You Know Where the Weight Room Is?: TJ’s Rise to Becoming an Entrepreneur
On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church, YFP team member, leads another edition of the Side Hustle Series where he talks about ways you can create additional streams of income to reach your financial goals faster. This episode features Dr. TJ Allan, a pharmacist and entrepreneur who owns three gyms and is now teaching others how to open their own gym.
About Today’s Guest
TJ is a pharmacist, father, husband, and entrepreneur that enjoys fitness, arguing about the NBA, visiting Disney, and discussing all things business.
Summary
TJ Allan graduated from St. Louis College of Medicine in 2007 with not only a passion for pharmacy, but also for entrepreneurship. While in college TJ didn’t take on large expenses and was very conscious about his purchases and lifestyle. After he graduated, he began working for Walgreens. He was making a good salary and had benefits, however, he jumped on an opportunity to work as a local pharmacist in his small town so that he could become an entrepreneur.
He was living with his parents at the time and drove the same car he did while in college to keep his expenses low. This allowed TJ to save money to use for his business ventures. He opened his first gym, Ageless, in his hometown and broke even by the end of two weeks. He only had to put up $70-80,000 to start. Although several people said that the gym wouldn’t be open long because of its location and the success rate of gyms in general, his optimistic personality reminded him that he could have success. He continued to open two other gyms (a studio gym and spin gym) which have both been successful and are still open.
Ageless, which follows a 24 hour model with classes and only needs 40 hours of staffing each week, brings in $125,000 in revenue with a net profit of 40-45%. Each month, TJ makes $3,000 to $4,000 from Ageless as passive income, however he invests it directly back into the business. Collectively, the other two gyms bring in $90,000 of profit each year.
Of course, TJ has had several failures along the way, but these have taught him so much. He’s learned the importance of marketing and now follows a lean startup method.
TJ has created a work and life balance allowing him to be present for his wife and young daughter. He also has worked to create efficient business models so that he doesn’t have to spend a lot of time running the other businesses. With a block method of scheduling, he works on certain projects each day while also continuing to work as a pharmacist in his hometown.
Mentioned on the Show
- LendKey
- YFP 081: New Year Financial Game Plan
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money – That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyoaski
- Tony Robbins
- John Maxwell
- The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
- The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
- The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
- Contact TJ Allan
Episode Transcript
Tim Church: What’s up, everyone? And welcome to Episode 083 of the podcast. I’m really excited about today’s guest to kick off the first side hustle episode of the year. I think you’re really going to enjoy hearing his story. On the first episode of 2019, the other Tims talked about setting financial goals and how important they are to having a successful year. For some of you, one of those goals may be to finally start that business or project that you’ve been thinking about. If that’s you, I really want to encourage you to think about those next steps to make that vision become a reality. And if you need some inspiration, you definitely don’t want to miss out on TJ’s story. So Dr. TJ Allan, he’s a pharmacist and entrepreneur who owns three gyms and is now teaching others how to open their own gym. He’s also a father, enjoys arguing about the NBA, visiting Disney and discussing all things business. Let’s go ahead and jump right into the interview.
Tim Church: TJ, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being a part of this side hustle edition.
TJ Allan: No problem. Thanks for having me.
Tim Church: OK, being a gym owner, I have to ask you this question before we go on. If there were no royalty issues to worry about, and I could have put on any song for you as you walk up to the mic for this recording, what would it be?
TJ Allan: Right now, I’m a Cardi B man. I don’t have a workout unless Cardi B’s on my iPod.
Tim Church: Wow, is that mandatory in all of your gyms too? That they’re playing that?
TJ Allan: The workout doesn’t count unless there’s Cardi B playing at some point in time during it.
Tim Church: Oh, that’s awesome. I was going to say, I thought maybe you’d go old school, but that’s cool. I like that. Well, I’m really excited to discuss your entrepreneurial and how you came to acquire three gyms. But before we do that, can you talk a little bit about your career path as a pharmacist?
TJ Allan: Yeah, because I think it’s really important to talk about that because there’s so much right now in this entrepreneurial world ripping on college and saying, if you want to go open these businesses, you don’t need college, it’s a waste of money, everything else like that. You know, I can honestly say that without college and without going through the pharmacy route, I don’t think I would be where I’m at with my entrepreneurial stage, without it. So I had actually attended St. Louis College of Pharmacy, graduated in 2007. I got involved in pharmacy, I had my sister’s boyfriend at the time had just graduated from there when I was a junior in high school, so it was on my radar. I was really big into sports, so I was trying to kind of figure out, do I want to do sports, do I want to go into something educational? And I was passionate about helping people is what I would kind of say. And I was also looking for a job that was secure, that paid well, and there was plenty of opportunities around. So of course, pharmacy was a viable option. And it was also nice that it was 45 minutes from my house. So that’s kind of how I got started. I love St. Louis College of Pharmacy. It was a great college. I enjoy pharmacy. People always say, you’ve got all these businesses, you’re doing all these, why don’t you just do this stuff full-time? Why are you still in the pharmacy? I like pharmacy. There’s really nothing right now I can say bad about the pharmacy world other than of people outside the pharmacy world ripping on it. But from my perspective, pharmacy has given me everything that I have right now.
Tim Church: Yeah, that’s awesome, TJ. And thanks for sharing that because I do agree that there is a lot of negativity, and I think it depends on kind of the environment that you’re in, the employers that you work for, but I think there are so many great opportunities to not only have a job and a position, but one that you feel fulfilled and feel like you are truly making a difference. So can you talk about your current role as a pharmacist and what you’re doing?
TJ Allan: Yeah. So right after I graduated pharmacy school, you know, I knew I wanted to move back home. I was a small town kid. My hometown and where I was born and raised has 3,200 people. I went to St. Louis, I’d been to other things, I don’t like the big city. So I knew I was going to come back to a hometown. At that point in time, 2007, you know, opportunities were everywhere. CVS was offering still the $40,000 sign-on bonus. I could go anywhere. I had actually signed on with Walgreens. And at that time, I was a floating pharmacist, so I was picking up shifts. I mean, I was working 60 hours a week, there were so many shifts available. So it was nice. So I stayed at Walgreens for about a year, maybe a little bit less than a year. And I had that entrepreneurial itch. I knew I wanted to get in something, open my own business, but I knew that being at Walgreens probably wasn’t going to allow me to do that because my hours were sporadic, when I was at work, I had literally no access to my cell phone or anything else. So I started looking for a job that would allow me to chase my entrepreneurial dreams but also allow me to still be in the pharmacy industry. And just by coincidence, the pharmacy was located in my hometown that I’d actually sent a letter to the owner my sixth year of pharmacy school, saying that I wanted to buy it, the pharmacist in charge job opened up at Sullivan’s Drugs. So I, of course, jumped on it and interviewed with them, did really well during the interview, but I was really kind of candid with I talked to them, you know, I’m coming back here at this small pharmacy because I want to also chase these entrepreneurial dreams that I have. So there are going to be days where I’m going to have to miss, I may not be able to work five days a week, I may have to take some personal calls during my shift, I may have to have Internet access during my shift. And he was fine with it. I mean, he was looking for somebody, but I told him, I said, “I’ll give 100%. I love pharmacy, but I also need to do this stuff.” So of course, there was a salary difference coming and going from Walgreens to a small, independent pharmacy. And there was also a benefits difference. So I mean, I took a hit. I went from Walgreens, I think at that time, I was making about $125,000 a year. And I started back there at $100,000, maybe $98,000 a year. Walgreens, of course, you had all the benefits back there. At that point in time, when I signed on, there was no retirement package, there was no IRA, anything like that, there was no health benefits. I was paying my own health insurance. So it was a hit, but it was a sacrifice that I was willing to make because I saw my long-term goals.
Tim Church: Was that a tough transition at first, taking that cut that you did?
TJ Allan: Not so much because, you know, I read a really good book. I got lucky. My sixth year in pharmacy — actually, fifth year in pharmacy school, I had a professor, Dr. Kenneth Shafenmeier (?), and he was kind of our business professor. And he really kind of took me under the wing and really explained things because he knew I kind of had a passion for the business side of things, he knew I wanted to be in an independent pharmacy or possibly even own one. So he had kind of always led me money-wise to the right things and the right books and everything else like that. So like the first book I read was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert — and I’ll probably butcher his name — but like Kowaski (Kiyosaki), is how I think you pronounce it. And you know, people have their opinions on that book. Some people say it’s awful, and the investment advice in there is horrible, outdated, etc. And that may very well be. I’m not here to argue that. But I will think what it did for me — and I think it will do it for a lot of pharmacy students that they need to read — is that it gave me the mindset of what do I spend my money on? Am I buying assets, which I had no idea what they really were at the time in pharmacy school. I was just trying to get by organic chemistry and that kind of stuff. Or am I buying these expenses? You know, am I buying a new car? So for me, I always kept my expenses to a minimum. At that point in time, when I was working for Walgreens and making $125,000 a year, and I’m still living with my parents, and I’m still driving the same car that I had in pharmacy school. So I never had these extravagant expenses like when you first get out of pharmacy school, I mean, you go from making $10,000 a year to $125,000 a year. Of course, the first thing you want to go buy is a brand new car. And it’s usually $50,000-60,000. I mean, you’re going probably for a BMW or a Mercedes, something like that. When you’ve suffered six years of pharmacy school and really worked your tail off, you want to be rewarded. I was never interested in that because I was just always interested in a business. So I looked at every expense I had was, man, what if I put that money in a business? What could it do? I mean, that was kind of my passion, that was always kind of my hobby was these businesses. I was never into cars, houses, that was not my thing. Those just didn’t really ever entice me. So for me, going from $130,000 to $100,000 at the independent pharmacy wasn’t really a big issue because I didn’t have those expenses.
Tim Church: And too, it sounds like you kind of had the vision and where you were going and the opportunities were going to be there by making that transition. So I think that’s pretty cool. I want to take a step back because what you said is pretty interesting because if you would have said what you did in the interview process to even another independent owner or somebody else to say, “Hey, I’m taking this job because I want to have the ability to work on some side hustles and other businesses, and I may even take calls during my shifts and things like that,” I mean, what was that dynamic like? Because I’m just picturing here like that if you were to say that, I have a feeling most employers probably would not like hearing that or probably would sort of turn away at that. Can you talk a little bit about that?
TJ Allan: Yeah, you know, I probably wouldn’t have — I know I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t do my homework prior to. But I had known — like I said, in 2007, pharmacy market was all over. I mean, there was opportunities everywhere. I mean, jobs, they were struggling to fill spots for pharmacists. So I knew I had an advantage with this because I knew what Walgreens and CVS was paying, and I knew what this guy was paying. So I knew he was going to struggle getting someone to come to this small town at that pay rate as a pharmacist, and especially a decent, good pharmacist. So I knew had an advantage there. And I also kind of made it seem like, we had — I left this out. I should have mentioned this earlier. But during the interview process, you know, we had a handshake agreement when I left that I wanted to buy his pharmacy. And that’s kind of how I sold it, you know, I’m going to be doing all this stuff on the side, but I guarantee you I’m going to be giving 100% because I want to own this pharmacy when he retires. At that point in time, he’s about 66 years old. Now, he’s 70-something years old. So I think that’s what kind of sold it to him was he knew I was interested, he knew I was passionate, he knew I was going to give it all my all. But he also knew his pharmacy only did on an average day, 150-160 scripts a day. So there was a lot of time of just standing around. And he knew that. He was smart enough to know that. And he was smart enough to know, hey, I’m not going to be sitting here taking a phone call when I got six people waiting on me. But there was a lot of downtime that I could be working on that stuff. So I think that’s kind of why it worked because like, yeah, you say that at Walgreens, you say that at CVS.
Tim Church: Yeah, hit the road, Jack, right?
TJ Allan: It’s going to be a handshake and, OK, we’ll get back to you. So I mean, those three things right there: knowing there was a huge gap in pharmacists and knowing that I wanted to — knowing that there was a lot of downtime and knowing that I really wanted to buy that pharmacy I think is kind of what sold that.
Tim Church: Wow. That’s a really cool story right there. So at what point in your pharmacy career, you talked about reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and kind of using that as a way to figure out how you’re going to acquire assets, right? And not just liabilities. I mean, at what point did you say, “You know what, I really want to do something beyond pharmacy or something where I have more control and the ability to really dictate kind of that additional income that I could bring in?”
TJ Allan: It was about three months into Walgreens. And I know there’s a lot of people that bash Walgreens, and I honestly can’t say anything bad about my Walgreens experience. I had a lot of good pharmacists, I had a ton of good technicians, really great pharmacy supervisors, I enjoyed the majority of the stores I was at. The problem I had with Walgreens was the problem I think everyone has with their employer. You only get paid if you’re there. So I knew, I was going to be $125,000 and have these 2% raises over the year or whatever the raises are now at Walgreens, and that’s the only way I was going to increase my money unless I want to take extra shifts and of course, it’s tied to me being there. So I knew right away, within three months, you know, if I want to make more money and I want to kind of break those chains from making money and having to be there, it had to be, you know, the entrepreneurial route.
Tim Church: Wow, that is just a cool vision. And I think a lot of people, they get that vision, but not everybody acts on it. I hear a lot of stories of people wanting to make a change, they have ideas for a business, but they never go out and actually do it. But beyond kind of getting additional income and not having to always trade your time for money, did you have any other motivations for wanting to pursue something else and starting a business?
TJ Allan: Yeah, you know, this is going to sound weird. No, I was an athlete in school, and I love sports. But you know, I always had this creative kind of thing. I always wished I could sing or play the piano or I was really good at art. I just had this always — envied these creators. And I think that’s maybe why I went more so with entrepreneur because it’s something I can create, it’s something I have control over, you know? I think entrepreneurs are amazing and probably not given enough credit for the creativity because they take something in their brain that they think could benefit the world, and they put it in action, and then it becomes concrete and tangible. And then people enjoy it. You know, Walt Disney is kind of one of my idols. Walt Disney had this amazing, amazing imagination. And then he turned that imagination into concrete, tangible things that people just love. You know, I’m a Disney fanatic, my family’s a Disney fanatic, we go three or four times a year. But it’s —
Tim Church: DisneyWorld or DisneyLand?
TJ Allan: Both. We go — usually, two or three times a year, we go to DisneyWorld. My wife does the marathons. And then we, in fact, just got back from DisneyLand three weeks ago. And then we’re going to DisneyWorld here in another month.
Tim Church: Oh, that’s awesome. I was just at the food and wine festival, and it was amazing. Great experience.
TJ Allan: And honestly, I go there for a lot of inspiration. Disney is one of those companies — Disney’s like Nike. You watch those companies, you can learn so much, even if you’re in this small mom-and-pop shop in rural Illinois with 3,200 people, there’s so much I can learn every time I go to Disney about how they interact, how they create this experience. So yeah, for me, it’s more about creating an experience and creativity. The money’s nice, and you know, you always have to chase the money because if you don’t make money, you don’t have a business. But really, creating some and creating that experience and creating those bonding experiences with your customers, I think that’s kind of what I’m always after.
Tim Church: So talk about what you’re doing right now. You know, I’ve kind of laid some seeds earlier that you’re owning multiple gyms. So how did that come into play? How did you start that?
TJ Allan: So you know, I kind of got lucky. You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs don’t put enough emphasis on luck, the role of luck in their success. So I have had luck. And so the first gym I opened up was in my hometown there. The gym had just closed, it was a Curves, it was a women’s only. And kind of me and some friends got together and we were like, man, we wish we would have a gym in town. I was like, you know, Dr. Schafenmeier was in my ear, he always was trying to tell me, start a business. Even when it’s a hobby, start a business because you learn so much when you start a business, and so much of starting a business will help you in pharmacy and will help you in your personal life too. So I told them, I said, “I’ll open a gym. If it fails or if it doesn’t do well, it’s a tax write-off for me. I don’t care. But you know, I’ll open a gym.” So I got lucky, found a business that was — or a building, I should say — the owner really wanted to get rid of, bought the building, bought some equipment, opened up. And honestly, it was a success from Day 1. We broke even by the end of the first month. I was really, by the end of within two weeks, and we really have not had a unprofitable month since we opened almost 10 years ago.
Tim Church: Wow. That is awesome. What’s the name of that gym?
TJ Allan: That’s Ageless. So that’s the one that’s in Gillespie. So yeah.
Tim Church: Is that a trademark name? I love the name.
TJ Allan: People always ask me, where did I get this name? And it’s funny, at the time, my fifth year in pharmacy school, we had this elective. It an osteoarthritis elective, and the teacher, one of our assignments was, you know, create some kind of business or entrepreneurial thing that could help patients. And mine was a gym, of course. And at the time, I really had no interest in opening a gym or even thinking about that. But I named it in my paper Ageless. I put how osteoarthritis, getting people stronger, these lifestyle modifications can really help people, even with osteoarthritis. And so we kind of just used that and yeah. I haven’t trademarked it yet, you know, my lawyer’s on me about doing it. I honestly just haven’t just because I’ve been involved in so many other things. It just always kind of slipped my mind every time I try doing it.
Tim Church: Well, I love it. I think it’s a cool name. So how much capital did you have to throw in to get this thing started?
TJ Allan: So that’s the tricky thing. When most people think gyms, I think that people think I’m a lot more successful than I am. Because when most people think of gyms, they think of these big, huge, golden gyms, Planet Fitness, these ones that cost multi — $2 or $3 million just to start. My building cost $65,000 at the time. I put 20% down. The gym equipment to put inside the building was right around about $50,000-60,000, so I only had to put up about $75,000-80,000 to begin with. And really, cash-wise, I only had to put about $25,000-30,000. Everything else was on loans. So I really didn’t have to put up that much. Tim Robbins talks a lot about asymmetrical risk, reading his books or any of the investing stuff he talks about with these asymmetrical risks, and that’s kind of how I always looked at, you know, how much cash do I have to put up? What does this mean to me? And I always kind of — this is a weird thing to say — but you say, “I’ll put up enough cash for a car. Would I rather have a car or would I rather just invest this in a business?” And that’s kind of how I look at it. So about $50,000, $60,000 is the most cash I’ll ever put in a business initially just because of the risk.
Tim Church: Was that tough? I mean, because I think a lot of people listening are probably like, wow, I don’t know that No. 1, I could come up with that amount. But even if I could, throwing that all into a gym, you know, from somebody else’s perspective, you could say, wow, that seems pretty risky. What were your thoughts behind that? Like did you have any anxiety about putting that much in?
TJ Allan: I honestly didn’t. And I think it’s 1, I’m an extremely optimistic person. I live in a world of abundance that I think I’ve always thought that, that anyone — and that’s kind of what with my clients at the gym, I believe in everything. Anyone can have success. So failing never really went through to me. For me, losing that money never kind of crossed my mind. But I mean, I had the cash, like I said, my expenses were minimal. I was living with my parents, I was still driving the car that I had in college. So I accrued no new expenses once I graduated pharmacy school. So I go from making about $10,000 a year in a part-time job as a pharmacy tech sixth year to $125,000 a year at Walgreens. And I mean, I worked every shift I could at Walgreens because I knew I needed to have a nest egg if I wanted to do some kind of business. The second thing you look at — and this is what people often forget — is even with that, my building, I could have resold and got my $65,000 back guaranteed. I mean, I got a steal on that building. And even with my equipment, I wouldn’t have been able to sell my gym equipment back for a thing, but I would have got 50 cents, 70 cents on the dollar. So all in all, if it would have failed, worst case scenario, I would have only lost maybe $10,000 max? You know, that’s — to me, that was worth the risk.
Tim Church: Got you. So I think that’s awesome because it sounds like you decided, hey, I’m going all-in. And basically, your perception was that I’m OK with that risk. I’m OK with going in head first because, you know, I believe that I’m going to make this work. And if it doesn’t, you know, I’ve got somewhat of a contingency plan. But it sounds like you were never planning for that. It sounds like you were planning to be successful, and you were going to make it work.
TJ Allan: Yeah, I was. And I guess I shouldn’t have said I didn’t have a contingency plan, because I did. Because I knew that I could always sell the building, I could always sell the equipment back, and at max, I would lose $10,000. But I always go back to a thing, you know, if I wasn’t opening these businesses, I would have probably wasted that money. I probably would have went out and bought a BMW or I probably would have went out and started building a house or something like that that I would have sunk that money over there instead of in the business. So I think that kind of helped me a little bit too.
Tim Church: So you mentioned that essentially, even from month 1, that you’ve either broke even or the business has been profitable. We’re talking still about your gym, Ageless.
TJ Allan: Yes.
Tim Church: I mean, obviously, there are gyms all around the country that are not successful. And I’ve seen many that close just after a few months. So what would you say — what is the secret sauce that you’re injecting into the business to, you know, make it successful, make people to come and to use the facility and getting more customers and retaining customers?
TJ Allan: Yeah, that’s a good question. And if it was one thing, it would be real easy. That’s a good question. It’s a really hard question because if I could narrow it down to one thing — but I don’t think I can. I found a location, an environment, where this gym thrives. You know, most people overlook small towns. Most people have never been in a town of 3,200 people. So most people, this has never been even on their, you know, plan. So I found this small town that most people assume wouldn’t even be able to sustain a gym, and I’ve made it work. And I’ve made it work because I’ve built this efficient model of a gym, and that’s kind of what’s made it succeed underneath the engine. But really, what’s kept it profitable has been the community we’ve created. You know, we’re all about community. When you’re only 3,200 people, it’s a small town, it’s people who take pride in their community, they all live there because they love the people that live there because there’s not a lot of opportunities in small towns. There’s not a lot of job opportunities in small towns. There’s not a lot of businesses in small towns where you can go and enjoy a lot of things to do. I mean, people stay in small towns usually because of the people. But that’s kind of always been our focus. We realize people live in small towns because people enjoy the people in small towns. So our focus has always been on the people. And if you can make the people happy, you can create that community kind of feel, you’ll do well and you shouldn’t have to ever close your doors.
Tim Church: So did you ever have anybody recommend against you doing this or say, “TJ, you’re crazy for going all in on this?” Did you ever have anybody?
TJ Allan: Absolutely. The few biggest business guys in Gillespie that I’m actually friends with, one builds new homes and has been very successful, and he’s about 55. And then there was another one, I went to both of them, kind of gave them my idea, both told me I’m crazy. They said, “You’re in pharmacy. Open a pharmacy. Why would you not open something in the pharmacy? These pharmacies are making bank and everything else.” So they’re going on, they said, “Don’t do this. You can’t sustain it.” So the first bank I go to to talk about the loan, talk about my idea and everything else, they tell me the exact same thing. “You know, you’re in a town of only 3,200, you’re just not going to succeed, TJ. It’s a nice idea, and it would be a great thing for the community, but it’s not going to be making money.” And even then when I went to City Council when we were going to expand, I remember the first thing they told me when I told them we were expanding — my first building was about 2,500 square feet, and then we were going to build this building that was about 8,000 square feet — and one of the first aldermen told me, “What are we going to do in two years when you have to close your doors, and we have this 8,000-square foot that we can’t get rid of?” You know, that was kind of the negativity that’s surrounding the gym.
Tim Church: And so talk about — obviously, Ageless has been very successful, that’s your first one that you opened. And how did you decide, OK, it’s time to expand, it’s time to get some other gyms up and running?
TJ Allan: Well, Ageless’ expansion was always based on our members. You know, listening to their feedback, hearing what they have to say, and then looking at our numbers and putting the math. Math, putting a pen to paper and kind of figuring it out. So we’ve always expanded the Ageless, so we went from about 2,500 square foot to where we’re at now, about 8,000-9,000 square feet. And we’ll probably stick to 8,000 or 9,000 square feet. I don’t see an expansion in our future, but who knows? So then it came down to, you know what, I’m still working as a pharmacist, still — everything that Ageless made, it was nice, and this is why I always recommend that people opening a business but keeping their day job because what that has allowed me to do is use my pharmacist salary for my personal expenses, but then any profit that I’ve ever made from Ageless has always went into either opening new businesses or just investing. So I’ve never had to touch any of that or reinvesting in Ageless, which has made it nice. So I’ve always looked at, you know, at the end of the year, here’s the profit from Ageless, what do I want to do with it? And then that’s allowed me to invest in other businesses, it’s allowed me to open other businesses, and it’s allowed me to open some businesses that have failed, unfortunately. But you have to take that risk.
Tim Church: So talk about those other businesses that are up and running currently.
TJ Allan: OK. So you know, in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” he has this good cashflow quadrant. And he talk about the first cashflow quadrant that most people are in are employed. They work for somebody, they’re tied to their job. They don’t make any other money if they’re not actually at their job. Then the second quadrant is self-employment. So that’s a little bit better employment but still, at the same point in time, you may be self-employed, but still, your business isn’t making money unless you’re there. And then it comes down to an actual business owner. And a business owner is one who doesn’t necessarily have to be there to make money. His employees actually run the business, and he works there, but he doesn’t have to work there if he doesn’t want to. And the fourth one is kind of where you eventually want to be as an investor, where you don’t have to do anything except give money and get a return on it. So I’ve kind of followed that, tried to follow that. But unfortunately, you just can’t start as an investor. You kind of have to work your way up. So that’s kind of what Ageless has allowed me, as an employee of Walgreens and Sullivan’s, which has given me money. And then I started to open a business, which I would never say I was self-employed because I always worked for the pharmacy, and I never had to actually work at a gym. And then I became business owner. And now, I’m almost to the point where I’m just an investor in things. So what I’ve always just taken this Ageless money, and I’ve partnered with two other co-owners in a town about 60 minutes from us, and we’ve opened a studio gym. Then a year and a half later, that was doing well enough that we decided we were going to open a pay-per-class, like a spin gym only. And then I’ve tried some other things that haven’t done well. But those have been my two other successes have been those other two gyms there.
Tim Church: And have those been profitable most months, just like Ageless has been?
TJ Allan: They have. Now, they took a little bit longer to get to a break-even point. It’s primarily because of the models I use. The studio gyms, of course there’s a longer sales cycle. It’s easy for someone to walk in Ageless and buy a $29 a month membership. I mean, that’s not a hard decision for most. But with these studio gyms, it’s a different model. And when you’re charging $99, $139 as your smallest packages, that’s a bigger decision for people. So it’s a longer sales cycle, so it takes a little bit longer to get to that break-even point. So by about Month — I think three and a half months in, we hit our break-even point for that to where we weren’t having to invest any more money of ours into it to keep it afloat. Now, the spin gym, which is a pay-per-class thing, that was almost profitable from Month 1. In fact, I think it was profitable Month 1. If not, it was for sure profitable Month 2 because again, that was a low-cost, low-barrier offer. It was $15 for a class, so that wasn’t a hard decision for most. So you know, those two have been successful pretty much from the get-go, I would say, and still are successful to this day.
Tim Church: Wow, that’s incredible that you basically had to inject capital in the beginning, but they have been so successful that you haven’t had to put any more in since then because you’ve been able to make it work with the personnel and the way it’s been managed, so I think that is really cool. And obviously, that’s not the case for a lot of other businesses, you need to inject capital periodically in order to keep it afloat, even, but also to expand and to get to the point where you need to be. So I think that’s a cool feature of what you’re doing right now.
TJ Allan: Most definitely. And that’s kind of always been the business opportunities that I’ve looked at has kind of always been, you know, how long does it take to get to break-even point? How much capital — you know, people forget. People want to start a business, and what happens is they want to — especially a lot of gym owners, they come to me, and they want to start a gym. And what they always forget to factor in in their startup costs is those 3-6 months of operating expenses because they assume they’re going to hit the break-even point on Day 1. They’re going to open their door, and they’re going to get all this money coming in, and they’re going to be able to pay their monthly bills Month 1. Month 1, Day 1. And what happens is, usually, that’s not the case. Usually, you don’t hit that break-even point for 3-6 — and I shouldn’t even say usually because it depends on the industry — but man, it could take 6 months to hit the break-even point. And they always forget to factor that in, and that’s why they struggle. And that’s why a lot of gyms go out of business in a year because these owners use all their startup expenses initially buying equipment and just getting the building ready. And they start with their bank account at 0 on Month 1. And then, of course, they have to inject their business with their own cash, that runs low, and it just spirals out of control.
Tim Church: So is that something that you got information from other gym owners or your own research that you said, hey, if I’m going to do this, I really need to prepare and make sure that even if they don’t make money or are profitable in the beginning that I’m going to be OK and I’m not going to have to pull out?
TJ Allan: Exactly. And that’s what it was. And it really came down to research. It’s really doing as much research as possible prior to getting involved in these kind of things because these are big decisions. And a lot of people take, you know, opening a business kind of lightly, like, ‘Oh, I’ll get into it. It sounds fun.’ And it is fun. But there’s a lot of research, and it could get extremely stressful, and it could get extremely bad if you don’t do your research. Luckily, I did my research, and I knew the risks because there were still risks. And it still could have went south real easily. But I understood those, and I accepted those. And I kind of did as much as I can to minimize them.
Tim Church: Got you. So I think one of the big questions is now is you’ve got these gyms up and running, they’re profitable, they’re making money, but depending on the type of gym and what services and products are offered, there’s different ways in terms of ways people can make money from those services. So can you talk a little bit about how you’re actually making money? And also maybe a little bit of an insight as to how much you’re actually bringing in from these?
TJ Allan: Yeah. OK. So I’ll go with Ageless first. Like I said, the gyms I had are all different business models, so they make money a little bit differently and the amount of money they make is a little bit different too. With Ageless, we’re a traditional, 24-hour gym. If you know Snap Fitness, we’re basically like Snap Fitness, but we include classes. We have a little bit more all-inclusive than Snap Fitness. So Ageless is nice. And Ageless is a nice model, especially for someone that still wants to keep their existing job because it only requires about 40 hours of staffing a week, even though it’s open 24 hours. So it allows me — I mean, I spend I think about three hours a week working on stuff with Ageless, and a lot of the stuff, I really don’t need to work on. It’s just that I still enjoy it and working on the things. So in a small town, expenses are minimal. And that’s why I also like investing in small towns because there’s less risk. So people are kind of shocked, I just an interview with a business coach who does fitness. And he was kind of shocked — he’s from these big communities out in Connecticut, and he’s used to these monthly leases of $8,000-10,000 a month minimum, if not higher for these gyms. And when I told him, “You know what, we pay $2,000 a month, and we’re 8,000 square feet,” you know, he’s kind of shocked with that. But the model that we use, we’ve kind of built it to where we have this net profit percentage, right about 40% is kind of our goal we hit. So on average, if you look at our sales, it’s not impressive. But I tell people, you know, we do about $125,000 in revenue a year, nobody really blinks an eye. And they kind of just laugh and like, OK, whatever, you’re probably making $5,000 off of that. But we’re not. We’re actually making right about 40%, sometimes 45% if we can really get the efficiency built up a little bit. So anyway, so I make about $3,000-4,000 of passive income from Ageless alone a month.
Tim Church: And that’s what you’re actually bringing home? You’re actually bringing home?
TJ Allan: Yeah, so that’s what I’m actually profiting, yes. We do about $125,000, on a good year, we’ll do about $140,000-150,000 in revenue. On a down year, we’ll do $120,000-125,000. This upcoming year, in 2018, we’re probably going to hit about $120,000. We took some services off that we thought were taking up too much time and making it a little bit more inefficient, so our revenue’s going to be down. But our net profit percentage is going to be up because those things were more labor-intensive. So yeah, so what I would bring home, I bring home — and I shouldn’t say I bring home because I keep everything in the business — but if I needed it, I could bring home about $3,000-4,000 a month.
Tim Church: And then what about from the other gyms?
TJ Allan: The one gym is just over a year old, and the other gym is 2 years old, going to be 3 years old here, so it’s about 2.5 years old. So right now, I take nothing from there. I do have two co-owners, so right now, we’re on pace — between the two gyms combined — we’re on pace for about $300,000 in sales this year, $325,000 in sales this year. Of that, the profit would be, is going to be probably about $90,000. But we’re not going to touch any of that right now. So it’s hard for me to even say what I would bring home for that because that’s all being invested because we kind of have bigger plans for that gym. It’s in a larger community, it’s kind of a suburb of St. Louis that’s extremely wealthy, and we have some other ideas going along with that. So that I can’t say much. I know that to do this, we’ve been talking with a bank to put in a $1 million gym. We won’t have to put a penny down. So I’ll say that, so to get this loan and to put this $1 million gym, if we do decide to go that route, we won’t have to put a penny of our own money down. It will all be funded by those two gyms.
Tim Church: And I’m assuming that the income that you’re pulling in from Ageless, is that 100% just from new members and the retention of existing members and the fees that they pay?
TJ Allan: You’re exactly right. So what it is — how I talked about we removed some of those services, like we don’t offer personal training, per say. Everything that our revenue is built on is basically built on memberships. 95% of our revenue is from memberships, 5% is from waters, key tags, miscellaneous little classes we have or camps we have I guess is what you should call them. The 95% of it is just on memberships: new memberships, existing memberships. I can say that the model’s nice because it’s a subscription-based model, which right now is hot, and everybody’s trying to get this subscription-based model. That’s why you see basically a subscription-based service for everything under the sun, from razors to dog toys to everything because those are nice models to have because the cash flow is so nice. So that makes it nice. But more importantly from my perspective, is I own the building that Ageless is in. So it’s paying for itself. So I’m going to have this asset here in the next 10 years that last year, was appraised for about $550,000 that I really didn’t pay more than the $12,000 or $15,000 I initially put down on the first building for. So that’s why when you have this, because Ageless has just been paying this off for me the whole entire time.
Tim Church: And is that how you’re directing a lot of that cash that you’re getting every month? Like how are you breaking that additional income from Ageless, aside from what you’re making as a pharmacist?
TJ Allan: So Ageless is on its own separate bank account, so I keep everything in Ageless. So what I do, you know, I know some people would probably recommend starting making double mortgage payments, stuff like that, just because of course you’re paying interest on those payments and everything else like that. I’m not that way because I want to start new businesses. So I put — basically, what I do is I have these budgets for Ageless, whether it’s new equipment, there’s a budget for just monthly gym expenses, the new equipment purchases every year. And then I put everything else aside and put the profit at the end that we use for new businesses, whether it’s an expansion on Ageless or whether it’s some kind of new business to get into. So that’s kind of how I put Ageless. My whole goal with Ageless is never having to rely on that and allow that to build this nest egg for me.
Tim Church: Got you. So you’re not using any of that in terms for personal use, for debt paydown, student loans, or IRA contributions, anything like that.
TJ Allan: No. And I know you guys are probably going to call me an idiot for not doing that, but honestly, I haven’t. And it’s just because cash is king when it comes to business, and I like having a nest egg because if there’s an opportunity arise, I want to jump on it. For instance, I just — the other night, I was just watching TV, and I got a text message about a gym going up for sale in Litchfield, and the guy wanted to know if I was interested. You know, if you don’t have cash, it’s hard to play, and I’d miss out on that opportunity. And luckily, we have that cash set aside that hopefully we can take advantage if everything works out in these negotiations and be able to jump on the opportunity. So at times, I question myself whether I’m not making a smart decision by not either contributing to IRAs or paying this or that, whether it’s student loans or whether it’s the mortgage. But it’s just — I’m a business — I like business.
Tim Church: Well, I mean, obviously, you’re successful. So it’s not like you’re throwing that money away. You’re doing it with the anticipation that you’re going to continue to grow and expand. But I think a lot of people would look at that and say, ‘Well, what about other retirement accounts?’ Are you doing other things in addition, with your pharmacist salary so you’re kind of diversified in addition to what you’re doing with the businesses?
TJ Allan: Yeah, so what I do — so now, initially, my employer didn’t offer, Sullivan’s didn’t offer any kind of retirement package. Now, he does where he matches up to 4%, so of course I match him to 4%. And that’s just in a basic IRA. And then otherwise, by myself, I do index funds. That’s about it. I don’t make it real complicated. I kind of follow BogleHeads. It’s index funds, and that’s the extent.
Tim Church: That’s the KISS method, right? Keep It Simple, Stupid?
TJ Allan: Yes. Exactly.
Tim Church: Wow. So I mean, I just think that is so cool not only to hear that journey but the risks that you were willing to take, the ability to take a lot of heat from other people saying that it wasn’t going to be a good decision and just kind of persevere anyway. But you know, I think a lot of people may be listening and thinking, like obviously all entrepreneurial ventures are not successful. And it’s not the way that it happens. And I think John Maxwell said it best that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. And I think that’s so true with entrepreneurship and I’ve certainly experienced this myself. But have you had any failures that you would say, TJ, prior to what you’ve done that’s been successful? Or even along the way as you’re doing some of these things that have been successful.
TJ Allan: Oh, most definitely. In fact, I probably have had more failures than I’ve had successes. You know, John Maxwell is of course correct. I started out, I think I always had that optimistic mindset because I always played baseball. In the game of baseball, you could be a really good hitter and you could only get a hit three out of 10 times. So seven out of those 10 times, you’re going to be a failure. But you’re still considered a really good hitter, even if you fail seven times. So that was always in the back of my mind when I started these entrepreneurial journeys. And again, it was Dr. Schafenmeier (?) who was always in my ear, who would always say, “You know what, you’re paying for experience is what you are.” You can’t look at a failure as you’re dumb or you can’t do this or you’re not made out for this. You need to learn from it. These are expensive teachings, but you need to. It’s the only way to really learn is to get your hands dirty and fail. So my first one I failed, I was actually still working for Walgreens. And this was kind of a weird business to start. But at the time, I’m 26-27, couples our age, my wife was fiancee at the time, we’re starting to have babies and everything else like that. And of course, we were always looking at what to give them, what to give them, and a lot of them would always joke, why don’t you bring us some over-the-counter pharmacy stuff that we should use for our kids. We don’t know what to get and everything else like that. So we actually created this Mommy Indeed baby basket. And it would have the Tylenol in there, the Desitin cream, all that stuff that a newborn would need eventually. And it would have little notes from the pharmacist saying, use this when this happens and stuff like that. So that was kind of our first business venture. And of course, it was a failure. But it was a good learning experience because it taught me a lot about marketing. And you know, you could have a really good product, but if you can’t market it, it’s useless. And then my second business venture, I actually partnered with a pharmacy student that I graduated with, and we created this dietary supplement. It was more of an energy-type supplement that we called — I think it was All Night IQ is what we called it at the time. It was really to help students kind of stay up and binge study for the night is what the goal of it was. And again, we each invested about $10,000 into it, and we lost everything. We could never — we thought just because our product was superior to any other product on the market, that we were going to be a success. And we virtually had zero marketing budget for it, and it was a failure. So from then on, I realized how marketing is extremely important. And if I don’t factor in a marketing budget initially or in my cost to acquire a customer, then I’m never going to have a success. So that’s how — then my next one was Ageless, and we did really well. And then right after Ageless, you know, we were doing really well, and Ageless was always built for the community. You know, I really enjoyed the community, I was born and raised in it, and I wanted to give back. So what we did is I had built — hired some programmers, and we had built this website that allowed small town businesses, small mom-and-pop shops on Main Street to basically put up an e-commerce store within minutes, and all the e-commerce stores would be on the website. So it was almost like a virtual mall. So what we wanted to do is basically give an advantage to these small mom-and-pop-type stores and give them this online presence that we thought they needed if they were going to survive the Walmarts and the Internet if they didn’t have it. And that was an expensive venture. That one, over the course — and I used all Ageless money, I didn’t have to use any of my own money on this, all the profit from Ageless went into this — and it ended up costing me about $20,000 or $25,000. And that taught me something really well is you — a really important lesson, and I wish I would have read the book “The Lean Startup” prior to that — is that you better go to your customers prior to and make sure this is something they want. You may think they need it, but they may not think they need it. And even though you think they need it, and you think it would definitely help them, if they don’t think they need it, I don’t care how great it is, they’re not going to jump on board. And we just couldn’t get anybody to jump on board. These small mom-and-pop shops, I finally realized, they don’t have an online presence because they don’t want one. And they don’t want to learn about one. So that was another failed one.
Tim Church: And would you say that those have been key for helping you to drive your success forward?
TJ Allan: Oh, most definitely because the lessons I learned about marketing — I mean, I have a voracious appetite for reading. I read business books, marketing books, behavior psychology books, I mean, I’m constantly reading books. So usually, I’ll read about 40-50 books a year. And I love being — and even all the marketing books and everything that I read prior to it and all the business books I read too that always talked about cost to acquire a customer, don’t forget about that, and how important marketing is and having a marketing budget and all these marketing methods — even knowing that, it’s still a difference between knowing and doing. And it wasn’t until I did it and then failed that it really hit home that hey, marketing has to be a key, you have to build it around marketing. And then the second thing was the lean startup method.
Tim Church: That’s so good, TJ. And thanks for sharing that. Because I think a lot of times, people will look to others who are successful and it kind of looks like they’re an overnight sensation. But you don’t see the back end, what’s behind the curtain, what’s been going on and what hasn’t worked. And a lot of times, even the most successful people out there, they’ve failed hundreds of times before they’ve become who they are. So I think it’s just cool to highlight that. I appreciate you sharing that. So you talked a little bit earlier about the time that you were spending each week because I think a lot of times, people before they start a business or maybe they have an idea to pursue a side hustle, is they say, “You know, I’m working full-time as a pharmacist. I’m a mother, I’m a father, you know, I have a family. How am I supposed to manage that?” So can you talk a little bit about how do you practically manage all of these businesses and work as a pharmacist and be a husband and a father?
TJ Allan: You know, I’m kind of an organizational freak. I live on checklists. And another book that I was lucky to read very, very early was called “The E Myth.” The E Myth, Michael Gerber talks about systems and processes. So from Day 1, I always put in systems and processes in my life, in my businesses, everything like that, so everything kind of runs smoothly. So everything is kind of — there’s a system for everything. There’s a checklist for everything I do. On Mondays, I work on the Ageless stuff. On Tuesdays, we have this new venture going on, we’re going to coach other people on building new gyms, I work on that. On Wednesdays, I go back to work on Ageless stuff. On Thursdays, I look over the paperwork and the flow of our other two gyms’ stuff. And then on Fridays, I have this other other new venture that I partnered with somebody and we’re going to work on about marketing, marketing the Facebook ads. And I work on that. But everything’s kind of blocked off in blocks. And just everything is organized, and I think that’s the biggest thing. And people say they’re organized, but to me, if you don’t have it in a spreadsheet, you’re not organized. It’s one thing to say you’re organized, but it’s got to be in a spreadsheet. So everything I do is in a spreadsheet, everything I do has a checklist on it. And that’s what’s helped me to be able to do all this kind of stuff because I am a father. I have a little girl who’s 5 years old who I adore. And we play all the time. And that’s my purpose for living right now is to be able to play with her and have that time, and that’s why I kind of do a lot of this stuff so that it gives me time, that I’m not tied to pharmacy for the rest of my life. And I have a wife, and we travel, and you know, I like to workout on my own. And I have a lot of other hobbies and a lot of other things that require my attention. But I’m extremely organized, and that’s why I’m able to get it in.
Tim Church: Yeah, and it sounds like you’re just very intentional about it. So besides having a system in place, you know, you’re proactively saying, these are the days and these are the times, this is what’s going to happen, and this is how it’s going down, even before it actually happens. So I mean, I think that’s great. And a lot of people, like you talk about, they think they’re organized, but you know, I think the book that I read before called “The One Thing,” by Gary Keller, and he was talking about time blocking and how important it is that you need to put these things down as they take priority over everything. And unless there is an emergency, this is what’s going to happen.
TJ Allan: Yes. And that’s a great point because I love that book. And that’s probably even more important is being able to prioritize. If you cannot do that, I mean, a lot of people say they’re organized, they have 20 things listed down. But honestly, 18 of those things probably aren’t going to make that big of a difference. There was that 80-20 principle, and that’s kind of what I’ve always done is the 80-20 principle. What’s the highest priority? What’s going to give me the biggest bang for the buck and provide the biggest return? And so I think that’s even more critical than having your spreadsheet out.
Tim Church: TJ, you have shared just some amazing wisdom on this episode, and I’m so excited that we got to talk and you got to share your story. But as we kind of close out, what advice would you give to other pharmacists or even pharmacy students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur? What would you say to them?
TJ Allan: You know, I have pharmacy students, and we talk a lot about this with pharmacy students. You know, when I graduated in 2007, there was about 80 pharmacy schools. Today, I think there’s closer to about 140. We’re graduating about 15,000 new pharmacists a year. And the opportunities just are not there as much. And a lot of it has to do with acquisition, I mean, Walgreens, CVS, buying everybody out. We’ve had 1,100 independent pharmacies close their doors since 2011. We have all this automation going on now with these mail-order companies, telepharmacy, Amazon’s getting involved. So automation’s going to improve immensely over the next five years. And so and unfortunately, we’re still getting paid per pill we do. So I think it’s important that they look at these entrepreneurial ventures. I don’t want to say the outlook for our industry is bleak, but it’s not as great as it once was. So it’s important to expand your skill set. And that can be anything. A lot of people think, oh, you need all this money to start these businesses, you know, you don’t. With the internet and everything else like that, a blog, selling on Amazon — I talked to one pharmacist the other day, and he sells on Amazon. And he started selling on Amazon about a year, year and a half, and it’s taken him about 12 months, 13 months, to really start making kind of a profit on Amazon. But it was a learning experience for him, and he said the same thing as me. He saw kind of the outlook, and he didn’t think it was that great for him continuing to make $100,000-125,000 a year from pharmacy. He thought that there was really going to be a shrink. So he was looking for a different skill set, this was being able to sell on Amazon. So I think that’s really important to find these different skill sets in addition to pharmacy because there’s a lot out there that you can learn now on the internet and start these businesses for very minimal.
Tim Church: Right. And I think you highlighted such a great point that even though a couple of your businesses, you actually did put some capital, you injected what some people may consider quite a bit of money, but there are a lot of other businesses out there where what you’re investing is really sweat equity. It’s really your time, your energy, your focus. And maybe in the beginning, you’re not going to be able to bring home a revenue, and it may take time. But I think there are so many different opportunities out there, we don’t necessarily have to have a whole lot of cash to get started.
TJ Allan: Exactly. And that’s kind of my thing — and I was trying to use myself as a case study with this last year and a half. I dived deep into Facebook ads, and I have taken almost every course and paid for every little membership thing, really dove deep because I wanted to prove to people that you could start a business for very minimal. So in July, we started a business. And it’s basically we’re helping pharmacies build these Facebook ads for their pharmacies to get new patients, to deepen their relationship with current patients. But my goal behind this entire time was never to spend more than $150 a month on this business. And that’s kind of been my goal since Day 1. And so far, we’re growing. We haven’t had any paid customers yet, I wasn’t expecting a paid customer, this is a long-term process. I expect one here in the next two or three months. I have a few that are really interested and that we’re still talking to. But I mean, that was my whole thing was, you know, this can be done. And it can be done where you don’t have to spend even $2,000-3,000. It could be done for $100 or $150 for now.
Tim Church: Definitely. I totally agree. So TJ, if somebody wants to reach out to you to learn more about opening up a gym or more about your entrepreneurial journey, how can they get in touch with you?
TJ Allan: The easiest way, I’m connected to my email all the time. I can tell you to go to these websites that I have for each little business, but they all feed back into my email anyway. So if anyone ever has a question, I’m an open book. I’ll send you my P&L’s, I’ll answer any questions you have, I’ll help you in any way that I can. I love business, I love helping people start businesses, that’s kind of — I enjoy that kind of thing, so if somebody’s got that itch and somebody’s really got that drive, I’ll help you in any way that I can. So all you have to do is email me, it’s [email protected]. And like I said, I usually respond within a few hours at most.
Tim Church: Thank you, TJ. And we just really appreciate you coming on the show, telling your story, and I know that this is going to inspire. This is going to light the fire for some people to get going, to really start to act or think more about their entrepreneurship and their ideas that they want to bring to reality. So thank you, TJ.
TJ Allan: No problem. Thanks for having me.
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