Clay Clark | Peter Taunton | Meet the Founder of SnapFitness.com & the Man Who Has Successfully Sold 4,000+ Franchise Locations Worldwide Including: SnapFitness.com, 9Round.com, NauticalBowls.com, etc.

Audio Transcription

Country singers Tim McGraw and his wife Faith Hill are going to play the XL Energy Center this weekend, but before they go ahead and do that, they’re going to be at a benefit on Lake Minnetonka to raise money for families of military members. It is a home, it’s at the home rather, of the owner of the Minnesota-based Snap Fitness. WCCO’s Jennifer Marilee found out why he decided to open up the private show to boaters. The stage is nearly set for Grammy award-winning singer Tim McGraw. The country crooner will play for 400 on Sunday in what’s being called Liberty on the Lake. This is a snap fitness event but the benefactors Folds of Honor and Folds of Honor when you boil it down it’s about paying for education of the children of families of fallen soldiers. Snap Fitness owner Peter Tauten serves on the board of the nonprofit. He brought together his passion for philanthropy with a new partner in business and fellow supporter of veteran causes Tim McGraw. The concert venue is set on Townton’s lakefront estate on Palmer Point. We wanted to make sure that this event it felt exclusive for all of our guests. The show will raise nearly $200,000 for scholarships. The need is huge. All that stays in Minnesota for Minnesota families. These people have made sacrifices and in some cases the ultimate sacrifice and it recognizes their loved one for what they did for our country. In the spirit of raising awareness, Towton decided to open the event up to whoever can make it on the water. So we promoted it saying, look, come by boat. We spent a lot of money putting speakers along the shoreline so acoustically they’re going to experience the concert as well. We designed the stage as you see where Tim can very easily turn around face the lake crowd. Jennifer Merrilee, WCCO 4 News. And we’ve heard of people who plan to park their boats tomorrow to get a good spot on the water. Now the event is not until Sunday. It goes from 1130 until 3 o’clock, with Tim Grah on stage around 130. Palmer Point is near the southwest corner of Lake Minnetonka, and that will be the place to be. We have a lot more information on Folds of Honor and the good work they do at wcco.com slash links. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was studying business statistics, right, which was hard for me anyway, and I remember closing my book and I looked at my twin brother and I said, I quit. And it ended up being one of the best things I’m glad I didn’t because you meet a friend and they’re like, Oh, so where’d you go to school? You know, they’re kind of asking where you went. I’m like, I went to the school of hard knocks. I would rather be street smart than book smart any day, and I learned a lot the same way you did. My dad, with his small grocery store, when I was eight years old, he gave me the opportunity to sell popcorn in front of his grocery store. 25 cents a bag, so every Saturday you’d see me there, and then at the end of the day, we’d pay off the popcorn and oil, and then my dad would take half and we would take half. I could never repay him for the education my dad gave me. It’s so valuable. He taught me how to work. I picked up a racket when I was 13 and it was that racquetball was a sport to me that came easy to me, right? So by the time I was living in Orlando, Florida. The club was losing money and they said, hey Peter, if you come back and run this club for us, we’ll pay you $16,000 a year, but we’ll give you an opportunity to buy us out with the profits that the business generates. So for me, that was the opportunity that I needed. I had to get creative. I started bartering. So I went to the carpet store in town and I said, tell you what, I don’t have any money, but I have memberships. How about if you give me carpet and I’ll give you memberships for all your employees? And to my surprise, many of them said, okay. Slowly the membership base began to grow. And over a matter of four years, the business went from losing 200 grand a year to making $200,000 a year. I went right back to the bank, got another loan, built another club. Now I had two clubs paying one loan. So you know what, when you start with nothing, you’re fearless. Crazy, a lot of your buddies are probably still up in St. Cloud. St. Cloud, hey Peter, let’s go party, let’s this, that. I mean, it’s the typical life of a 22-year-old. And I remember when I came into the club, I remember I had an all-staff meeting and I said, hey, tomorrow we’re going to clean. The next day I come to work and before I’m getting ready to start cleaning, there’s probably 40, 50 people there. About three or four of them step forward, speaking on behalf of the group. And they said, hey, Peter, we just want you to know we don’t clean. Okay, that’s not what we do. In other words, that’s not in our job description. I look at them, you talk about a character-building moment. I take a step back. I don’t know half of their names, right? I’ve been there all of two days. And I said, and you also don’t have a job. I had to do it, right? And those were character-building moments, and I filled in the voids where I had to. But I tell you what, that’s how we were able to grow that membership base so fast, because I said, you know, when people come in, we’re gonna call them by name, this club is going to be clean, and we’re going to deliver on our promise, helping people get fit. I took the one club and I built it into six clubs. These are clubs with indoor pools, racquetball, aerobic studios, they were big clubs. I sold them, and what it got me to do, it got me to think about, what if? So I said, asked myself, what if I eliminate racquetball courts? What if I eliminate aerobic studios? What if I eliminate the swimming pool and child care? All of it. So this club that was normally 40,000 square feet was suddenly three, four thousand feet. Instead of having 50 employees, I had two, right? The unit level economics came in place. So I built one club and in 90 days, I sold enough memberships in 90 days to cash flow the business for the year. And that was the starting point of what today is known as Snap Fitness with a couple thousand locations around the world and then multiple other brands that we’ve developed since then. Did I know at that time I was going to build one of the largest franchises in the world? Of course not. Your vision of success, now that you’re here, you have it, you got your cars and you got your beautiful home, is it what you think or is there some things, you know, with the success you’ve had, things, you know, maybe you’d do differently or? or I’ve never been lonelier in my life than I am right now. Which as crazy as that sounds, I’ve never been lonelier. And when people say money can’t buy you happiness, it’s the truth, there is so much truth in that. I pinch myself every day, I walk outside this beautiful home and my beautiful home in Florida, or when I’m boating or playing, whatever I’m doing, I say, how did I get here, right? And why me, God? Why, what is your plan for me? But you need to have someone to share it with. That’s one part of it. And then living life with purpose. What’s the rest of my life look like? It looks like diversity. I love my lodge in Africa, in the Serengeti, and trying to do good there, trying to make a dent in anti-poaching. I could show you some of the most inhumane videos of poaching that you can imagine. Literally, you’ll be in disbelief of what it is. It is a lot of work yet to do, for sure. You have that presence to you. People, you know, you’re good leaders. People will want to follow you. The more people see you doing things, the more people will follow on. Then they’ll do it, and people will follow them. I hope you’re right. You know what? I’m a really passionate guy. Hopefully, when people are hearing what I’m saying, I’m just hoping that they can grab little life lessons along the way. Being an entrepreneur is getting in there every day, spitting in your palms and going after it, chasing it down every day. And win or lose doesn’t matter. You know, I always say, if you haven’t failed in business, you’re not trying hard enough. Failing is part of growing. Pain is part of growing. And that’s not only in business, that’s in your personal life as well. And I can’t stress it enough, that it’s, don’t be afraid to fail. Liberty on the Lake is always going to be an event to raise money for causes, worthy causes. I’m going to have it right here. There’s not a better place, there’s not a more beautiful piece of property. Just the way, being out on this peninsula, I mean, imagine today, they expect over a thousand boats on the lake. Most of these boats have between eight and 10 people on them. So you’re going to have 10 to 15,000 people just on the lake alone watching this concert, let alone the 600 people here. And if we can bring awareness to causes, boy, what a great way to do it. First and foremost, it’s great talent, raising money for a great cause, and then always making it available to the lake. I want the people on the lake to have as much of a concert experience as all of our special guests do. It’s my pleasure here to bring up my friend, Mr. Tim McGraw. Tim, come on up, my brother. Tim is going to play at our Twin Cities Summer Jam next year. It’s the third week in July every year for the next 20 years. And he believes in giving back He believes and you know what? I’m gonna live my life with purpose because he’s been given a gift and he takes that gift to help other people How do you want to live How do you want to live this life? What’s your legacy look like is it is it singing or is it the differences you make in people’s lives? And how did you give people a leg up? How humble and kind were you and that is that is what it’s about and it doesn’t matter if you’re worth $10 billion or worth $2. So Liberty on the Lake, it’s about that. It’s about great worth $10 billion or worth $2. So Liberty on the Lake, it’s about that. It’s about great talent, great concert, great musicians, raising money for unbelievable causes.