cool thing to do back then in Australia so that was what I got put into first a lot of people don't realize that cuz our age when you were doing that back then you would have been what eight eight yeah same for me and it was like very few kids were doing it very few kids yeah um so my parents put me into that they put me into that because I had a bad temper I needed some discipline um and they didn't funnily enough they didn't want me to do what most Aussie kids did in Melbourne at least anyways which was football and Cricket okay you know depending on which season yeah so that was my first sport I ended up doing that for about 8 years I was a second degree black belt in that style wonderful that was my first exposure and I started competing at a very young age um through that style um and then I went on to play and Cricket later on and so I was kind of doing footy Cricket I stopped doing martial arts mid team okay and then I found boxing late teens okay um and then I boxed for a few years old spit and sort us kind of gems I love that mate right um you know Club level boxing and all that sort of stuff um that was my first exposure to boxing um and then when the career started you know was uni and then you know the career and that's where sports for me dropped away yeah same and the fact that I'd been doing sports all my life and I'd done Sports at a pretty decent level um more so with um Aussie Rules Football and Cricket so I played representative level for both of those in the end I was too short for footy um and and so with boxing you know I was okay at it but I wasn't I wasn't amazing I was all right how heavy were you back then uh 60 odd kilos yeah right very simp right 60 odd kilos um so um but Sports was always there and then when career came it stopped right and then without getting into too much in my life um I had kids very young yeah right and so you know life just really started to take off and so I had to get my together Sports took a little bit of a back seat yeah um when I moved to to Singapore that was just before then was my real soul searching it was a pretty dark place in my life okay um from a personal standpoint um how old were you at the time uh so for me it was a really rough period late 20s okay um she quite early right for for yeah y quite quite early um um so yeah so late 20s is when I really sort of Hit the skids um a lot of soul searching and thankfully for me I was able to with everything that was going on in my life um a lot of my life was in shambles at that stage but I was able to keep my career as the anchor um so i' always had Sports as an anchor and then I had my career as an anchor and that's one of the things that I always tell my kids as well just try and have an anchor yeah right cuz it's good advice at at some stage when your wife when you're life goes a little bit sort of skew with yeah having that anchor there can be a real life saer and for me it really was so that soul searching period for me landed me in Singapore um and the deal that I had with myself when I moved to Singapore other than okay career has to be the key focus is said I'm going to get back into my boxing and martial arts um and the day I landed in Singapore I went and joined the gym here amazing um and made a commitment to myself that that you know now I'm going to do that properly by the way what you just said make a commitment to yourself that is something that is uh not as easy as people think absolutely you know and it's but it's big when you when you when you write that in in blood absolutely you know yep and it also depends what you've been doing you know I was I was partying yeah you know before I left Melbourne I thought about you I lost 10 years of my life in terms of Sports and Fitness from just cuz working hard you know partying hard same exactly the same right it was a good 10 years of my life yeah of just you know should have been you know your sort of peak yeah it's your Prime when you look back at it was your Prime correct yeah um so yeah so that's kind of you know that was kind of the sou searching thing for me and and I I I tell you all of that because without any of that journey and then revamping and I had a handful of fights um quite late you know boxing or boxing yeah so through what were you fighting at I fought it welterweight okay um so I had a handful of look they were professional fights but you know was a novice Pro I was fighting under professional rules um I wasn't out there going to set the world on fire but you still got to go through training camp and you got to do the sparring and you know all that sort of stuff as you said earlier take some minerals take some minerals right and so and so that was that was for me going through my 30s had taken the early sort of boxing and martial arts experience reapplied it here in my sort of you know uh new commitment to myself and then also started doing some coaching here on the side okay um so I had the recruitment geek here I was MD running a region but my passion was either training or coaching guys and there's a bunch of young guys and that's sort of how I got involved in the boxing scene here in Singapore and ended up um coaching a lot of the guys who are now national champions and stuff like that yeah um and so it's a long way to answer what you said but the so searching for me and then the eventual all right I'm going to move out of career my recruitment career yeah there' been sort of a long leadup to how that was actually going to transpire was there a point where you decided right I'm ready to make the leap now yeah yeah um so maybe we start talking about the Spartans please I would love because when I when I first met you I I it was really just because my son started boxing yep and his journey was he for whatever reason never fell in love with sports and I still don't know may maybe because I'm his dad right and I'm an alpha male I was very conscious I didn't want to cush him and the thing I feel about children is whether or not it's music the Arts acting sports but I think Sports in particular it it creates a furnace in you and you know if it's team sports you're going to have camaraderie but during covid it's uh when I realize ah can't do Jiu-Jitsu anymore can't go to the gym um and then I I found his coach online and I looked at him and I thought I think this guy is from what I've seen anyway I think he's the best boxer in Singapore I love the way he moves and what I learned about children is children don't listen to their parents very often I could be telling my son the exact same things as you but he'll listen to you won't listen to me yep right so that was the beginning of his journey and then and then that's when I I learn about you and I came and introduced myself from one of your gyms yeah yeah correct but yeah yeah tell me yeah y yeah so um 200 um 15 is when um the first Spartans Boxing Club opened okay now I'll rewind a little bit Yeah do um so back to 2012 or 2013 uh there's a white collar boxing event here if you remember the Vander White Collar events of course right so they were you know they were feature on the xat calendar yeah amazing events great events um so there was a a good buddy of mine um a chat by the name of Simon trigs and I say his name because I attribute all the connection and everything that's happened and where I've ended up in Spartans because of Simon we were recruitment buddies oh wow so we the Simon and I met each other my first day of work at Hayes in Melbourne wow he was my senior I didn't know he bought me a sandwich on my first day okay um what was it do you remember can't remember maybe probably was M probably schnit Sam we just right so anyways um Simon and I become great mates um we lost contact for a few years and just you know Serendipity moments or whatever else he and I ended up moving to Singapore a week apart from each other no way right and so he and I became Inseparable from then on we even worked together in in in Singapore for quite a few years right um anyways he's taking part in a white collar box match Vander white colar boxing match 2012 or 2013 okay I was coaching him okay on the side um and he was telling me about you know the squad the guys that are down there and one of the guys was Nas my business partner ah so he was based here he was based here where's he from originally he's so he he was born in the Sudan okay um and then he and his family left the sedan um I think back in the' 70s um with you know all the turmoil that was going on there sure um and he then he grew he grew up in Blackpool in the UK oh really yeah oh wow um and so he's he's as I said before Nas is a Serial entrepreneur he's had businesses across different Industries travel PR media brilliant um Fitness and lifestyle um and so he was at that stage he was living in the east coast of Singapore he just sold a business um to to uh booking.com in um 2014 or or whatever it was right so anyway so Simon Nas and one other chat which completes the story a guy by the name of Victor maningo okay all these guys were on this one white collar card all right so they have their fight and you know everyone through white collar becomes mates and all the rest of it go back to 2015 Nas has just exited this business and he comes up with this idea of Spartans Boxing Club Community boxing gym in the community for the community safe accessible not trying to argue about who's the biggest meanest toughest yeah but and so we tried the gym NASA's idea was do things differently than what other boxing gyms had had done them right yeah and if you go back a little bit further with NASA's story um in 2006 he was living in Dubai um he'd also just had an exit um was living a good life in Dubai he was overweight 125 kilos W um diagnosed with type two diabetes jeez doctors said sort yourself out or else so he goes and joins a boxing gym in Dubai in Al Co in Dubai which if you know Dubai you know then it was an industrial area Warehouse sheds typical old school boxing gym spit and sort us kind of thing he signs in self up for a white collar boxing match in Dubai loses 40 kilos by the way I realize a lot of people won't know what spit and sword dust is so in the old days you'd have a bucket you spit your your water in and it was filled with saw dust it didn't spill over correct right so yeah or translation just Rough and Ready boxing things right the the only way to go right um so um so Nas does a white collar boxing match loses all this weight falls in love with boxing transformational power of boxing yeah does another one in Singapore however many years later and he's done quite a few white collars and exhibitions over the years um so anyway so he starts the first Club um I'm talking to my mate Simon and I say hey look I want to do a bit more boxing coaching you know spread the word ah you remember NAS from White collor that he's just opened his boxing gym right so I go in and I walk into the first Spartans in jat Road in east coast of Singapore yeah what I thought was a really nice gym yeah compared to the gyms that I grew up in it was a beautiful gym compared to what our gyms are now it was a hole Yeah right so I walk in and I go beautiful gym mate this is what I'm looking to do by the way I'd love to have something like this one day in Australia that would be the dream we got to talking long story short I got involved we became business partners and that's how the first Spartans boxing gym came about now very very long way to answer your question like what was the then like okay now no because because well it's it's not really I mean you you probably reduced that L to that but when when you look at most people in business when they're thinking of um going to do something right there has to be that moment and leading up to it it could be it could be 18 months 24 months that thought process and then you just got to say right I'm all in yeah so so so the process for me was then precisely four years okay so 2015 first gym opens had you were you still running at what point did you open your own company your recruitment firm yeah so almost at exactly that same time okay um do both at the same time with yeah wow yeah that's why you got no hair mate that's why I got no hair it was wild you know when I think back now I was um so we I started the recruitment business then that startup was part of a procurement consulting firm that were based in in Australia yeah that company ended up getting acquired by ban and co ah and I set up a search arm for them okay right um so they they didn't have any recruitment or search so it was an Innovative thing I went to them with a business plan and said hey look I got some clients a business plan and team yeah what do you think wow they went with it so and that literally literally happened at the same time 2015 um so anyways my journey at that stage is I'm getting up at 6:00 a.m. right I'm going into the gym to coach like physically coaching yeah right holding pads running classes and all that sort of stuff we had a team there at that stage and you know there was a few coaches and there was some marketing and admin staff and I was sort of acting as a Hands-On GM right or in the context of what we do now I would have been a franchise owner yeah right so I'm kind of in there but I'm also doing my other thing um so it was full on and I and I did that for for 4 years at that stage I was living in um upper Thompson next to MC Richie so you know for the uninitiated for your audience there's a freeway there where you can either make it to the gym in 15 minutes or or an hour and a half right so I was like okay I'm moving house so we we moved over to the east because I thought really want to make this gym happen um the first the gym after its first year purely from a a business standpoint was doing incredibly well right so it was it was making it was Opex break even by month three wow it was profitable from the first year we'd built an amazing Community people were loving the concept not only that we were training legit boxes yeah we're having a lot of success and it was really really well received here yeah and the key ingredient was we were targeting 80 90% of our members were not boxers yeah that was the difference that was the key because a lot of people don't know this like boxing gyms back in the day and still largely primarily I mean it's changing now they were just for the fighters correct correct and they were they were intimidating places to go into correct right and so that was you know we we target it to um you know we were teaching kids as young as four years old we had women's only classes we were doing family classes um and so what that did was it made boxing accessible to just so many more people yeah and that was really well received before before you jumped in I'm just curious cuz obviously you had done martial arts did you think I want to do boxing martial arts and why was it boxing why did you fall in love with that concept for the gym or for myself for the gym and yourself well for myself um I guess and and I did even right up until my mid-30s yeah I was still doing my tie okay I was still doing which which do you prefer to do and which do you prefer to watch boxing hands down yeah all all in I'm I'm yeah and look when I look back now in terms of my abilities like even when I used to do everything back in I was always better with my hands were my were my strength yeah it's funny right yeah yeah everyone has a leaning yeah right so yeah and even now to watch I like watching Muay Thai like high level Muay Thai Thailand lumpy right I love that um I like watching professional boxing yeah um I'd like watching amateur or Olympic style boxing s so yeah right I'm I'm a pro boxer massive fan yeah um I don't watch MMA at all watch MMA really not at all I used to I used to I used to love it yeah um but now I'm I'm a real boxing purist yeah um so that's what I enjoy watching but and it's a good question with the gym when we started we were doing boxing in Muay Thai okay right ah okay and so you found your groove we found our groove right and we found our groove because um for want of a better term Muay Thai was just always the ugly stepchild in our gym yeah right like we were doing mostly boxing and then we sort of develop Muay Thai a little bit and then you know the coach would realize oh this isn't really a Muay Thai gy but what we've learned later on as we've sort of you know started to scale and really grow out gyms to have Muay Thai in a boxing gym you know you need a completely different layer out you need different programming so there's we wouldn't have been able to scale what we were doing then so we dropped myay Thai pretty early on and then we just said look we are a boxing gym and we're going to lean into what we do well yeah and you just stay in your lane correct just stay in youran a lot of people they won't realize like when I I I did martial arts from from four and my dad helped build the tide uh temple in Wimbledon in and I would go there cuz it was a long project last like maybe 3 years so when ever there was a school holiday I would go there and I would wait with him and uh that that's when I first started doing some mtip and then later on um I remember when I was 14 I got into a bit of trouble and my mom felt that conventional martial arts wasn't rough enough for me she said right this is the thing this is where everyone beats the granny out of each other right and she just said to the instructor just don't hit his his face his mouth cuz he's wearing braces and it cost ,000 they were paying it off over three years and I'll never forget this so the very first lesson um I said I want to be in the top class and he said kid you're only 14 I'm done anything I said no no put me in and there was um it was an old dance club in a workman's Club so there was a small square of parket flooring surrounded by nasty grubby stained carpet and it stank as cigarettes and you know spiled beer Y and I'll never forget this so he went around and he got everyone to do push-ups on their Knuckles yep and um he said I will only take the top student and the I well about 60 someone dropped out so I thought wow we're going all the way and I I got to 120 and I and I finished and I actually at 12 and I went to 150 my nips were sore afterwards and he and he's he and then what was interesting was I spar with these two brothers for about four years and I could hit them as hard as I could I couldn't touch them they were like 510 5'11 probably about 80 85 kilograms and I remember the first time I Spar the guy just kic one guy kicked me to the C and I went down and I and I felt like crying it was like oh what what just happened you know cuz I was doing karate and all this other stuff but no man this is this is for Real yeah yeah and it took me four years just to get to the point where I could I could hold my own and hurt them yep because the reality is when you're 14 you're not a man yet you don't have your man strength you're developing all right so going back to the gym what was some of the main CH going you going to say something yeah I wanted to jump in cuz just on that that you were talking about you know just in terms of similarity so the the the martial arts gym that I first started in when I was a kid it was an old scout Hall was it same thing you know wooden floors and half the time covered in dust and but um a bunch of the instructors then yeah so there was two brothers that had sort of studied all the different styles yes um but this was sort of in Kingsbury in in Melbourne which is you know really working class rough and tumble kind of suburb um a few of the instructors then were Boxers okay and so they were teaching his boxing and funnily enough I I reconnect bumped into one of the guys that used to teach me when I was like 11 years old last year back in Melbourne he was a mate of a mate wow um you know and I ended up going to a boxing club with my mate and this guy's the instructor again you know he's like 60 odd years old and he's he's teaching boxing wow so there was few boxing instructors and I kind of Lent towards that and then what got me to boxing then was like a lot of kids in Australia preseason for footy yeah everyone was kind of doing boxing as um you know their sort of pre-season Sport and two of my good mates were boxing and they same thing old scout Hall down on the creek okay right you know um freezing in the winter roasting hot in the summer yeah um and so I boxed there for for the first couple of years and so that's what got me into it w yeah so when you set up the business what were some of the main challenges in the first year um so when we first so so Nas set the business up and that was running for the first few months and then I came in later um the the biggest challenges has or was then and still is now like any other business recruitment or whatever else it's about getting good people right yeah and being able to get good people and you know put together an amazing team yeah um and that was a challenge but also that was one of the areas where we you know we put together an amazing team the first few years in that first G are they largely homegrown in Singapore yeah all homegrown yeah all homegrown um that's one of the things I'm really proud of with the business here and like as now as we expand globally we're always recruiting growing and nurturing local talent yeah um so yeah so that I think probably people has has has was the challenge then and will be the challenge as long as we continue on but do you find in Singapore one of the the challenges is is the they don't like you know it's very difficult sorry to hire foreigners here it's it's a lot more difficult now right you just you just can't do it yeah um cuz I CU I always think you know when you grow a business you want it to be International want to hire the best people doesn't matter where they're from y but it's not it's not that easy here yeah I mean when I first moved here 14 years ago um it was so much easier to hire foreign Talent yeah um across all sectors right um and you can even remember then like if you go out to a cafe or a restaurant there it was mostly for foreign talent that were you know in service yeah um so that's obviously changed a lot over the years um I think that's um a good prompt for businesses to then you know you have to think on your feet and be able to talent that was one of the reasons behind us which I'll talk about in a little while but you know we've got a a boxing Academy um and so being able to try and develop and recruit and then recruit and develop your own Talent um so what so how did the concept of the franchise come up yeah yeah so in um that that really interests me that's it's fascinating yeah so that was uh I preface this to say that neither n or I knew anything about franchising yeah right um what we did know is that we had grown One Gym organically to be everything that we wanted it to be an amazing Community had a sports club feel to it like so you know the Aussie sports clubs everyone con congregates around the sports club it became a real feature of that local community we were training good boxers um it was making money was making decent money too um and so for us it was like all right so how do we expand this we decided in um 2017 we did our first bit of work with Enterprise Singapore then um So for anybody doesn't know Enterprise Singapore is a government body here that helps Singapore businesses um grow and scale and expand um so we did our first bit of work with them and they sort of said to us um this is what you can do if you're going to own and operate bootstrap and you know open up a bunch of gyms or there's this option of franchising right we also worked with a part of that work was we worked with a company here called aam consultants and okay a stream specializing franchising as well and we still worked with those with those guys to this day wow how did you come across them we just um went out and searched for franchising consultants and it's it's one of those things you know like having um a business partner like I said before that's complimentary you know we sat there and we said oh um franchising oh we can't my idea was we can't do franching don't know anything about it yeah and Nas was like well let's just yeah we just Lear buy some find some consultants and we'll learn right so that we so the first bit of work that we did sort of said to us look if you do franchising if you build the model and if you do it the right way then you know in theory it's infinitely scalable yeah now we'd both been running business es and so it had to be something that was exciting enough to ignite our passion right if I'm honest the proposition of owning a few boxing gyms yeah that would never have pulled me away from my recruitment career right it just would not have been big and exciting scalable enough right um so yeah so the decision was made early okay franchising is the way we're going to go we opened the second gym in 2018 that's the baller road chip where you and I met yeah good um and that was a very very rough cut version of what the franchise uh is now okay um but we had some people who believed in us early they loved the concept they you know they they'd been in the gyms they they felt it um and so that one did everything that we wanted it to do so that was kind of like proof of concept and then late 2019 Nas and I had a meeting here in Singapore and we said right do we want to get serious about this thing um we said we do we really see something in this um and so we said okay one of us has to pull the pin on the day job real thing that we're doing yeah um and so that was the the decision that I made you know that was something that what year was that to do uh 2019 okay so it was from 2015 to 2019 that journey of be an operator start to build the model a bit make sure that the models proed like you said can be a you know a process right so I went through that process did you do cuz you know when I think of franchises you know like a lot of people don't know like in America McDonald's franchise it's largely about their real estate portfolio right which is very interesting Y and then um James Khan do you know James KH the recruiter right so his whole business model human Y and how he made his fortune was through the franchise model yeah right have you read his book I haven't read his book but I know who he is and I've listened to a bit of his stuff it's a really good read you you would you would eat it for breakfast it was it's very very interesting um okay and then so then so you decided then right I'm all in tell us about that then yeah so that was probably one of the scariest moments that I've ever had um now I did two things with that one is I decided that I was going to go all in but at the same time I said this recruitment Network that I have yeah is still too valuable yeah don't really want to walk away from that fully and so I spoke to my now business partner in my recruitment business um so there's a few of us that have worked together for years and years and years and I said hey do we want to go out and set something up and you know make sure that there's there's a recruitment business there this is my driver I don't want to get out of it completely I think there's a good business there so we set up another recruitment startup so that business is still around now fantastic um so that business is a supply advisory so it's procurement and supply chain expertise which is kind of what we were all you always do experts in correct so we set up that now I Chuck in the day job set up this new business go to go into Spartans fulltime um we had a couple of franchises ready to launch so we launched our third and our fourth franchise January February 2020 okay and then Co hits yeah right and you know when I explain people about this you know you got to have there's ballsy moves yeah right and there's there's take a plunge nothing could have prepared me for that yeah um scary times incredibly scary obviously Co for everybody incredibly scary and I was sitting there going gez I don't know how these businesses are going to survive yes um I I owned this a mobile Spa business I had set up and the whole concept was um you couldn't you know the problem is you can't get great physio treatment at your house so I wanted to provide that and then also you know my wife having had three kids I knew that getting you know a specialist here yeah and then the last thing was my my goal with that business was to provide um Home Care in terms of nursing yep cuz my wife's grandmother who who you know died when she was 102 every time we had a nurse come around it would be a different nurse every week there was no consistency and most old people people tend to have Alzheimer's or dementia anyway so I set that up and then uh Co happened and I pulled the I pulled the plug and I I lost the money yeah you know but I but I want to know how what you felt scary yeah right scary times and that was you know the recruitment business I remember we did our you know you do a launch event right yeah our launch event was virtual right yeah um luckily we had a bunch of clients that showed up but it was it was a virtual that like that's where were really in the thick of it um for Spartans though Co for us was exactly what we needed right um we as far as the gym so we had four gyms at that stage so there was a small community of members and we did what we knew we should do and we just tried to keep our community together right and so you know we did a bunch of stuff during Co which was all about community um you know we we did the typical stuff that Fitness businesses were doing then we did Zoom workouts or when you could we did outdoor workouts and that sort of stuff but we did other stuff we had sort of an online reality TV show where we had athletes and celebs and everyone would log on and yeah we had some great people on right and the idea was you know we did it once a week just keep people together right then we were doing you know quiz nights with all of the members in the gym and it was just again it was community community community try and keep people together right what was going on in the background for us which was even more important was we were doing the things that would then turn us into a world-class Fitness franchise so completely digitize the customer experience brilliant all right from app to CRM to dashboard to analytics through to backend payment gateways so we set all of that stuff up through to digitizing the franchise management system we did another project with a stream and Enterprise Singapore where we took that business out of a box and we put it onto a platform and completely digitized it so if you own a franchise in Dubai or Melbourne or Singapore or wherever everything you need from training onboarding Ops Etc it's all in that one spot so it's all Plug and Play It's All Plug and Play Right real business out of a box so we did all of that stuff during Co and what happened as Co slowly went away is we started to open more gyms and more gyms and more gyms and so we ended up with we've got 10 gyms in Singapore now acoss the right um all Community Based boxing gyms in the community for the community um you know built around authentic boxing but making sure the people feel friendly and welcome so that's Singapore how do how do you Source the the client sorry the franchises um mix uh bunch of different ways right A lot of them the first batch of franchises here in Singapore they had been in and around our gyms right they'd fallen in love with what we were doing and that's a story for franchising right they've usually you know lived and breathed it somehow somewhere yeah um so that was kind of the initial get go and then you know as we now expand globally um you know franchisees either come from networks or marketing or you know through the gyms or through our infrastructure that we've created and I'll talk about that in a minute um so we we sort of come out we get to Singapore Singapore scaling really well October 2021 we decide that we're going to launch in Dubai um so we launch in Dubai October 2021 has Nas now moved to Dubai Nas was there so Nas moved to Dubai in 200 okay so who's already there 2018 I think he moved there um so yeah we didn't just sort of go okay Dubai we were like we had reason to be there yeah um so we launch uh October 2021 there and as part of that launch we also launched our White Collar events business okay right they tied it nicely correct right so we got gyms we've got the events Dubai goes very quickly for us um we've gone from in a short period of time we're now five gyms operational in Dubai with another four in the pipeline to open amazing we've done Six White Collar events there JW Marriott Hotel Black Tie you know all the food all the booze people that had never had a fight before signed themselves up for you know 12we training camp Zero to Hero right absolutely lifechanging transformational um so we did that and then and you get a lot of corporate sponsors for those gigs I'd imagine that's the that's the model right you want to get corporate sponsors on board um and then the other part which came about was um we had to build an academy because we needed to make sure that as our gym scaled yeah um we were able to maintain quality and standards around you know coaching and safety and yeah programming stuff right correct so the business as it stands now is Jim's events Academy and that infrastructure feeds into it's into each other right so um you know you'll get someone that is training in the gym and they want to take part in a white collar event we've had white collar boxers that fall in love with it and then they want to own a franchise and similarly through the academy it's all now inextricably linked right correct correct how do you how do you m mainin the Brand's identity when going International because obviously you're going to have different cultural issues this that and the other has that been quite easy or um I don't think it's probably the Spartans brand as a whole I wouldn't say easy nothing's easy right um but we've managed to do it with I think some degree of success what were some of the different challenges that you faced initially in Dubai Singapore well the the first one was we tried to build a gym during the summer forget about it right yeah we didn't you know we we tried to build it and usually for us to launch a project it usually takes us from signing a franchise agreement to opening usually about 12 to 15 weeks okay right that's pretty fast it's pretty fast um Dubai in the summer no chance right everything stops there right it's just too hot yeah so that was one of them the the first things um I think for us the fact that we've done Singapore and Dubai as our first two markets there's a lot of similarities in those markets and so this concept of you know Spartans was boxing for everybody um the members were typically coming from middle class um you know the the fees the subscription fees were not the cheapest gym out there yeah right but in Singapore there's a pretty broad middle class right and everybody can afford to go to those gyms yeah similarly in Australia right so you know you sort of price point it to to that area of the market okay when we go into markets like Philippines Cambodia um we'll be going into Vietnam soon it's different i' IM it's a different it's a different thing right and you have to position yourself as an international brand right and you're sort of aiming at a different segment of the market and there's a different price point I I think one of the things wherever we go is that we understand that you know you sort of mentioned McDonald's before yeah McDonald's as a franchise is you know one complete extreme end which is every single thing is this well oiled machine right down to how much salt goes on the fries right now not all franchises are built like that yeah and so for us what we understand at topco is yeah we'll go into a country but there'll be slight nuances that we need to adjust to make sure that the concept lands in country yeah that makes sense what about the regulatory side of things cuz I'd imagine they're very different in different locations right yeah yeah um that was probably one of the hardest things for us to get into Australia really right so franchising laws in Australia and in the US are some of the strictest in the world yeah um and so the things that you need to do just in terms of franchising in its own right um there's a lot of stuff in Australia and and you know the US um other countries it may just be sort of common law but each country that you go into you need to understand franchising Regulatory and compliance issues um then you need to understand and things around sporting boxing um all the sort of regulations around that stuff as well and then just your general sort of you know IP protection and all of that sort of stuff so and we do that sort of you know that's sort of your foot into each one of those markets do you what happens if if a franchisee says look I I like this location and you're not convinced that it's the right location will you step in and say hey look you need to think carefully about this yeah so that process of um you know a franchisee coming on board location selection is always a key one right and so we use a territory mapping tool okay right to select location so interesting yeah so there's a few tools out there and they'll give you information on you know size of territory population salary demographics yeah all that sort of stuff right and so yeah so you you try and put data behind all of the decision making sure but at the same time you know you get a franchisee who says hey you know I live in the north and I don't want to be driving all the way over to the West so it is a partnership to figure out where the franchisee is going to land yeah franchisee will say hey these are my ideas we'll say great this is what the data looks like and then it's about the availability of real estate yeah um but yeah to answer your question if a franchisee comes to us and says that's where I want to be and we don't have any sort of data to back up and support it then we would most definitely say you shouldn't do it there what about things like insurances and stuff like that do you give them advice on what they need to take out yep I'd imagine yep so the whole thing is a business out of a box so everything from location selection through to contractors that you should use um although they can use different contractors depending on what Market they're in uh through to the full supply chain equipment merchandise um you know ranging from in gym boxing equipment through to you know apparel and all that sort of stuff all Central Supply Chain cuz when you think about all the research that you to do and of course it's constantly evolving it's it's actually quite I I find that stuff fascinating when you're like what sort of rings you're going to get correct you know is technology changes corre doing correct and that's so you know you mentioned technology there that's one of the things that for us as the franchise or at top Co level the key role that we play is around adding value and innovating the model yeah but at the same time we like to stick to our roots of being a boxing gym right like I don't want someone to walk into a boxing gym and go this feels like Boxer size right we want to maintain your authenticity so we've been very careful in terms of the technology that we put into the gyms so to give you an example in in the gyms now we have a sensor that sits on the bags yeah and so if you hit the bag it tells you how many times you've hit it and how hard you hit it you get all that data comes to your phone right so that sort of stuff is great do you do you do things I know this sounds silly but like um if you most people don't know but if you put a boxing bag on a frame against the wall you got to make sure it's properly screwed in and getting that done properly cuz we've all had it you know the old and it comes off the wall and mate the fact that you talk about that yeah when I look now and that's one of the key lessons that we learned right those Al brackets that sit on the wall they come off all the time and if I see a boxing business that's got those L brackets on the wall I usually go don't they they probably haven't been in the business for a while um so right down to the way the bag racks are engine conru the metal construction where they sit on the racks yeah correct correct and we either have those depending on the layout of the gym itself we either have those from the ceiling hanging down or from the floor going up cuz they take some punishment they take a hell of a lot of punishment and that's one of the things that you know a lot of people don't realize there's a difference between having your home gym setup yeah and a commercial gy completely I I won't put anything in the wall here cuz I know it's just going to come out out and even even we got a speed bag I don't want to drop $1,000 on a decent piece so we've got a cheap setup where there's a you know weight plate on the top yep do you know what I mean but I know exactly if you you need to do it properly you're taking some punishment in a commercial gym absolutely it's funny you mention speed bags right every single franchisee wants a speed bag yeah and I tell them exactly the same thing I'm like unless you're willing to go out and buy the premium speed bag thick platform doesn't move and then then also be ready to constantly replace the bags themselves what will happen is it will just become an ornament in the corner of your gym yeah right and do you really want to spend 1,500 bucks on that so I told my son so what happened was I I never learned on a speed bag cuz there wasn't one in any of the gyms and eventually when there was it was you only the daddies were using it do you know what I mean yeah yeah and so when he was started to learn I just said I wanted to do this only 2 and a half to 5 minutes a day cuz neurologically your brain will reset do you know what I mean but not a lot of gyms have them they don't and you know for good reason do you know do you know what I stumbled across the other day which I'll share it with you um I stumbled across a guy who is using the speed bag but he uses the old school way he boxes it and that's how I learned on the speed bag right but you punch a lot of the bladders that way you do right but like you know just for your hand eye and you know just your sharpness and all that sort of stuff and you know I guess when you see kids these days in the gym it's just they want to do it you know just that fast or you know you see these other guys are doing all this fancy stuff on there watching the guys that the speed bag I love that yeah I saw this fo footage of Jack Dempsey doing it and um the speed back was massive yeah but it was M I absolutely love it when when you're considering your franchise Partners you know do you look into their background and they've got a talk to me about what what you're looking for in a partner yeah sure and look I think probably um our franchise Partners depending on where they're coming into the model yeah what we look for is different yeah right and so for instance someone that wants to have a single boxing gym right um the skill set required to do that and the drivers you know going back to what your why yeah you know I always ask franchisees when we're going through the process um usually the franchise owner who wants to own a single gym they're interested in having a gym because they're interested in Fitness or boxing right yeah and so you know the people in our gyms at the moment that are single unit owners are usually um senior accomplished professionals you know we've got MDS of marketing agencies we've got um you know guys that have been in advertising we've got um teachers PE teachers right who've decided that okay I want to have something else yeah but they keep the day job and they keep doing what they're doing um so that kind of a person what we need to be convinced of is that they've got the passion to be able to build a community you know um recruit and engage a team that wants to work for them but they really want to be a part of it right um and so probably about 50% of our network of franchise owners fall into that category right now typically doing something else senior working accomplished professionals um we have then which is typically multi-unit owners these are the guys who have been senior and have decided senior corporate guys and have decided that they want to make a career change right similar to what I did right and so you know to give you an idea one of the guys that's doing really well for us in Dubai at the moment he was you know I think 15 years Microsoft okay had run multiple buus for those guys so he chalked up all of his business business experience working for a blue chip um and then decided that now he wants to turn his livelihood towards what he's passionate about yeah and so he's been able and you know so he and it's a great story well what's interesting is you're you're taking a lot of people and helping them become entrepreneurs correct right and that that's a that's a whole new correct way of operating look what I love about what I do is at every level yeah of what we do um I don't see any negative byproducts right whether it's people who are joining the boxing gym to go through a transformational journey whether it's just because they want to train learn boxing lose weight have a fight you know the re the reasons are varied but then in terms of as you say the franchising side of it helping people become entrepreneurs yeah helping people find their icky guy or their triple P or you whatever you want to call it um I think that's really powerful um and even you know the um so the guy that I was telling you about that moved out of Microsoft um you know when he and I first met he said look you know I've had this great career and now you know he's like sort of um early 40s now I want to do something that I'm really you know I'm passionate about I'm passionate about health and fitness I've got a story about how health and fitness save me as a lot of people do you know they're into their training and you know I want to put that into something where I can continue to build a career this guy moved from Singapore to Dubai says he wants to do multiple units so he's going to do three gyms oh so he was he was based here based in Singapore moved his family to Dubai saw the opportunity there to him um and he's Young when you when you mentioned 15 years I didn't think he was in his 40s but but obviously still still still young enough to do it um and you know he's doing really really well there and when I see those stories success stories that's amazing part of that driving it correct how do you keep the um standards up maintain the standards across the the different gyms yeah so that's one of the most difficult things I think for a franchise or to do yeah um so um going back to what I was talking about before the the franchise management system yeah what that franchise management system entails is its onboarding its training its operational systems procedures etc etc but also an audit component right and so we have franchise development manager who goes around and audits all of our locations so we have systematic audit process in the franchise system brilant we also do mystery shoppers and all of that sort of stuff right so um that's you know but also that is I think if you talk to any franchise or that's one of the hardest things to do and as you scale globally yeah right that is really one of the hardest things to do so it's systems processes people yeah that's how you do it executing it yeah that's the ongoing challenge yeah I just um well I've read it a couple of times but I read Ray Delio's book on uh principles and processes and it's h it's it's everything it's everything so as you look forward how are you looking to grow this what are the plans to grow the business globally yeah um so as I said before the the the pillars of this business the gyms the events the academy each one of those in their own right is a business that's really exciting and has got a huge future so I just talk about the gyms first we're now in five countries amazing um so Singapore Dubai Philippines Cambodia Australia um our Focus for the next 3 to 5 years and we have to be hyperfocused with this we act and behave like a startup yeah um small team you know all that sort of stuff so I love it our Focus right now is on Asia Pacific and the GCC region okay so here in Asia Pacific um Australia we will scale on mass so that will be our largest market in terms of location of gems over the next 3 to 5 years um in the existing markets uh Philippines Singapore Cambodia we'll continue to add locations there and we're also um we're going into Vietnam soon um you in or uh so we've done a a a master franchise deal for all of explain what that means so Master franchise deal basically means that someone is going to scale a region on our behalf so all of Vietnam all of Vietnam amazing so so with the model itself single unit franchise owners will own one multi-units will have their own little Empire of gyms Master franchise means that you can onell and represent our brand and scale us in a territory fantastic so Vietnam's enough to cab off the rank here um in the GCC region the UAE continues to be very exciting so we'll end up doing more in Dubai um more in Abu Dhabi and then the really exciting one that we're in um very Advanced conversations with this Saudi Arabia that's throw to the so much going on there so that's super exciting um so but again hyperfocus for us Asia Pacific GCC region now a lot of people ask me are you going to go to Europe are you going to go to America the answer is yes but the time has to be right and when you see us there you know we've we've been kicking some goals right um there's there's a lot more to do here right you're just getting started really correct there's a lot more to do here um and Australia as an example in this region like there's some amazing Fitness franchising brands that have come out of Australia yeah um and so we sort of see Australia as the market for us where we're really going to hit some scale so I'm really excited about Oz you got that critical mass all those amazing cities correct um the events business um we've done Six White Collar events so far in Dubai our all very successful right all very successful um we've got our first one coming up here in Singapore in October uh October 18th um the plan with the events business is we do two events per year per region so next year so this year we've got three next year we'll go to 5 to 6 the year after that we'll go to 8 to 12 wow and so the events business just keeps scaling every time but the thing is that feeds into the rest of the business because you'll see more prospective clients correct you know participants exactly amazing exactly um and so there's that and then the the academy part of the business we continue to refine and develop our um our own courses and content yeah but also I won't announce it just yet but we are about to do a deal with the one of the largest boxing Educators in the world amazing and so our Academy then Works handing glove with them and we become a portal for being able to access glove I've not heard that before I like that yeah yeah no intended I love it um so yeah so the academy so each one of these arms of our business is really excited we've got a really clear road map for each of them do you you know like for the ring announcers do you have to find someone that's really good because I've heard some great people on the m and I've heard some terrible ones it's not easy we do we do so far knock on wood so far we've done well and I think we've got some good guys what what advice would you give to entrepreneurs that were looking to throw their hat into the ring you know just just in business in general right given your journey what kind of you know points would you give them yeah my um my business partner Nas don't know if you've read it but he gave me a book um about two years ago it's called the hard thing about hard thing no okay I'll lend it to right um I need you know basically I can't remember the author but telling the story of you know a guy did incredibly well with a a startup yeah um and the premise of the book is it's just hard um and you would know this you know running your your companies yeah um so that would be the first thing yeah you got to you got to get started because I think a lot of people think about think about think about it you got to you got to start you've got to start number one you've got to expect it to be hard number two is you like anything else you won't love it every day yeah um but you just have to you know keep going at it um that would probably be the the the best advice that I can give but I I I think the other thing as well is I think that passion is an important thing oh man right and you know when we first started franchising I tried to lean away from the passion part yeah so we would say something like um your business can't be a Passion Play yeah now I agree to that statement to an extent like you can't just do something just because you're passionate about it and if the business doesn't make any sense right but having passion for what you do that's what gets you through the really hard times everything and people buy into that that energy that passion correct right when you when you speak to them they'll know they'll know why you're doing it correct right and I and I think one of the other bits of advice that I would give any but buding entrepreneur is like as you said you know just start you see a lot of people and people have got different risk tolerance right sometimes I'm a little bit mad with this kind of stuff like I'll just jump feet first yeah um but you know I see a lot of people who I can see are very capable yeah to do the thing that they want to do um and for whatever reason you know they they just don't take the plunge and I think that's a great that's a great shame for people to not go out and explore the things that they really want to do it's tough you you've got to be all in You've Got to Believe In Yourself yep you know balls to the wall it's not it's not easy because you know you married with Children you know I because I always look at where someone is in their life cycle and that's why I think it's very important that young people take a risk travel abroad work abroad you know do something because the reality is when you when you're married with kids everything changes it's a lot harder there's a lot more pressure yep um okay quick fire few questions top three favorite boxers of all time to watch not the best but the top three favorite boxers yeah so mine's pretty easy so Canelo is my alltime number one okay um Muhammad Ali just cuz he transcended the sport and also amazing to watch yeah and then number three is where it gets a little bit tricky you know I I'll probably say my wife well listen tell tell tell the audience about your wife yeah so my well she's just given birth so we've got a one month old daughter which is amazing um but yeah so f is a um she's a um professional boxer former amateur champion in Singapore so she's been national champ here I think maybe four or five times and represented Singapore overseas in various International competitions um she's really great boxer I'm looking forward she is she is after now the babies come she's going to make a comeback so amazing and she's a hell of a coach she's a hell of a coach she coached my son and and you know when you see a young lady like that managing a group of young you know alpha males that require something right but she had that delicate touch y um which is wow it's impressive that a good answer mate you got that one you got that one got that one but I've got look I my other ones I've got a few of the real boxers boxes you know I like um I like Marquez right I like lenarz okay um but there's just I mean there's so many give me give me your top three favorite fights of all time that you you've watched you today um Canelo Triple G okay which one probably number one maybe I don't know they were all they were all pretty good I feel do you think you won the last one I'm a Canelo fan I'm so biased I thought he want them all um amazing Fighters uh um Fury Wilder which one when Fury got dropped and got touched by the hand of God and got back up that was the first one you know that that the second fight I went out with a mate and uh we went for a beautiful Stak dinner we got very drunk yep and I told as we do and uh and I said mate um first fight was amazing you want to go and watch the second one he goes when is it I said this this weekend it's a Wednesday night and he goes mate absolutely so I I walked back to the office drunk and um I book tickets for the fight I went back and then uh I whatsapped him about 1:00 in the morning I said but your tickets we're going and he he messages me the next day what tickets he can't remember the conversation I said I book tickets for the fight and he he he couldn't remember then he said I can't go I must have been changed I are you serious no so I called a mate of mine who was based in Dubai and um he met me over there and we had an amazing time what you know the thing is I I always wanted to see Mike Tyson in his Heyday and I I was too young I didn't have the money and I just thought this is my my chance to watch at the time the two top guys go out man I haven't it's on my bucket list I haven't managed to go to to Vegas or mg or anything like that let me tell you something that's the thing so I've I've made it a thing that I will I I wanted to go and watch top top sporting events so you know was lucky enough to go to the Rio Olympics I saw you say bolt right one of my Idols um but i' I yeah so what happened was when Kaden so we were living in the US for a few years so my wife was doing a PhD at Yale y she's an amazing woman and we came back and he did his psle here and um he was bullied a little bit we didn't know about it at the time and uh and he'd had a bit of a tough time exams were difficult and I said to my wife honey I'm thinking of taking the Caden away for the weekend you know lad's trip and um she said oh that sounds good darling yeah do that and about 3 hours later she goes where you going you're going B puket were you going I said we're going to Vegas bab really I took him to watch Conor Conor McGregor against khabib oh wow yeah and it was like we got very cheap flights they were $1,000 and um what was great was the thing is if you have long layovers right so we had like a 12-hour layover in La so we got off uh got taxi to Santa Monica Beach hung out there all day came back flew to Vegas and on the way back we had the same kind of stop off but in San Francisco so my mind we're getting like three holidays in one and um but I'll tell you a funny story so we're walking through one of the hotel and then were naked ladies dancing so I said to him listen son when we walk past them you don't need to look you don't need to do anything he goes yeah he was 11 and all I saw was this yeah don't tell your mom yeah brilliant but it was um yeah I've been to that's priceless but you know what what's sad about boxing is if you go to a top event it is empty until the undercard fight yeah right and the wonderful thing about the UFC it's like if you go to a big card it's like 5 hours it's stacked it's stacked you know it's a it's a shame I'm I'm I mean on that I'm excited to see now what's happening like you know we mentioned s before but with Riad season and you know they're really I feel that we're going through a great period for boxing yeah well I got I got tickets for the usk uh Tyson fight I was meant to go with my mate who was based in Australia he couldn't go last minute right and I thought you know I'm I'm getting too old to do this one on my own because it it was a bit of a Tre to get and um and but the mate the the tickets were $50 US you know what I mean they weren't the best tickets but you know my so that the weekend before that I was in Perth watching lenko K right which um was great so a few of us went down there to watch that and I was I was you know ecstatic you know and we were sort of back in the bleaches and whatever else and Nas went and watched Fury USC and he was like rose Six yeah wow bastard yeah yeah cuz you'll never forget it you I mean you never forget those things all right morning workout or evening workout evening yeah evenings I I don't have that luxury now yeah but you know what I do do and you know maybe for some of our um audience who are you know 40 plus and all superpow for me now is walking yeah I go for a walk we about day I'm out for a walk every day in the morning I try and do eight to 10 clicks every day and then and then I try and um you know know box or lift weights 3 4 days a week well people don't they Overlook that um you know your recovery time is a lot less you know I went on the a last night I just did four rounds I was I mean it was like you know I haven't been on it for a while that's my Nemesis whereas you do you could do 10 click come back shower yeah you know you'll be okay y you won't be dying yeah yeah correct um if you could open a gym anywhere in the world where would it be riet it's going to happen mate it's just you know it's going to it's definitely going to happen um and then what's your on your workout playlist are we going old school school question mate it changes have you got like I don't about you on my phone I've got like I've got hip-hop and then I've got a fight a fight library of songs that just get me into you know yeah I've I I do so I'll give you a few of mine they they typically fall into two genres it's either rap or metal okay um so probably my my most recent go-to now is stormy okay um or if I want to go metal it's tul okay um so they're probably my like like the ones that feature the most or the one that a lot of the guys know me for in the gym is I've got an Aussie hip hop playlist okay so there's like a whole genre of you know Aussie hip hop and most people if they're not Aussie they don't know it yeah um but yeah they're probably my stuff you grow up with you know you know what's interesting is um I don't know about what your dad was like but my dad there was always there was an element of competition between him and me not me and him and it was a weird thing and like my son like we were saying both our sons are you know your son's over six foot Kaden's 6 foot Y and I'm I'm just so proud and I always say to people because I I get a lot of stick about this directly and indirectly you know are you okay with your son being in boxing because of all the potential trauma that goes with it and and and I can see there's some you know furrowed eyes and you know of a uh judgment but for me boxing unequivocally has given Caden so much well whether or not he takes it any further it doesn't matter you know it's completely changed the way he feels about himself how he carries himself it's given him discipline and you know what I always say to people cuz cuz how many people are going to make a real living from doing this it's not about that correct you know what I mean yeah totally don't you think it's just the the the most amazing sport for that reason I think it is the most amazing Sport and you know we do I was talking to you about this before you know we do some work here um with a charity called impart SG which is a charity that helps youths facing adversity and to see the impact that boxing has on kids that are really struggling in life that's sort of one extreme that's one end of the spectrum but seeing and I'll be careful how I say this but I think that kids that go into boxing gym the impact that it has on them in terms of their confidence in terms of um their likelihood to go out and get themselves into fights and get into trouble and all that sort of stuff yeah the the positive outweighs the negative so much and if we just talk about the negative perception that um you know boxing does damage to your brain and all of this sort of stuff well sure if you're a profession boxer and you've been boxing since you a kid and you you're doing you know 20 or 30 rounds a week and you do that over the course of your whole life yeah you may end up with CTE or a bit punch drunk but like you say most people don't do that right and if you jump in and you have a spa yeah even once a week and you're doing it at uh either in a controlled environment number one yeah or the level that you're doing it at isn't a professional level let's face it if you've seen professional boxers or Elite level amateur boxers in the gym and everyone else it's a very very different thing for sure right so I agree with you mate I think that all kids should do some form of martial arts y um I've done that with all of mine yeah um and I'll continue to do so and especially my little girl yeah for sure well but the the other interesting thing is is like when when you meet the local young boxers here they're always so polite they'll say hi sir how are you yep and um you know I'll always make an effort to either in person or drop them a note win lose a draw if I've seen they they've competed let them know Well Done young man you know fantastic because I think that's a big thing and we and and I've said to my son about this is you shouldn't look at these guys um in any other way than you admire them because these are the guys if you're going to war tomorrow you want them next to you yep these guys are beasts and we all know how much courage it takes to string the laces up you know what I mean absolutely absolutely it's been a pleasure I think we're going to have a few of these chats I'm sure about that I've really enjoyed it it's been great it's a anything else you want to tell us about your upcoming plans and projects um I mean other than those markets that I spoke about um how to get in touch with you I'll I'll put this down on on our uh YouTube and Linkedin yeah so uh with me personally it's just Russ spartanboy boxing.com franchise and there's a whole bunch of information in there so people can find out about that beautiful um and then any of our socials at boxing Spartans um and yeah would love to chat to People Mate if there's any people out there thinking yeah yeah you know hey uh this corporate gig is just about run its course or you know I'd like to explore trying to do both things um you know I'd love to chat to people I've obviously gone through it been there done that got the T-shirt um so would love to chat to people about that as well good man Russ been a pleasure thank you thank you cheers mate [Applause] [Music]

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