The Multi-Revenue Business Model: How We Survived Recessions and a Pandemic

In today's episode, we sit down with Bob Janjigian, managing partner of two thriving fitness facilities in Massachusetts: Kingsbury Club and Kingsbury Club Medfield. After maintaining profitable operations for over 30 years, Bob shares the timeless principles that have fueled his remarkable longevity in an industry known for constant change and challenging economic cycles.

The Kingsbury Clubs represent an impressive business success story. The original Kingston location grew from a distressed property in 1992 to an 85,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility, while the 165,000-square-foot Medfield location launched during the 2008 recession and survived significant obstacles to thrive. These comprehensive fitness destinations offer everything from tennis courts and state-of-the-art fitness facilities to aquatics, pickleball, restaurants, and more.

Join us as Bob shares the secrets behind decades of success—diversifying revenue streams, cultivating remarkable team loyalty, building unshakable partner relationships, and delivering unforgettable member experiences without cutting corners. Discover practical strategies for thriving through economic challenges while creating a lasting business legacy.

In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we cover:

• Ironclad principles for creating long-term business success
• The importance of multiple revenue streams to protect against economic downturns
• Tips for ensuring operational excellence
• Why focusing on quality over cost-cutting builds a sustainable competitive advantage
• And so much more!

Visit www.kingsburyclub.com and www.kingsburyclubmedfield.com to learn more about these impressive fitness destinations that have redefined what a multi-purpose club can offer.

To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!

Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling over $2 billion in revenues? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and set up a free consultation with us today!

Transcript

Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
How do you keep a business not just running, but profitable and growing for over 30 years? That's exactly what today's guest has done. And in this episode he shares the timeless principles that have fueled his long term success. Whether you're just starting out with a brand new business or you've been in the game for a while, these insights are going to be incredibly valuable. Let's dive in and learn exactly what it takes to build a business that lasts.

Announcer [00:01:31]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know. Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest growth podcast, Jon LaClare.

Jon LaClare [00:01:31]:
Welcome back to the show. I'm really excited to be speaking with Bob Janjigian today. He is a managing partner of Kingsberry Club. Actually, actually two fitness clubs in Massachusetts, the Kingsbury Club and then the Kingsbury Club Medfield. You can get them. You can check them out@kingsburyclub.com and kingsbury club medfield.com if you're listening from a remote area that's not near Massachusetts, at least check out the website. These are beautiful clubs. It's really impressive what, what Bob and his team have built over the years and you can see some great imagery if you're local. Check out the gyms for sure, you're going to love them. But we're going to talk about the story behind those club, some interesting business stories as well along the way. Before we dive in further though, I just want to welcome to the show.

Jon LaClare [00:01:31]:
 

Bob Janjigian [00:01:31]:
Bob. Thank you, Jon. Thank you very much.

Jon LaClare [00:01:34]:
I appreciate taking the time managing and running two big clubs like this and owning these two big clubs I know is a very busy job. So I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to share your story with us. So thanks, thanks again for that. Let's talk about the two clubs. So one of them started, I believe in 1992. It's been around for a long time. The other in 2008. Can you talk maybe about, let's, let's just talk about the clubs themselves for those who might not be familiar with them and give us a description of how the two might be similar or different from each other. And some of the key amenities describe the clubs in general.

Bob Janjigian [00:02:08]:
Yeah, they're kind of a different animal. They're multipurpose clubs starting with fitness and tennis. Some of the other things they have, our aquatics, a lot of pickleball, Basketball, platform tennis, which is a different outdoor sport in Medfield. Spa and salon we have, in Kingston, both have restaurants. And, you know, the two are slightly different in what they offer, but relatively the same. The main. The main components like the tennis, the fitness, the aquatics, we have all of that. So it's everything under one roof. And Kingston's about, I'd say, 85,000 square feet, and Medfield's about 165,000 square feet.

Jon LaClare [00:03:04]:
As a big clubs, how far apart geographically are the two clubs?

Bob Janjigian [00:03:08]:
About 50 minutes. So I got. I have a pretty good commute, so I live around the Boston area, so I'm a little bit over an hour to Kingston and about 40 minutes to. To Medfield.

Jon LaClare [00:03:20]:
Do you generally split your time roughly between the two?

Bob Janjigian [00:03:23]:
Yeah, every other day I'm usually at, you know, the, the, the other club. And the beauty is that of. That is no one ever really knows where I'm at. So I can. If I go golfing, I could do that just as easily.

Jon LaClare [00:03:37]:
That's awesome.

Bob Janjigian [00:03:38]:
But I'm generally like, I. I used to do both clubs sometimes on the same day, and. But now it's, you know, as I've gotten older, it's. It's every other day for either one. Yeah.

Jon LaClare [00:03:50]:
How did you originally. So let's dial back to 1992. How did you originally found the first club?

Bob Janjigian [00:03:57]:
Well, it all started with my dad. My dad was doing workout projects with banks. So if a bank had trouble property, he would go in and, you know, if they had foreclosed, he would go in and rework the operation and get it ready for an auction or resale. And this was one of the properties down in Kingston, and right around 1990, 1991. And he loved the business and, you know, really enjoyed it, and at that point put a, you know, partnership team together. And it was. It was strange because there was an auction right in the parking lot, and we ended up, you know, paying more than we wanted to, but. But we got the club. And at the time it was only fitness. No, I'm sorry, not even fitness. It was only tennis and like a function room. So. And at that point, it wasn't really, you know, in 92, there weren't a lot of clubs that did more than that. You're either a tennis club or you were a gym or whatever. That was right around the time where people started to add fitness to these multipurpose clubs. And, you know, we. It was about five years, and then we added the fitness, and then that's when things really took off. You know, from there. So. And then, you know, our membership team has been together ever since. We've got, you know, five partners who are still together after all this time.

Jon LaClare [00:05:34]:
Wow, that's impressive. You must be good to work with.

Bob Janjigian [00:05:36]:
That's.

Jon LaClare [00:05:37]:
That's a lot to say. That's a, That's a very long time to be together.

Bob Janjigian [00:05:39]:
Oh, a long time. And, you know, I'm the only one who, who works there now, but, you know, everybody else had their own businesses and everything, but, you know, we've been meeting every week during that all those years, and, and so it's really worked out well.

Jon LaClare [00:05:55]:
If you rewind back to that early days. So you. It was an existing business, you've changed it and grown it a lot since then. But obviously when you make a big capital investment like that, you've got to generate revenues quickly to be able to pay back loans and grow the business. Of course. How did it, how did it happen in the early days? How did you generate revenues back in 1992 when you first started this?

Bob Janjigian [00:06:16]:
Well, you know, that was. That was tough because you only had one revenue source. It was the tennis. You know, we would do functions and everything, but it was a number of years before, you know, we did better than breaking even. And what really made that take off is when we added fitness and some additional services that allow you to have, you know, additional revenue streams. And I think that's the benefit of having, you know, there's a big entry point on a big club, but the beauty of that type of club is that you've got additional revenue streams. You're not reliant on one particular one. So.

Jon LaClare [00:06:57]:
Nice. And as trends come and go, like, obviously pickleball was not a part of probably either club in the very early days. It's a growing and massive sport now, but it didn't exist, especially back in 1992 for sure. So it's. Yeah, it's interesting how you brought in and kind of changed the business model. Did you at the time look around? I mean, as you mentioned, it was. It was unique, right, to bring in fitness and combine it with tennis. Did you learn that from other businesses you'd seen in other parts of the country, or was this just internally figured out that, hey, let's add fitness and get that additional revenue stream?

Bob Janjigian [00:07:32]:
Well, I think I. We probably started a couple of clubs, but not many. And. And my background was always fitness, so I actually came from the it side. I used to work for New Balance and some other companies. And so when my dad started this, I Hadn't yet joined working there. And so my background was the fitness. So I was trying to push that element into it. You know, back then, you know, 10 that like. Well, Kingston had seven tennis courts. So we ended up converting one to fitness. And so it, you know, it over time, you know, at that point you get a lot of different ideas from the industry. Go to the industry shows. The next thing we added was a pool. I mean they're big and they're big capital expenditures. So you got to take risk. I mean it was a lot of borrowing money and you know, some of the, some of the times it was. It was a tough road to hoe and. But you know, originally I think a lot of clubs tried to offer like a tennis separate membership, fitness only membership. And over time, you know, we, as well as. I think a lot of these clubs realized it's. First of all, you can't really manage that. You know, trying to keep people from playing tennis to go working out and things like that. The model ended up being just one price covers all, you know, you charge court fees and things like that. But so it's not for everybody. If, you know, if you're, if you just want a $10 workout and you don't need all everything else, we're probably not for you. But over time it's really developed as a fam. More of a. You know, our biggest clients are families. So you know, family could come in, you know, the dad could be working out, the mom might be playing tennis, the kids are doing the kids programs and it's just a great family atmosphere. And that's what we've seen grow the most.

Jon LaClare [00:09:49]:
And you mentioned you've got a restaurant on site and you obviously we call it a club, right. A club environment. You compare that to some fitness facilities that might, you know, the really cheap ones or whatever. There's a purpose for it. Right. If you just want to go in and work out alone and be out of there and half an hour or whatever. How is the environment though, if you. Is it. I assume it's very social. Right. It's almost like a. Might understand a kind of a country club feel where you go in and you know, know people. It's a, you know, if you could just maybe describe the experience in the club and why some of your members do choose to stay with you for so long.

Bob Janjigian [00:10:22]:
Yeah, I mean that's what it is. I mean it's. Sometimes we describe it that way. It's like a country club without the golf. And in many ways we offer a Lot more than what a country club would, would offer. And so you know, we have our meetings Wednesday nights at our Medfield clubs with the partners and everything. And the, the pub is just, you know, really, it's you know, buzzing most of the nights. I mean people are, it kind of comes in waves. You could. So in MEDFIELD We've got 12 indoor pickleball courts and you could have, you know, 30 people come off the courts and go to the restaurant and we've got golf simulators in the restaurant. So we've got the golf leagues going. People could be coming off pickleball, could be coming off tennis, coming down from fitness. Tons of families in the restaurant and just people as groups, they just congregate. It's easier just to come to the restaurant and you know, try to meet out somewhere else. And you know, the food's great and the atmosphere is great. It's just a great spot to be in. And a lot of times we just sit back and you know, enjoy the membership and you know, chit chat with them. And you know, it's funny, over, over the years people feel a little safer knowing that you know, they're, the kids are working out under the same roof that they're playing tennis, pickleball. So it becomes like a family event. Sometimes they're there 2, 3, 4 hours of the day. Crazy. Yeah, I love it.

Jon LaClare [00:12:04]:
Yeah, getting that kind of social feel. It makes such a big difference. I frankly, I wish I lived a lot closer. It's a long commute from, from Denver out to Massachusetts unfortunately. But I do need it. We get out there fairly often so.

Bob Janjigian [00:12:16]:
I'll have to a lot of like that too out there I would think.

Jon LaClare [00:12:22]:
Yeah, it's somewhat similar for sure. But you know, again to our audience, check out the website. These clubs in Massachusetts are beautiful. Like what you've put together is, is really impressive at both locations. You can see all the photos on, on both websites. Again, Kingsbury Club and kingsbury club medfield.com it's yeah, those are unique. I mean there's certain clubs out here, there's good locations, etc, it's different but I definitely want to come out and visit those. Let's talk about opening two businesses that are relatively similar to locations. But I'm trying to do the math. Let's say 16 years apart, is that right? So 1992 to 2008, very different times. You know, kind of pre Internet and post Internet almost. Right. Like the Internet boom. The original one was right in the middle of that right around the year 2000ish or late 90s kind of thing. How is it different opening the club in 92 versus 2008 from a marketing perspective? So how you got the word out, etc, what changed in that interim?

Bob Janjigian [00:13:23]:
Well, yeah, I mean Kingston was an existing club so you know, that dynamic was in some ways a lot easier. Medfield, we built from scratch. So. And we opened September of 2008 right at the recession, I mean the absolute worst time, you put the worst time to open a business. And so we had a trailer out there doing pre sales probably for a couple years. And towards the end, you know, the cost of steel skyrocket, everything went through the roof. So luckily we had the benefit of Kingston to help support the shortfall in Medfield. It was very, very difficult, I gotta tell you, because the, you know, the capital expenditure on, on building a club like that and when we built was tennis and fitness and restaurants. So there was no pools. Don't pickle ball. You know, you have to build your revenue up to the point where the banks would even talk to you about doing an expansion from that point. So. So it was, yeah, I won't lie, it's. It was, it was very difficult and had some tough roads. Oh for sure. And luckily, you know, we've got, you know, for us the staff is, is the key. And we've had staff with us since 1992. Most of our managers have been there, you know, anywhere from 10 to 25 years. So they know the operation and that's probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest keys to why we've been successful.

Jon LaClare [00:15:19]:
I think it's a great example too for myself and for our listeners as, you know, grow. Really there's distress involved with both of the businesses. Right. The first one you bought out of it was a distressed property at the time. Right. And you came in and turned it around and grew it. And the second one, the economy was distressed. I mean '08 '09 was a brutal time, especially to be launching something new like this. That is a, you know, it's a, it's a luxury to be able to go to a club where people are starting to pinch pennies, etc. So it makes it difficult. And now, you know, both businesses are really flourishing. I think it's a great example of fight through hard times that come in any business. Sometimes it's driven by economic circumstances that we can't control. Right. The world around us. And sometimes it's driven by problems, mistakes, things that happen that are very business specific. But we can weather through the storm and Staying with the business, making it work, getting the right people, as you mentioned, involved in the business can certainly help grow and make it past the storm into much better times and very successful businesses you've got now. So I want to shift gear. Go ahead.

Bob Janjigian [00:16:27]:
You know, you know, our partners, you know, whenever we needed an infuse of capital, whether it was, you know, temporary or long term, no one ever hesitated and you know, it would have been easy to look at some of those tough times and say, you know, I can't do it anymore. And. But nobody did. And I think that's why we've got a pretty close knit group.

Jon LaClare [00:16:53]:
That's good. I think it's. I'm glad you brought that up because you think about it's really having that shared vision, whether it's investors, partners or yourself. You know, for solopreneurs that are out there, having the vision of what the business is going to become helps you weather those storms, right? It helps you see past what might be a current difficulty towards what your end goal is. And you know, you knew at the time, and your partners, as you're saying, did as well of what this business could and would become eventually and just need to push through some of the hard stuff. And sometimes that's funding, sometimes it's tenacity. There's a lot that it could take. But yeah, it's good to have a good team behind you like Covid, you.

Bob Janjigian [00:17:28]:
Know, I mean, that was another tough one. So tough.

Jon LaClare [00:17:33]:
Well, Bob, thanks for the time today. Is there anything I didn't ask you about your club or anything else that you think could be helpful for our audience?

Bob Janjigian [00:17:42]:
Well, you know, I mean, for the most part I, I think we've just got a great team and you know, the employees, you know, treat it like it's their own. So I don't have to worry about, you know, I mean, our general managers and all the managers, they take care of, you know, every problem. I mean, the staff has been tremendous and everything we try to do, we try to do high end. So no one really worries about, well, how can we do this new project, you know, the cheapest way possible or whatever, whatever we end up doing. I would just say, you know, to anybody looking to do something, give the best product, you know, listen to your members, try to do whatever, whatever you choose to do that they a recommending do it the best again. And they end up like, you know, for instance, we just added coffee, free coffee to both clubs. It's a lot of money. I mean, you know, by the end of the year. We're probably spending $75,000 a year on free coffee. And a lot of people would look at that and say, where's the money in that? But the membership love it. And in the end it just helps the overall product. So it's not all about, you know, what you can sell with immediate payback. It's the overall product for us.

Jon LaClare [00:19:13]:
Yeah, the quality of the experience. And I think that applies really to any business that our audience might own or will be looking to launch, et cetera. The quality of the experience and the quality, as you call it, the product that you're delivering. And I like that. You also mentioned the importance of the team. Right. Sometimes our team are front facing. So in a business like yours, the team is part of the product. Right. It's part of the experience. The quality. With people going to the NGO clubs, that's what they, that's who they interact with. Right. Sometimes it's like in my business, it's behind the scenes in the very beginning, right. Because it's, we're working on videos and marketing campaigns, etc. So our, you know, the campaigns we do, nobody sees us. It's about, you know, we do ours behind the scenes. But either way, whatever type of business you might run, having the team behind the owner to be involved, to feel a part of the business and to have and be able to provide that, that high quality experience, that's absolutely important. I agree. I do want to, and you have.

Bob Janjigian [00:20:12]:
To, you know, you have to treat your staff the way you'd want to be treated. And, and I think that's how we.

Jon LaClare [00:20:19]:
Do it and that it certainly shows by, by the business you've built.

Bob Janjigian [00:20:24]:
Thank you.

Jon LaClare [00:20:25]:
So I do want to encourage our audience. Please check out either one of Bob's website, so kingsburyclub.com or kingsburyclubmedfield.com if you're in the local area in Massachusetts, go check them out. These are great clubs. Otherwise check out the websites just to see this great business that Bob has built. And I really want to encourage you to, you know, hopefully you gained a lot from this, this interview. It's been a lot of fun for me and Bob. Thank you again for taking the time also for our, for our audience. Thank you for tuning into today's episode where we uncover the stories and strategies behind some of the most successful marketers out there. If you're looking to take your business to the next level, be sure to visit perfectlaunch.com you can grab a free copy of my book, the Perfect Launch System. It's packed with proven principles we've developed over the past 20 years, helping hundreds of businesses launch and grow successfully. Plus, you'll also get exclusive one page summaries of some of our most popular podcast interviews, real world insights you can apply right away. Head to perfectlaunch.com and start building your perfect launch today. Until next time, keep learning, keep launching and keep growing.