Today we’d like to introduce you to Danny Trejo.
Danny, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
At the age of 27, I had spent several years working through sales into a marketing position and even though I loved my career, I hated who I had become in terms of physical and mental health.
Impulsively, I quit my job and lived off of my savings, having no idea of the next steps. After a few months of working on my physical and mental health, which incorporated a lot of gym time and hikes, I found myself feeling like a new man. Still not fully convinced, I decided to work through a personal training certification just as an experiment until my “true” calling presented itself.
Well as luck would have it, I found it very easy to work with clients, thanks to the skillsets developed in the previous career. More importantly, I was allowed to dive into an obsession with everything biological and it could only increase my value unless you were a friend of mine. The first job was short-lived at 24-hour fitness, about nine months because it felt like I had hit my ceiling relatively quickly so I decided to take an offer I had in the Frost Bank Tower, Executive Health Club, back when The Hills of Westlake managed the club.
In a moment of fate, The Hills of Westlake lost the contract as the building was reducing overhead and had asked me If I wanted to stay on independently. Apparently, I had made positive connections with clientele in the building and was in charge of a couple of classes and they thought it best to maintain positive relations as they made these changes.
At the time, I didn’t even know that was an option. Tentatively, I started my own operation. I had learned that finding clientele had been my competitive advantage and after speaking with peers from the previous 16 months, I had learned that was everyone else’s most difficult challenge. This is when I brought in a friend of mine to manage clients and trainers while I spread the word of fitness throughout the downtown area.
During this period, I kept it simple. I knew every building downtown had a gym, these properties (hotels, office buildings, condos) wanted the tenants/guests to be happy so they would not charge my team to work out of the properties as long as the clients lived/worked on the premises. This combined with a specific brand of what we call corrective exercise, with the purpose of increasing people’s quality of life, not necessarily weight loss or muscle gain. The goal was to make working professionals feel amazing. Sure there were health goals, but the focus was quality of life. This made us popular.
After a couple of years and about a team of 7 later, we found ourselves stagnant. This wall we had hit was entirely led by my stubbornness. My goal was to focus all of our attention on the downtown market and I now realize there wasn’t enough business, and too many competing forces, to overcome our churn. This led to a separation between myself and my team manager. This dissolved the company.
Another couple of years go, now I’m 33, by and throughout this period, I started “perfecting” a new system for improving a quality of life through specific training modalities and started relationship with the National Academy of Sports Medicine with the intention of creating an academy to train the next generation of personal trainers. This move was inspired by the pandemic. As with most careers, there was unexpected shifting from our industry. As we can imagine, not a lot of in person training, which led to many trainers quitting the career, unable to make it through the rough patch. Thankfully to a great clientele and some creative marketing efforts, I was able to not only make it through but saw the potential for home training.
This new perspective on two new objectives has led me to today. First, creating the next generation of personal trainers, something I somewhat jokingly refer to as Lifestyle Managers. Secondly, opening up the market area to in-home training across the Austin metropolitan area. This past year has given me a much larger vision on a mission than I could have imagined. The new company, RX Fit, is the quality of life business I always wanted. Through new modalities that lead people through a longer happier life while making them physically, and hopefully emotionally, invulnerable. That’s the client-facing side. And just as importantly on the back end, this will be, as far as I know, the first personal trainer firm. The model is designed to help those who want to be a career personal trainer with the potential for upward growth, benefits, bonuses and most importantly, the feeling of making a difference.
I could not be happier and prouder of my current mission and the team I have surrounding me currently. The future looks bright and healthy.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Misjudging markets, hiring, and then managing for skill instead of culture. These two have to be the biggest issues and mistakes I have made that led to the downfall of the first company.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I believe I put most of this in my original story but to add to it, I would like to say that more than anything, my company isn’t where you go if you just want bigger biceps or a slimmer waist. We are the place that brings you quality of life by reducing emotional stress, increasing energy, reducing physical friction that seems to get worse as you get older losing weight and increasing muscle tone is a temporary fix on the real problem, the real problem of feeling valuable. Let’s address that now and forever.
We aim to be at the same place as a therapist. We, and you, know that maintaining health isn’t something you work on sometimes, it’s forever, it’s unique to you and it’s your life force to have a better relationship with friends, family and peers.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I’ve learned that having a work-life balance isn’t for everyone. I’ve decided to give into my passion instead of tempering it because it’s not what is considered healthy. I love it, I want to think about it, I want to talk about it, I want to read about it, and I don’t understand anymore why I shouldn’t.
Pricing:
- $80/hour come to us, non competitive times
- $90/hour come to us, want competitive time slots
- $100/hour we come to you, non competitive times
- $110/hour we come to you, want competitive time slots
Contact Info:
- Email: danny@rxfitatx.com
- Website: www.rxfit.co
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RXFITco
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA0XOdkw5VFGBkg3zO7Bp_w
