Hello all,

We’ll break this into 3 parts-

1) Rate increase (short – please read)

2) Rules check (medium – please read. and read again.)

3) Long-winded nonsense regarding 1, 2, and more

Effective through June/July, we will be increasing the monthly rate by +$5.00. This is an increase of five dollars per month. Whatever you’re paying now, to Evolve Gym, will increase by $5.00 dollars.

As an example, if you’re paying $50.00 per month currently, your rate will increase to $55.00 per month.

We know that this will not be something that everyone can, or will, accommodate. We understand that and absolutely understand if you need to move on. You may cancel anytime – we do not need an explanation. Only a text or email requesting a cancellation (520-638-6227 or patrick@theevolvegym.com). Your nearest, similar (we use the term loosely!) gyms are as follows:

https://www.tucsonstrength.com/pricing/ (East)

https://www.beaststrongpowerhouse.com/memberships (NW or East)

https://frontline247fitness.com/membership-pricing/ (NW)

Chuze, LA, VASA, and a load of others are available. World Gym is supposedly opening on Campbell …soon?

We’ve put this off as long as possible but there are a multitude of reasons that require a change. Fear not, we are not going anywhere regardless.

We will also add a yearly maintenance fee at some point in the future. We’ve grappled with this for over a year, and were adamantly against it for a long, long time. We will lay out the details in a future email (next month? with a lot of forewarning before implementation. less than $50) but an important absolute to this fee will be: application/transparency. All cash will be directed to equipment or facilities, and that will be “public” information. We are asked frequently about gym ownership and what is involved, and this info will help paint that picture. And keep our space nice.

More on all money stuff later in the email for those interested.

Let’s preface this with an important truth. This is not a Target, Starbuck’s, or Walgreens. There is not staff, overseen by corporate overlords, who are mandated to behave in any certain way. Professionalism is not requisite, nor does it belong here. This is a gym – respect and kindness are paramount but you're entitled to no "yes sir, yes ma'am" treatment if you're being a tool. That said, we’ve been very patient with a lot of things but that patience is wearing thin. We don’t know how else to address these things – emails, signage, in-person chats… We still find ourselves repeating the same garbage constantly. Amidst the garbage:

Scan your key fobs and do not open the door for people.

Use your head. If you ABSOLUTELY know the person is a member and this is an isolated incident, look out for each other and make sure access is granted. ANYTHING short of this? No.

Last week we specifically denied access to someone – then immediately after, a member let this person and their +1 into the gym. Just 2 idiots waiting to sneak in, and they were ushered in by a member. Everyone needs to stop and really consider why we are so picky about this: Safety. Respect. 100s of thousands of dollars in equipment and BS and your personal belongings sitting on benches, shelves, and in gym bags.

And thankfully, this tool gave us some wonderful examples to add; here are some highlights from the interaction:

Set the stage: Patrick is at work, in the yard of some calling party, while his crew is addressing the call. There is a fire truck idling down the driveway. A hypertensive, very unhappy gym owner is attempting to oust trespassers from the gym via telephone while eyeballing the cameras (oooo, intimidating!).

“Im a social media professional; is this the kind of place you can grunt and drop weights and film?”

“Kicking me out without putting a face to the name? look me up on Insta, im not just some skinny fag.”

PLEASE DO THE BARE MINIMUM TO KEEP THESE IDIOTS AWAY AND MY BLOOD PRESSURE DOWN.

General, long-winded stuff.

Rules-

Rules are dumb, and generally a drag. Don’t bring me down, man. BUT they’re often necessary and that is why we have them posted on walls, in emails, and try to revisit things relatively often. Because rules help take the impulses of 400 people and filter them into a sustainable and reasonable set of behaviors that provide freedom and flexibility for the individual while ensuring respect for the whole.

-Put stuff back where you found it

-If it breaks, let us know so we can fix it

-Don’t misuse equipment

-If you’re not sure, ask

-Don’t let people in

-Do pay your bills

-Do not be a jerk

More money crap-

We ran into some former members recently and it really stirred feelings with regards to this pricing stuff. These members cancelled to go somewhere cheaper because they had life-reasons to monitor their finances. Great members. It was actually “difficult” for us to accept the cancel rather than just give some free, or discounted, time. As some of you have experienced, we have given a lot of free time when times get tough for people. “Oh, that sounds nice!” Maybe, but that wasn’t the motivation, and more importantly, it is foolish. This place can survive as it has, and as it is, but that will be with constant support from P and K. And that isn’t a sustainable thing mentally. Also, our accountant pretty much told us we’re idiots on Monday. (If anyone needs an accountant, he is genuinely terrific :) )

The term “passion,” with regards to the gym, seems pretty ridiculous but for lack of a better term, we’ll use it. Mixing a passion with a business/$$ is a dog crap idea. At least in this realm, for us. The gym has been formative for both P and K in many ways, and we were fortunate to be in the presence of some really nice folks as we came up in the gym(s) – and other than our membership fees, none of that good stuff was muddled by cash issues. To be fair, we both carried 2-3 memberships, drove across town daily, and allocated unreasonable resources to the gym stuff…but those were all just things that had to happen. Switching gears to “doing the gym,” offering it to others, and maintaining sustainability is really a load of garbage because it requires “selling” the stuff we love and think everyone should have. Adding members is easy, selling BS training packages is easy, and pretending you’re all just the best, sweetest, and “greatest member of the month” (400 of you, simultaneously) would be easy… And that’s the path a lot of gyms take. But nah. Hate it. Not gonna do it.

It really boils down to riding the line between being the homegrown gym we are at heart, and surviving the larger entity we’ve become. Which brings up an interesting consideration for those of you who are hoping to own a gym someday. Let’s talk about overhead-

NW is a pretty great spot. For what it is, the rent is good. It’s a lot of money but for that we get: safe & ample parking, a good area of town, good maintenance of the external grounds, a great mixture of high-ceiling industrial feel with more polished, clean vibe of a big box store. Compare this to some other offerings in town, who pay far less in overhead but contend with less aesthetic and maintenance, and certainly more transient/homeless problems. Obviously there are many other differences but those are the low-hanging fruit.

East is also pretty good, though the overhead is even more, for a location that produces far less (mostly resultant from our control measures, to be fair). Great interior but the vibe is very different, and we’ve learned an important lesson about the importance of matching lighting to your intended use. So why does all of this nonsense matter to you? Because you’re electing to give your money to some gym, somewhere in town, and the choices of those gym owners are dictating the minimum cost. For all of us at Evolve now, the question is whether our background stuff fits your needs. And if you’re an aspiring gym owner, or any business really, you need to weigh the cost/benefit of various overhead expenses. They’re going to dictate your existence. (And really, we have folks asking about gym ownership 2-4 times per month, or more…If you’ve kept up with these mostly idiotic emails for the last 4.5 years, we’ve tried to slide in a lot of lessons/heads up type info).

We also bothered to type all of this out because we still plan to move when the time is right (to buy and build) but have also considered another move, sooner, if the right opportunity arises. NOTHING happening now but the ol’ brains are steamin’ and some ideas are brewing.

We’re an odd place because Phys Therapy and Gym are two entirely separate businesses. Different tax IDs, etc. Absolutely no relation other than the same parents and the same roof. And as an extension of that, we always try to make one complement the other. Phys Therapy is primarily reimbursed through insurance – and that is an increasingly bad thing. Insurance is as close to criminal as you can get – feel free to ask in person sometime and we’ll gladly rant until you’re ready to ice pick your ears. The salient point is this – PT volume is UP and profits are DOWN. This is because insurance reimbursements are increasingly less, if not outright denied (unless you re-submit 2x, 3x, more?). It is crazy. But it is a reality and is driving us to move toward self-pay as swiftly as possible. This will take years but it is on the radar and will certainly be interconnected with the gym. How? No idea. But if you’re part of our little evolve family/army/mob, then we like you to know what is going on behind the scenes.

Membership update-

We’re holding to roughly the same numbers at each location. The occasional banishment, and cancellations, are relatively in line with new members. We’ve added 3 folks to NW this week but that is after ignoring most of the last…15 inquiries? Sometimes we just don’t want to deal with it, and more importantly, we are at a point that we cannot afford to overpopulate or add any issues.

We are still SO DAMN LUCKY to have the membership we do, as compared to most other gyms, but we are also at a point that requires more diligence. We have more folks leaving messes, leaving equipment out, and being generally clueless than ever before. It isn’t malicious but we’re living in a time that people just care a little less and gym etiquette is really diluted, if not completely lost. So we still want to grow but it is to be done cautiously. If we don’t obsess about this stuff, the gym will be like any other gym. And that sounds absolutely miserable.

Ummmm...

As with all emails, these are drafted on-the-fly without prep notes, and really aren’t proofread because that is nauseatingly boring. Losing steam and forgetting key points, so we’ll park it for the night. Hopefully the message is well-received and as always, just text or email with any questions.

-P and K

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