Building a successful strength and performance business requires more than great programming. It requires relationships, systems, leadership, and the ability to stay authentic as the business grows.
In this episode of the Samson Strength Coach Collective, Estevan Lucero shares his path from athletics and education into strength and conditioning and gym ownership. He explains how his background in sports psychology and teaching shaped his coaching philosophy and helped him better understand the people he works with.
Estevan also breaks down the realities of building a client base, creating systems for a growing gym, improving client retention, and maintaining a strong culture. He discusses the challenges that come with scaling a business and why coaches need to protect their own work-life balance while continuing to show up for their athletes, clients, and staff.
Key Takeaways
- Connect with people before trying to coach them.
- Authenticity helps create trust with athletes, clients, and staff.
- Strong systems and processes become increasingly important as a gym grows.
- Client retention starts with relationships and creating a community people want to be part of.
- Sports psychology can help coaches better understand motivation, communication, and team culture.
- Scaling a business requires coaches to grow as leaders, not just practitioners.
- Work-life balance is important for maintaining long-term success in the fitness industry.
- Show up consistently for the people who continue to show up for you.
Quote
“Connect with people first, then coach.”
— Estevan Lucero
Estevan Lucero:
the way that I speak to people, the way that the way that I challenge them.
you know, e in my tone and inflection, my humor, all those things are an integral part of like authentic representation of what I stand for. And the more I dove into that and leaned into that, even on my like my social media accounts, the more I had success and the more I had people more or less rally to me.
Connor:
What’s going on?
Estevan Lucero:
We go.
Connor:
Samson Strength Coach Collective Listeners. On today’s episode, we have Esteban Lucero. He’s co-owner of Transcend in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thank you so much for coming on.
Estevan Lucero:
Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it. Been longtime supporter of your brand. I even got the merch. I did a little cross brand promotion. Look at us. We might we shop at the same store. We shop at the same store, me and you. Okay.
Connor:
We actually have the exact same Yeah, we got the exact same shirt on right now. Look at that. Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly it. I think we just like
wearing you know, clothes from quality companies, that’s for sure.
Estevan Lucero:
Couldn’t agree more.
Connor:
Well, I’m stoked to have you on. Andy’s been talking about having you on the show for a little bit now and then obviously got to do a little pre sho pre show research and found out some really cool stuff about you and your gym.
Estevan Lucero:
Goodness.
Connor:
I’m very excited to No, all good, all positive. I promise you. We’re not yeah.
Estevan Lucero:
Okay, I mean hang on.
Connor:
Yeah, we’re not gonna pull up some old Facebook post from twenty you know ten or anything like that. Yeah, in the MySpace, yeah.
Estevan Lucero:
Ye MySpace, yeah, MySpace posts.
Connor:
I’m gonna ask you about who your top five was. but yeah, I’m just excited to get get to know you a little bit further and kind of go through your experience. So can you just get talk about your experience, everything that you’ve done within strain and conditioning and then what you’re currently up to.
Estevan Lucero:
Okay, yeah, definitely. I s it starts with birth. No, I’m just I won’t go that far back. Yeah, I won’t go that
Connor:
It’s a great intro. That’s a great intro. I liked it.
Estevan Lucero:
far back, don’t worry. so I’ve been doing strength conditioning in the Alp Kirk area for golly, it’s moved back in twenty thirteen, so yeah, thirteen years and then and that’s my formal experience and then of course be before that I was helping some of my collegiate buddies do their preparation, all that kind of stuff. so to give you a little bit
an idea as far as my athletic background because I walked the same path with a lot of people I work with. played football here in Albuquerque, wrestled, all that kind of stuff. Earned a scholarship to the Mexico Military Institute. Shout out in Namie. Love that place. you guys know him ’cause know it because of Diego Papia. He actually won a national championship down there. Let’s go. And then finished up my my four year degree at Fort Lewis College. played football over there for the Skyhawks. Love to see they’re doing awesome things over there. They just actually renovated their weight room so I’m stoked about that personally.
and aside from that, my undergrad is in sports psychology and abnormal psych. Yeah, I like a dual major, which is pretty neat. And then went on to get my master’s degree in sports man sports administration and marketing. so that’s my classic education, I guess you if you will. as far as playing career goes and how that stemmed into strength conditioning, you know, I got out of college and I just recognized okay, I have this psychology degree, like what I gonna do?
Become a shrink. Like, how do what do I do with these tools that I have, like these just random assortment of skills? And I thought, okay, well, I know football. That’s kind of been my bread and butter. I’ve been doing that for probably the line share of my life. And I seem to understand people well enough. And showed up on the doorstep of my high school and I talked to some coaches that actually had coached me and thought, hey, why don’t I give this a shot? I’ll go back to coaching. And it just so happens they needed some special ed teachers. So before I even got into this profession with both feet,
I was a special ed teacher for four years. So I taught kids with all kinds of diagnoses, you know, kids with developmental delays of all kinds, social emotional delays, you name it, is the whole gamut. you know, kids with Duboid syndrome, autism, kids with down down syndrome, and then some of the other a little bit more radical ones we’ll say schizophrenia. I think it’s called dissociative disorder nowadays, based on the DSM 4.
And so nonetheless, I taught special ed and you know the one grounding tool that I had while I was in the classroom was just you know really, really diving into the understanding of people, right? With kids that I was working with, it took a tremendous amount of patience in certain situations, and you had to see them first before you could start correcting them or even giving them assignments, things like that. You had to really make sure that they felt known and loved and taken care of, and you appreciate the fact that they were even there. I mean, a lot of these kids come from very
rigorous and torturous backgrounds in some cases and you know people who didn’t build a relationship with them like good luck getting them to do anything. so that was part of my experience that bled into strength conditioning. and then of course the football side of things. So I coached football for three years at my alma mater valley high school. and we were really successful one year and then we were tutored the next two. So as you know when you have really good kids it turns into you turn into a really good coach. And when you’re lacking
Some degree of talent. It turns out you’re awful. You’re not any good at any of this.
Connor:
Of course. Yeah, of course.
Estevan Lucero:
so nonetheless, it when I was coaching, you know, what I started to recognize pretty early on, because I actually still played, I did a small snip playing some arena football. I started to dive into performance a little bit more. So we had just a new facility to open up here in Algerie that was centric around performance, you know, and not just like
Anything that you could have read in muscle and fitness, you know, it wasn’t anything you could see in muscular development. I I started to get into the layers deeper than like back and buys, chest and tries, which I had already kind of known of. you know, one of my main inspirations was like Jim Wendler and and Chad Wesley Smith. he was really, really influential when I was just coming up because they were the ones who were putting out good information. And and then when I started being coach myself and diving more so into performance.
I discovered unilateral training and all of a sudden I got way better. You know, I discovered how to integrate plyometrics more effectively. I understood energy system development a little bit more so. I and again in the arena football setting, you’re not necessarily coaching the way you were in high school or even in college. Your schedule isn’t dictated to you, like it’s the onus is really on you when it comes to your development. And I just knew I had to get better. Like the the game itself is played at a pretty high level.
Outside of that, you know, we’re not gonna talk about the behind the curtain of that experience. But nonetheless, again I I trained at this performance facility and had my eyes open to a lot of incredible nuance. And over the course of time I just recognized, you know what? The thing that had made me a decent football player wasn’t the my stature. Like I’m six feet tall on my best day when I wake up in the morning, right, with great shoes. that’s what I that’s I tell everybody on my resume. you know, and and n
I wouldn’t even say that I’m the most explosive or fast guy, but what allowed me to play at a pretty high level was my durability, my endurance, my resilience. And then of course, when I was able to sharpen up some of the other skills and buckets that I hadn’t filled, I I got a whole lot better. And I I just thought this is a really thing neat thing to investigate. Like I had the strength thing figured out. I was one of those guys who’s really strong but not real fast or twitchy. And when n that I had that now that I had that baseline or then I when I had that baseline, it was easy for
me to acquire a lot of the other skills that I needed. And so once I kind of put the pieces together and said I I really enjoy this stuff, I started which is internships. So it was kind of a whirlwind. I was coaching, I was teaching and doing internships all back to back and all in the same day. You know, so first when I was getting started, it was I I definitely had to earn my pay or lack thereof. Cause I was working, you know, seven to seven a lot of nights.
And but I loved it. You know, I didn’t have any I didn’t have any real world responsibilities other than like a car payment and thing and you know, rent and things like that. No real stakeholders other than me. And yeah, went full fledged into the SNC thing. I did two internships back to back. and decided at some point, okay, I want to make a run at this thing. I didn’t know if I want to do it collegiately and I didn’t I knew the private sector would be a challenge, but I I figured I could do it.
So I had two pathways that I could take and I think things work out the way it’s supposed to they’re they’re supposed to, right? I actually was gonna intern with University of New Mexico and it just so happened that they had recruited and signed one of the players that I coached in high school, shout out Teton Saltis, and they closed the door on me because at the time the NCAA would be would frown upon something like that. If basically they sign one of your guys and then they bring you in. It’s like, well, how did that work? And so yeah, I couldn’t do my internship at UN and it ended up being one of the best things
best things for me because it made it forced the envelope and I dove into the private sector. So I started out as at a small facility, still teaching simultaneously and I just figured, okay, in my mind I just did the math. If I’m gonna really make a go at this, I need to make as much money as I was teaching. My mom was freaked out because I’m forgoing like a pension and the stable job and summers off and you know easy semi easy work days. And shoot, I’m I’m basically saying I’m gonna cut my parachute and go for it.
And so yeah, back to back teaching and then coaching until I got to a place where my book of business was strong enough. you know, and and that took a lot of work. It was a lot of networking and being around the community, inter talking to coaches, getting exposure to athletes, s starting with the infancy of social media, so really get my name out there to some degree. And and it wasn’t like what it is now, you know, we’re talking thirteen years ago. And yeah, it it just continued to snowball from there. So once I got my feet wet.
and and accrues plenty of clients. I helped with mentorship and internship processes. left I went to or helped build out another facility and that’s where I kinda encountered your guys’ brand. I helped my buddy Lawrence open the performance ranch up here in Alquerki and shout out to Lawrence he’s a great guy still a good friend and he was one of my original mentors. He was the one who kind of brought me along and and helped me in my development. He got me exposure to a lot of the UFC fighters ’cause
time and and probably still now Alkirky is a big fight town. So spent a lot of time with Donald Cerrone and a l you know, a lot of those guys that were in that scene and got exposure to again, once again energy system development, get a little more well rounded, acquired a few more tools, helped Lawrence get going with the performance ranch. and then I came became the performance director thereafter at a f the place a place called the Field House here in Albuquerque, which is this massive seventy thousand square foot facility with volleyball, baseball, basketball now and
whole variety of athletes. We took care of about five hundred athletes on a weekly basis in and out. all the data collection. I started building a staff as a performance director. used my s you know my administrative skills, I guess you could call them, and even leadership skills that I’d acquired acquired playing sports, to help get that going. And there was a point in time where y in the private industry there really is no what I wanna say linear pathway, linear career trajectory. It’s like okay, well you gotta figure it out and
figure out the next steps. It’s not like there’s this corporate job that’s waiting just above you and when that guy vacates, you can just take it. So I got to this place where I’m like, okay, well, the things that I the things that I understand, the things I know about business alongside the falling that I had I had amassed, I’m gonna make a run at this thing. So me and my partner started up Transcend, coming up on two years, so two years in October. And shoot, we’ve we’ve I it’s hard for me to quantify the
success and and and happiness it brings with the amount of traction we’ve garnered in the community. I’ve been really, really pleased with the the outpouring of athletes and parents and coaches who have just given us a warm reception and the kids that have entrusted us with their development. It’s it’s been really, really cool to see and we went from probably closing I guess I would say December of twenty four, about a hundred members. We did import a softball club that I have
formal relationship with they’re called the Suncats and they’re phenomenal. I I always have to shout out those guys ’cause they were great. so we work with all their teams. but about a hundred organic clientele do now we’re about three hundred and twenty organic athletes and adults sitting inside the facility plus another I believe six or seven high schools that we work with. I’m the head strength condition coach at LaGueba High School. we work with Hope Christian. We work with Highland we work with Mesa we work with the Volcano Vista
And we work with Capitol High School and then we have a couple in it in and out. road grand soccer. So it it’s been really, really cool to see. So long story short, it wasn’t very it wasn’t a very short story. yeah,
that’s that’s that’s
Connor:
Yeah.
Estevan Lucero:
my upbringing, man.
Connor:
No, it’s
it’s just such a cool story to me. And it’s it’s very cool to hear about your career trajectory. You know, I this is a little bit of a selfish question, but and the listeners are gonna roll their eyes because I’ve mentioned this a million times and I always
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
kinda sound like kind of a snob when I say this, right? Like, but like my master’s degree is in sports psych. so
Estevan Lucero:
Okay.
Connor:
hearing that you got your undergrad in sports psych is really intriguing to me. You know, you mentioned kind of understanding the people first aspect of it, right, with that background of understanding you have to show them that you care, you have to develop this relationship, then you can get so much more out of it.
What other things has having a degree in sports psyched helped you with by being a coach?
Estevan Lucero:
man, I think it’s served as the basis for all of my coaching, for being totally honest. As much as you and I and every strength coach out there appreciates the X’s and O’s, they don’t mean a damn thing to anybody you’re working with unless you have the ability to connect. Like I’ve known some guys, and when we go to like the NSCA conventions and their name tags are like down to the floor, and yet they struggle with people, you know, they struggle with the conversation, they struggle struggle with the volley back and forth of just like active listening. And again, I think it has served as as the foundation for any of the coaching.
I’ve
done and I’ve just gotten better at it over time. Just really making it a point to let the athletes know whether it be using personal examples or listening to them and what they’re going through to make sure that we solidify or make, I guess, paint them a picture of how we’re going to work together through this process of getting better. I think it’s crucial. I can’t I can’t say enough about we every one of my coaches when we get started, we we always intern them, and during that internship process, they do two things for us with regard.
The sports psychology right out the gate. They do it do a big five personality assessment by Jordan Peterson. So it’s five personality strata and then they’re broken down into two individual quadrants. So I get to know them first and foremost. I want to see what makes them tick and what kind of person they are. Are they neurotic? Are they empathetic? Are they orderly? are they are are they naturally
creative, you know, any of those kind of things. So that way when we get them situated, we can set them in the right seat on the bus and utilize them to their strengths, you know, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. and then aside from that, we get into we week over week we go over Brett Bartholmues the art the art of coaching. not just the art of coaching but conscious coaching. So we read his book chapter by chapter, we get a hold of the athlete archetypes and one of our assignments is like, okay, you’re gonna come with me to La Cueva High School, you’re gonna start to identify which athletes
Which archetype and which ones are a blend, and how are you going to connect with them? And some some do really well, some flounder, but you know what? We coach them up and we hire them on board, they’re the right people for the job. after enough again, scrutinization and and betting, we feel like we put put together a polished product, and again, that stuff stands on a foundation of understanding people first and foremost.
Connor:
I really like where you took that too with
not even just saying just with the athletes, right? But as a business owner, you have a lot of people who you employ and have to work with on a regular basis. And so you have to know how to work with them as well too. That’s where the sports light can really come in handy.
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We we have a a hard set belief that anybody that we bring into our culture inside of the gym, one, they have to be able to communicate with the other parts of the the other members of the staff. That’s first and foremost. In fact, our staff has vetoed interns that we actually liked because you know, behind the scenes those interns weren’t weren’t as glamorous to the other members of the staff. And and I think that’s really, really important. We’re very much about protecting that culture. And then ultimately we want to hire care people with high character.
So if you come into our business, I need to know that if I leave the room, you’re gonna be able to communicate with kids, you’re gonna be able to communicate with their parents, you’re gonna be able to speak with their coaches and in a timely fashion, in an organized way, in a compassionate way, in a thoughtful way, and in a responsible way. you know, and and also be willing to have hard conversations, but the conversations that are necessary with both parents, coaches, athletes, you know, the
that often are are challenging for a lot of people. So yeah, we really, really lean hard into making sure that our folks are, you know, well acquainted with obviously the sports science and everything that underpins our actual service, but just as well acquainted with the understanding of people.
Connor:
A thousand percent. I mean it’s a people business at the end of the day. We can’t forget that. Yeah. And it’s
Estevan Lucero:
It is. Mm-hmm.
Connor:
f it’s funny you mentioned I I actually know somebody who’s a very good friend of mine, who would be one of those people with, like you said, an SCA. He’s got the the entire tags down to the floor. And
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah. my god.
Connor:
he’s so I mean, but he’s he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and self admittedly, he we he and I interned together and coached together for a while and then he eventually at one point just said, Look, I gotta go straight online. Like I gotta just do online programming you know, ’cause I’m just not very good at the in person.
aspect of it.
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
And so, you know, ultimately it’s just it is a skill that you have to have. It’s a skill that you have to continue to develop. And I love the fact that you’re focusing on protecting the culture of your gym too. Which kind of leads me to my next question because I mean I’m curious about this, right? And I think a lot of coaches want to know what goes into developing a business. You’ve been running this gym for two years. You’re a co owner of Transcend. Obviously you like you said you’ve shown a lot of success in growing your client base already. But
What’s
gone into building this business kinda take me through day one to now year two.
Estevan Lucero:
Geez, it’s a it’s a consistent evolution and
It’s hard to know where to start because there’s so so many integral parts of it. There are so many underpinnings that people don’t recognize when they’re getting into business. I I think everybody out of the gate starts in this industry with passion. Right? Everybody that I’ve ever met who wanted to be a strike coach is excited about getting better or helping people, which is noble in and of itself, right? That that’s very altruistic. However, you gotta put food on the table. That’s that’s what it comes back to. You gotta be able to put you can have the best of intentions, but if you don’t have some degree of systems and processes in order to
Do everything from lead generation to capture those leads to retain them and limit churn, then you’re just gonna be floundering and consistently, you know, scraping your plate to find the next person. so for us, I think when we got started, we had a good foundation in that I was an administrator before. I I already knew and this again comes back to I wholly attribute this to playing sports. You know, I was a I was a team captain on just about every team that I that I was on. And
In that experience, it allowed me to understand the mentorship role that I had and to always know that you’re supposed to be the person who puts their best foot forward and you’re the person that you you need to show up on a consistent basis. Whether you and it doesn’t matter at what level of the hierarchy you’re in, whether you’re even when I was at NIMI, you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re a private, it doesn’t matter if you’re a squad leader, it doesn’t matter if you’re a team leader, it doesn’t matter if you’re the actual you know, the the regimental commander, the guy who’s running the show, like you’re always putting your best foot forward. And I think it starts with me and my
partner Adrian. you know, we have to be the guys who are grinding day in, day out because I mean I’m only 37. They’re guys who have much more tenure in this industry for all intents and purposes. We’re still a fledgling business. but just saying the setting the foundation and saying, okay, we need to be the ones who spearhead building out of systems and processes to make sure that we continue our success. And again, it going back to like my responsibilities as an administrator, it was kind of nice because when I was the performance director,
prior, I was able to start experimenting with marketing techniques and small group training and pricing pricing strategies and marketing campaigns and you name it. So I could kind of play with those things with a little bit of my sandbox. now what’s n what’s nice is in this instance,
I guess the handcuffs are off, right? In that I don’t have to really ask anybody to make a decision as far as like what we’re gonna do next. And so that’s very freeing. That’s that that’s nice. But also, again, is it the the guy wearing the hat and the one in the chair, when something goes wrong, like I gotta go look at myself in the mirror and go, Who who’s responsible for this? And it’s it’s you. Like that’s right. so going back to the build out of the business when we got started, we sat down, organized our pricing model, we know what
what the market could bear first and foremost, based on some of our prior experience, what was gonna be the strategy and the niche that we were gonna develop to leverage inside of in inside of our community to to create an attraction for adults and athletes alike.
And then beyond that, we started to build out the back end of like what do our systems and processes look like for retention? How are we going to keep these people engaged and always have something for them to look forward to? And showcasing the progress because I think that’s a big part of the development side of things is you you know, you don’t want to go back to the gym day after day and just feel like you’re showing up for a workout. Like you want to have something to shoot for. And I think we’ve really nailed that down on the youth athletic development side of things. we’re part of the universal speed rating. My partner is actually one of the regional directors for the universal speed rating.
speed rating through West Les Spelman. They’re actually gonna be going out to the USR speed summit here in September. And that has been a such a useful tool in that those guys have put together
an entire database where we can showcase to athletes where they stand relative relative to the other athletes that both we have tested and they’ve been tested nationwide when it comes to speed, change direction, power output, you know, broad jump, vertical jump, any of those things, any of those core metrics. And at the basis of or at the beginning of any client’s introductory to us, they start with a console. We get to know them again, building that relationship first and foremost. I want to see their areas of need. We always we talk about we use what we call like the closer
strategy you know clarify why they’re here we label exactly what that is where they want to work on speed change direction power you name it and they don’t always vocalize it in the same terms that we might but we know we want to meet them where they’re at and then we overview some of their past experience and past pain so things that they’re running into you know is this kid not making the varsity roster or even the C team roster or is he riding the pine why is that where where is he going wrong what are we missing there
And then from there we provide solutions and at some point we level a sale. So here’s what I’m gonna do for you. I’m gonna go X, Y, and Z. I’m gonna help you with your speed, I’m gonna help you with your power. I’m gonna help you with nutrition. We’re gonna talk about recovery incessantly. And then from there, we it explain any objections they might have. So, you know, it may it’s always price, it’s budget. though those are in price, budget, and scheduling. So we help them through those processes, and sometimes we get we help get out ahead of those things by.
showcasing our listing of classes, you know, which offer we have a variety of times we offer to athletes that kind of fit every schedule, but we also do small group and semi-private or small group and private training. So even if you’re really in a jam, we can still get a coach with you in a smaller setting and make it work for you. And then after that we reinforce the decision making by again making sure they see results. And then we have several goodies that we give them right out of the gate to make sure that they feel really good about this decision and make them feel like they’re really on the team and part of something.
Aside from you know any of that stuff in the intro process, we’re constantly checking in. I have a staff member on on on the team that’s solely dedicated to client retention where they’re checking in after the first day. We’re sending birthday cards, we’re sending welcome cards. there’s she’s calling to make sure that their first day was great.
thirty days, sixty days, ninety days, and our our guarantee as a brand is to improve speed by one mile an hour in the first ninety days at the very minimum and improve a vertical jump by at least three inches in the first ninety days. And that’s kind of our shared agreement between us and the athletes and the parents is saying if you show up day one, we’re gonna make sure that you know you see results so long as you’re here at least twice a week and we’re really adamant about making sure that they check in and we we keep attendance logs and things like that. So they gotta be with us at least twice a week, bare minimum.
minimum and at the very end of that at the very end of that what we see is if we nail it in the first 90 days and I borrowed this from one of our mentors Graham then they stay with us and they turn into their length of engagement extends quite a bit but again it’s really all part of the whole process of making sure not only are they getting getting started with us on the right foot but also making sure that we keep them engaged in a variety of ways
And the same can be said for a lot of our adults too. Like when they walk in the door, the process is a little bit different in that they come in for a console and we do very similar processes when it comes to sales as far as identifying, you know, their past experience and things like that. But a lot of our adults have different they have different goals and different aspirations. So we want to make sure that we clarify those things and get those out in the open air and then we come up with a mutual agreement as to like what those quantifiable measurables they want.
They want to spearhead R and
Then we basically turn it into a ledger or a file that we keep on each one of them and we do 30 day check-ins with them. All right, where are you relative to your weight loss goal? Where are you relative to your health goals? Have you gotten your blood work done? you know, are you seeing anybody outside of this to help with your PT? you know, are we clo and are we collaborating with those those guys, you know, because I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I’m an expert in every single field. you know, and that’s one way that we keep them entrenched in our business as well. So I don’t know if that’s a good enough answer.
Connor:
Yeah, no, it’s a great answer, seriously.
And I mean, I think it just goes to show just how much goes into running a business. Like I think a lot of people
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah, yeah.
Connor:
can, you know, and especially, you know, within the collegiate sector, I think it’s very easy to kind of look at your friends and and say, you know, hey, why don’t we just open up a business, right? Why don’t we open
up our own
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
gym? And and you know, it’s kind of fun to think about, it’s fun to imagine what what it could be, but then obviously hearing your full breakdown, it’s not quite as easy as they think, where it’s just training clients, right?
So how many
Estevan Lucero:
No.
Connor:
employees do you have total?
Estevan Lucero:
So right now, if I’m remembering correctly, we we have a couple part-timers, so I want to make sure I include them too. But we have nine coaches on staff currently. you know, and started with probably four of us, you know, four that were really gung-ho and down for the cause. but yeah, we we’ve grown substantially, probably looking to hire a couple more. We’re looking at expansion here pretty soon because we’re in a space right now where it’s just getting a little bit tight.
Connor:
I mean, but that’s the best problem to have, right?
Estevan Lucero:
It can be, it can be, you know, but it also comes with more a a y another piece of the business is the consistent continuous evolution is knowing that as you grow there will be other challenges that arise and how do you get out ahead of those things and foresee them so that way they don’t become too big of hurdles.
Connor:
Yeah, for sure. Well, I’m curious about the challenges too. Were there any unexpected challenges that you faced when you were starting the business going into year two? Anything that popped up that you I cause obviously you had a lot of experience within the private sector already. You had a lot of clients, you kind of knew about a lot of those different processes, but this is the first time starting your own gym. So were there any challenges that you didn’t expect to see that popped up?
Estevan Lucero:
I think the biggest challenge that I personally have run into and I I I I’ve tried to stay out ahead of it as much as I possibly can, is recognizing you know my growth as a coach.
is transition from being just a don’t want to say just a coach because that’s not a good way of framing it, but from being a coach and somebody who’s constantly on the floor to being an administrator and a mentor and being capable of seeing things from a 30,000 foot view. I I’m in a position right now where I’m I I have the the luxury of both being able to work with the clients that I really enjoy and also taking a step back so I can work on other things that the business requires. And I think that’s crucial. you know any coach that I’ve ever worked with who really loves the game prides
being on the floor. You know, they want to be entrenched in everything the athlete does. They want to take it, they want to keep all the data. They want to make sure they’re showcasing results. They want to do the best job they possibly can. But as you continue in this journey, you start to recognize, okay, well where where is my time going to be best spent? And not that it isn’t best spent on the gym floor, but it’s also going to be helping groom other coaches. So you’re not always the guy at the end of the day who has to be there from seven to seven. And I think a lot of coaches will burn out that way because they don’t have it again, any internal systems and processes or
ability to even take off some hats that they’re wearing that’s one thing that we’ve done is making sure that all right as we’ve gone along we’ve created SOP manuals for every single coach and every single position that we have so every coach knows exactly what’s expected of them we do a weekly check in a one-on-one with each of them and that’s really really important because a lot of times coaches you know in our industry if they’re not if if they’re not checked on or maintained then they start to feel like they’re just kind of drifting like where and they feel aimless. Okay.
Well, let’s sit down with every single coach and make sure we’re all still working in the same direction. All right. What are the pain points you’re running into? Are there conflicts in your schedule? Like we have some coaches who are in school now. And so we got to make sure that we’re accommodating to them and we we’re not burning those guys out. we have a coach who’s responsible for our social media and he does a damn good job better than I ever could. My my archaic social media posts by comparison look like, I don’t know, like AI made him or something. I don’t know. Not even close. AI could do a whole lot better job than me, but the guy that we have responsible for it.
you know, we gotta make sure that he has all the resources, tools he needs, whether it be paying for subscriptions, helping get a camera, any of that stuff. so again, starting to remove yourself to some degree, not all the way. I think it’s really important that I still coach and I’m still very much hands-on with several of the client all a lot of the clients I work with.
But also make sure that I have a presence inside the business and make sure that they can put a face to a name whenever a parent walks in or a kid walks in. So giving high fives and all that kind of stuff and shaking hands, kissing babies, doing all that stuff. but then being able to step away and take time to say, okay, where do I need to spend my attention to both increase our our you know our our value or create more revenue? what are some opportunities that I’m able to chase? Things like that. And I think again, that’s that’s an area that certainly has presented some degree of challenge.
Connor:
Yeah, I think that ties back to our earlier point that we mentioned, which is some coaches may be really smart, maybe good at the programming side of things or the science side of things, and they may struggle with you know, actually developing those relationships. And then if you take it a step further, you know, some coaches may be really good on the floor, they may be a really good coach, but can they do they have the skills or do they have the mindset to actually be able to run a business, as you mentioned. It’s not just
Is your time best spent on the floor? It’s ultimately I have almost double digit employees. I have a business partner. There’s a lot of responsibility with my position. What is the best way I can spend my time to make sure that there’s success within this business as well? so I I think it’s just very interesting to me. And I really appreciate you us you giving us the insights into what this really looks like from a running a business perspective. You mentioned it at the end with work-life balance. Like that’s my main question for you is.
You
know, you’re the head strength coach of a high school, you run a business, you obviously have a lot going on. How do you maintain work life balance?
Estevan Lucero:
You know, I I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s not necessarily work-life balance.
It’s more of blend. I I think it was it was Brad Bartholomew who said that. And I I felt like that was right on the money. It is totally a work-life blend. you know, I I have a wife, I have a daughter, and I think that for me it’s become an ebb and flow of knowing when to push really hard. Like summer, for instance, is our real busy season. Like there’s no doubt about it. We’re jamming, it is wall to wall. And that’s just what it is. You know, that might not be the time for vacation. That might might not be the time to go on a siesta. It that’s the time where I’m I’m grinding.
Him
like nose to the grindstone, let’s go. And I gotta be all hands on deck. I gotta help where I can, and anybody who needs it, and conversely, so even on a day-to-day basis, okay, knowing when I can step away. Like I I journal on a pretty consistent basis, and talking about things that make me content. And one of them is just as simple as sitting on my porch and reading a book and just being pe at peace, like totally calm. And I think that to me is is my work-life blend or my work-life balance is like knowing when I
I need to pull some punches because I’ve been pushing it hard. and I I think that if you can create that degree of space for yourself and you can take five minutes here and there, sometimes it’s a car nap, you know, like hey, I just need to step out of this place for just a second, close my eyes, just breathe, listen, breathe for a little bit. I think that’s what it turns into. and then of course designating like going out of your way to designate time to spend time with family, making sure that you’re still invested in the people around you, because those are the ones that are gonna keep you going like
long after the business and long after, you know, any of the things that I’m doing right now go away, what are you gonna be left with? And I wanna make sure that I’m still using this time wisely to spend it with the people that I care about.
Yeah, even extends to like the an my animals. I have I have three dogs, you know, making sure that I I’m here and I’m enjoying those moments. you know, taking my kiddo kiddo to school, so arranging my schedule so I can I can do those things. I think those are invaluable and you just have to know again when to pull punches and when to pull back and say, All right, this is time this is time where I’m not gonna think about business at all, even though it might always be in the background, like this peripheral noise. But take a second just to breathe, like ground your
I I think that goes a long way and that’s helped me along.
Connor:
Yeah, I think you know, the best piece of advice I ever got was one of my mentors was an older coach and he said, you know, you need to pick a marker when you come home. that, you know, once you pass this on your driveway or wherever it may be, you’re gonna ultimately put those things aside, right? Like whatever it may be from the work day. you know, and obviously working in basketball, there’s gonna be nights where we get home ten PM because we’ve got a later game that night. You know, but he said, When you’re home and you’re trying to spend time with your family and I have three dogs as well too, so no kids yet, hopefully.
soon, but you know, trying to be intentional with my time with them. ultimately there was a tree that I would always see when I drive home and I’d say, okay, kind of try to flip the switch and and be a hundred percent present at that time with my family. And then, you know, when I go back out or if there’s certain times I have the next day where I might not physically be at work, but it’s time to focus on work, it it made it easier for me to actually have a physical marker of seeing something that said, okay, now’s my time to switch into
Connor Agnew, the husband versus Connor Agnew, the strength coach. so it seems, you know, that you have to learn that skill as well too. And I I can only imagine the pressures that come with it with actually owning a business because like you said, at the end of the day, a lot of the responsibility is on your shoulders.
Estevan Lucero:
A hundred percent. It sounds like you have a totem. It sounds like what’s that movie Inception where you just get the you know what I’m talking about? He gets the top out and spins it. yeah,
Connor:
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yep, that’s exactly true.
Estevan Lucero:
having a good grounding mechanism goes a long way for me. you know, when I get in the door, I put my phone on the charger and I try not to look at that thing, but once or twice before I go to bed. same thing. I try to sleep with it outside of my room, things like that allow me to pull myself away from any external noise.
Yeah, and I I I think it’s really important. Like I said, it’s a it’s a blend in in a whole variety of ways. It’s also making sure that you know, the people that I care about, my family namely, you know, they’re also vested in the business, they’re part of it. They feel like this is part of an experience they share. and so yeah, I I think that
Any coach who’s getting into this needs to recognize, like when you’re in your twenties, early 30s, and maybe even the position that I’m in to some degree, see what you’re made of. You know, show up. Because I was just making this point to the kids. Like, we are all going to go through external stressors in life. Point blank period. You’re always going to be stressed out. You and you’ll never be less busy than you already are. In fact, I expect my life to get a whole lot more busy at some point at some level. But what you become is you become more efficient. And the the game’s not over just because you’re having a bad day. You need to get back on.
Horse and like show up for the people who are showing up for you. Like, I got plenty of things on my plate, even right now, that I’m like, man, it’s my the cross that I’m bearing feels pretty damn heavy. But I’m like, so like who cares? You’re like buck up a little bit, you’re fine. Like you show up, and don’t nobody’s gonna feel sorry for you either. And the worst thing to happen is you feel sorry for yourself. Yeah, this is what we asked for. Yeah.
Connor:
Yeah. Well, you actually asked for that, right? You know, at one point you said I want this, you know, and so again, you can’t forget
that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Estevan Lucero:
Here it is. Yep.
Connor:
A hundred percent. Well, I I’m curious about this too, you know, and I’ve been told this advice from multiple business owners before is that if you go into business with somebody, you need to make sure it’s somebody you’re very, very comfortable with. And it’s almost more important choosing a good business partner than choosing a good wife, which you have both. So I might I might see if that advice holds true.
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
You know, how do you choose a business partner? What goes into that? And how do you find somebody you’re comfortable actually starting a business with?
Estevan Lucero:
So I think it it comes from an understanding of complementary skills. I one of the skills that I I I seem to have is my ability to communicate and my ability to build relationships and you know
I would feel like I would say that my strong set or s strong suit is definitely the sales portion of what we do, the marketing, the outward strategy, and that sort of thing. my partner on the other s hand, and even he would probably agree to he would agree to this, is even through his big five personality assessment, he’s very agreeable in nature. He’s very calm and he’s very in intelligent as well. And he’s responsible for a lot of our churn. So he’s the one I I go catch the fish and we make sure that they’re well prepared and they’re take and they’re taking
taken
care of when when they’re inside of the business. and so we have that kind of back and forth strategy. We both handle the sales. we spearhead the sales together, but again, outward reaching, marketing, collective vision when it comes to the way that a business is the business is seen from the outside looking in, that’s all me for the most part. And we go, of course, we collaborate back and forth. Conversely so when they’re inside of the business, he’s making sure that all right, if a kid has been with us for 90 days, are they getting the reports? Are they being checked on? you know, he’s checking on to make sure that all the
birthday cards are mailed out. He’s making sure that our attention is real buttoned up and his he’s got a heavy he’s got a heavy task. Like he’s responsible for keeping our churn, you know, underneath ten underneath five percent. And that’s not always easy to do, especially with the seasonality of our business. And so yeah, I think collectively we had to just make a decision. Okay. And this is something we encoura uncovered early on is I I know that he’s a hard worker. So maybe that was I should rewind it a little bit. That was my prerequisite. I was like you better be willing to fucking grind. Sorry, I mean cursed.
Connor:
No, no, no, that’s fine.
Estevan Lucero:
Sorry, I’m getting all strength coach around here.
yeah, you better be willing to grind. And I knew he was down for the cause. Adrian’s a wrestler. he comes from that background. He’s probably a more decorated athlete than I’ve ever been. And yeah, so he he was up for the challenge. And okay, well we got that aside. We both have this kind of blue collar mentality.
Well then what are you gonna do really well that maximizes your strength and what am I gonna do really well and let’s try not to step on each other’s toes. And just like in any relationship, we definitely have our conversations behind closed doors with open that are open-ended and honest and being okay with having so somebody in the room that can have those conversations with you. Cause I think where a lot of partnerships flop is they avoid those conversations at all costs. And yeah, there have been some a areas where I’ve definitely fallen short and I know there’s he would say the same.
but being able to be transparent and say, okay, I think I need you to fix this. And it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s not because I don’t think you’re you’re a good person. This is not a personal attack or a character attack. These are just things that are non-negotiables. we’ve had we’ve had those conversations before on both sides. And I I I think we’ve both been pretty good about finding good resolutions and and staying on course together.
Connor:
Yeah, those are the people who want to see you do the best, right? Those are the
Estevan Lucero:
Mm-hmm.
Connor:
ones who can not take things personally and then give the same feedback to you. And ultimately those are the relationships that have the most success. So I’m glad to hear that. And I’m certainly gonna keep that in mind if I if I do start a business one day. I’ve got one person in mind, but I’m not gonna name them just in case he turns out different on me. So
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
you know, you mentioned a little bit of advice for younger coaches, which was ultimately embracing the grind a little bit, finding a time where you should just put your head down and work.
You
know, is there any other advice that you’d like to impart to younger coaches or any coaches who might be listening to this podcast?
Estevan Lucero:
So I think my advice and this probably stems out to all coaches, but especially young coaches, is be your be your authentic self. Be who you are.
I’ll give it a little bit of a personal experience. So when I was doing my internships, I was in a gym that was very what do I wanna say, sterile for lack of a better term. They very, very nose up, high profile clientele, folks with a lot of affluence, things like that. And shoot, I I I was a much
much less soft version of myself right now. I had just come out of college athletics. I was so used to being in locker room with boys and yeah, I was definitely a little rough around the edges and a little challenging and my my tone is coarse and I don’t always use the perfect language in every setting. I wasn’t as good at reading the room. And what ended up happening is I as I was interning, I I I was actually reprimanded a couple of times, yeah, where I had a conversation my closed doors like, hey man, you gotta be really careful with your tone around certain people. And I’m like, hey, I was
just giving Jeff a hard time. Like I’m shooting the shit with him. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. But again, that ruffled some feathers and I had to be real conscious of that. And it it turned me into somebody that I I I didn’t even feel like I knew. I had a hard time looking people in the eye at one point because I was so worried about stepping on eggshells. It it was
It’s I was riddled we’re riddled with anxiety. just worried that I was gonna rub somebody the wrong way and then that was gonna be how they cut me loose. And that continued on through I don’t know,
probably all the way into my first coaching gig where I was like turned into this buttoned up professional, which obviously we still are. There’s still you should always be that at all times, but you should still be able to articulate your authentic self in some way. And over the course of years I was able to again spread my wings and do things my own way and go on a path of self-discovery and recognize the people the person that people gravitated toward was me. You know, the way that I speak to people, the way that the way that I challenge them.
you know, e in my tone and inflection, my humor, all those things are an integral part of like authentic representation of what I stand for. And the more I dove into that and leaned into that, even on my like my social media accounts, the more I had success and the more I had people more or less rally to me. So what I’m not saying is go in there guns blazing as a first time coach and you know rup piss everybody off. I’m not saying that by any means. But if you’re the person who again ha
has maybe leadership capabilities. Okay, don’t be afraid to step forward just a little bit. You know, don’t be afraid to be the person who volunteers for a project. Don’t be afraid to be the person who says, Okay, I’m gonna get that done and I’m gonna accomplish that because it’s gonna make your life easier. Like act act as a a servant leader first and foremost. but do it in your own way. Like you know, this whole life experience is it’s your canvas. You paint it paint it however you want. And I think one of the reasons for our success at Transcend is like when
working in the performance director, yeah, there were some barriers and parameters that I had to stay inside. There was some definitely some guardrails. And now shit, we we have a gym that the walls are painted black. You know, our colors are black and white. And we have these edgy logos and stuff like that. And that’s more of a representation of who I am, who my partner is. And I think people lean into that because they’re like, hey, this is this is cool. This is neat. This is in some cases nostalgic or maybe this is novel.
I I I think that’s one of the reasons people like being around us in a lot of ways is because we are who we say we are. it’s not a false representation of who we think people want us to see.
Connor:
I I love that advice of of being authentic because I had a similar experience of my own internships. And correct me if I’m wrong, like my own experience how how it happened with me is I tried to change who I was and I tried to change it for so long that I almost became convinced that that’s who I actually was, right? And
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
and then eventually it took a couple of my friends to kind of snap me out of it, and then I found a lot more love and joy in coaching. you know, and it was actually
pretty similar experience to yours where, you know, people kind of told me I needed to tone down who I was. And then I I almost became convinced I was like this low confidence person. and then finally I got out of that rut and it really helped me understand that that’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be. And coaching can actually be fun. it’s I don’t have to just fit this mold that other people see. Was it did you have a similar experience to that?
Estevan Lucero:
so very very much so for me it was just i again it was it was reflective in nature where you know I I believe
facility feeling somewhat frustrated or even a little bit out of sorts, disheveled, downtrodden, upset. And I couldn’t really s I didn’t really understand where that void was coming from because I always felt like I was a pretty confident person. And yeah, it it probably took years to unravel that to some degree and break out of that shell just a little bit.
And I I think one of my saving graces is been around I’ve been involved with the commo coaching community at large. Like right now I’m involved with the coach the coaches over at La Cueva and that’s the high school of course I do the performance coaching at.
And just having a community of friends, you know, guys that are like Magnet going through similar struggles and being able to just kinda kick my feet back and be one of the boys and like let loose just a little bit and not feel like so buttoned up, that put me back in touch with who I was.
Connor:
Yeah, a hundred percent. That’s that’s that’s your totem right there would be it would be the other group you can hang out with. Absolutely.
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah, yeah. huh.
Connor:
Well, coach, thank you so much. Seriously, it’s been it’s been great to get to know you. I really appreciate getting to understand the ins and outs of business. Again, because I do feel like a lot of my friends and myself have had you know, false notions about what it really is like to run a business where it feels like it might end up being something where it’s just a few things you have to take care of. And clearly we learned in this episode that is not the case. It’s a lot of different things, but it can be a very rewarding process to undertake.
I’m just curious, you know, if somebody wants to re you know, kind of follow along with your journey, reach out to you, see more about Transcend, what would be the best way to do that?
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah, so you can follow me on my personal account. It’s Coach Stev. like I said, I don’t know if I said this before, maybe at the beginning the podcast, but Stevon’s really hard to say for a lot of people. So Coach Stev is how I’m known. and then of course you can follow our Instagram account. for our athletes, it’s transcend N dot TranscendNM for Instagram. That’s where we feature most of our content. Facebook as well. And then on the adult side of things, it’s called the Forever Athlete. so forever, I think it’s underscore athlete. ’cause we
We do coach a ton of ex-athletes of all kinds, adults who are just looking to get back on the horse and challenge themselves. So you can follow both of our profiles and yeah, if you guys have any questions, feel free free to reach out. You can always email me at stebon at transcend.com or reach out to my social.
Connor:
That’s perfect. Well, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for your time and thank you for coming on.
Estevan Lucero:
Thank you for having me. And I again I want to say thank you to the brand. You guys have been phenomenal every step of the way. I love every piece of equipment guys make. you know, and I and I’m looking forward to your guys’ success too.
Connor:
Well, I appreciate
that. And seriously, I always say this, but it makes it very
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
easy for me to be a podcast host for a company I actually believe in. So it’s
Estevan Lucero:
Yeah.
Connor:
always very cool to hear about the positive feedback. So thank you.
Estevan Lucero:
Good, good.
