Ernie and Blake met while Blake was still at one of the “top” marketing agencies for fitness today. After talking to thousands of gym owners and working with over 400, Blake saw something different from Ernie’s approach. Unsure to what exactly why, he consciously dug deeper.

Ernie shared his experience from 10 years in the finance industry, being a franchisee in the fitness industry in 2015, and the purchase of a small CrossFit Gym in February 2016.

Fast forward to 2019 and beyond, CrossFit East Coast had maintained 235-255 members where Ernie worked less than 4 hours per week on (not in) the gym itself. He says the reason his workload was so low steamed from his relentless effort in creating the IronKlad Business System.

The IronKlad Business System didn't happen overnight... Those fist 3 years were spent with trial and error while merging strategies and systems from a fortune 100 financial company into a small CrossFit Gym. In addition to his 10 years of experience in the financial space, Ernie invested over $120,000 in training and coaching, which combined with real world experience is what ultimately lead to the IronKlad Business System being born. This didn't magically happen. Ernie made many mistakes, conducted many marketing tests, over hired, under hired, brought in the wrong clientele, and through blood, sweat, and tears, fine tuned this system to create that time and financial freedom he desired for his business.

Through this, the IronKlad Business System was born:

+ MARKETING & SALES MACHINE for Boutique Fitness Facilities

+ SYSTEMS & PROCESSES for Boutique Fitness Facilities

+ MANAGEMENT TEAMs for Boutique Fitness Facilities

Everything we do is based on shared core values and guiding principles which are rooted in the desire to serve the people in our society who WANT and NEED our help as we battle the epidemic of obesity. By doing this we can help more people in our communities live long, healthy, functional, fulfilled lives.

We're not here to help clients take members from other gyms. We're here to increase the number of people who belong to fitness clubs from 17% of the population to 20% and beyond. We do this by providing exceptional transformation programs to help people come from the couch to discover their inner athlete.

The initial idea to help other gyms do this started in early 2015. But, Ernie was not willing to just start up a marketing company and try to help gym owners without going through the process himself. He saw great value in implementing and testing with his own money rather than with other people's money.

It took 3 full years before Ernie was ready to implement not just a marketing company, but the full IronKlad Business System in other gyms.

He had only helped two other gyms when he met Blake. Since December 2019, Blake has been able to fully systematize the IronKlad Business System so that it is simple and quick to implement into a new gym we work with. This allows IronKlad to help as many gyms as possible without sacrificing results.

In 2021, Ernie realized an important key component that creates longevity of every gym... That's the concept of "passing the torch". In 2021, after seeing CrossFit East Coast thrive through the COVID shut downs, General Manager, Pat Thompson expressed interest in owning a gym. That's when Ernie Realized that it's only a matter of time until a GM is going to want ownership. And there must be a plan in place for that transition to occur.

Buy-Build-Sell then Buy & Hold

Owning a gym is NOT a lifetime business. It should be built to it's sweetspot and then passed on via bank financing of the gym to the GM. The key here is that the business shows strong growth to a sweetspot and then maintaining the sweetspot with realistic growth. These are shown to the bank in the businesses financial documents (P&L and Bal Sheet).

Once the torch is passed, you now have cash on hand.. What next? This is where we coach you on what business to buy and build next while protecting the cash asset you now have.

Recreating what Ernie has done, and compiling it with Blake’s background in marketing for fitness and technology is exactly why they teamed up to create IronKlad to be what it is today. Finally, gym owners have a solution to build their gym to it's sweetspot predictably and at will as well, as gaining financial freedom as well as freedom from the day to day operations of their gyms, giving them the option to only work when they want or even the option to sell for significant value.

Too good to be true?… Our clients can tell you. Is this a fit for you? Are you a fit for IronKlad? Click below to schedule a call and find out for yourself.