"The big thing for the CEO is to keep your staff on board with the message and what you are trying to achieve."
Ben Lucas Tweet
Ben Lucas is the director of Flow Athletic, one of Sydney’s most successful and internationally recognised fitness studios. He personally trains Sammy Robinson and Erin Holland to name a few, but the studio has also be visited by the likes of Kayla Itsines, Sam Smith, a few Victoria Secret angels and more
Flow Athletic are well known for being the first to bring the international fitness trends into Sydney, from aqua boxing bags, to nightclub spin, Rexist360 and hybrid workouts as well as the famous Flow After Dark series. They are a well known boutique studio in Paddington who offer PT, spin, run club, pilates, yoga, strength and HIIT to name a few.
Prior to launching Flow Athletic with co-founder Kate Kendall, Ben was an NRL player for the Cronulla Sharks and he ran 3 x fitness studios in Sydney too.
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Table of Contents
Let’s start with a brief introduction first. Introduce yourself to our readers.
Ben Lucas: Hi I’m Ben Lucas, and I am the co-founder and Director of Flow Athletic, which is a fitness and yoga studio based in Paddington, Sydney. We are blessed to have a great membership base, several celebrity clients and now a thriving online platform which came about due to us having to pivot during the lockdowns.
I am a husband and dad of two bubbas. I live in Sydney, I used to play NRL for the Cronulla Sharks and I have run more than 40 marathons.
Our audience is interested to know about how you got started in the first place. Did you always want to become a CEO or was it something you were led to? Our readers would love to know your story!
Ben Lucas: I knew that I wanted to work for myself. In my latter years of playing for the Cronulla Sharks, I opened by own personal training studio through a fitness franchise. The studio became really busy, so I opened two more studios, hired some staff and ultimately retired from my footy career.
I used to start work at 4am, finish at 9pm, clean the whole gym and sometimes I would just sleep in there to get more time to sleep rather than spend my time commuting home.
I really enjoyed being a personal trainer, but I didn’t enjoy being in a franchise system because it meant that I couldn’t be as creative with my business as I would have wanted to be.
I started running to give myself an outlet and something to be excited about. I actually ended up running 35 marathons + ultras in the space of 5 years. During that time, I was getting injured a lot so one of my friends suggested yoga, which is where I came across an incredible teacher, Kate Kendall who is the co-founder of Flow Athletic with me.
I remember telling her how amazing her classes are and encouraged her to go out on her own and start a business. She came back to me days later and said that she will do it if I do it with her.
The concept of Flow Athletic came about because my running performance was improved when I started yoga, and Kate’s yoga was improved when she started training with me, so our studio became all about balance. We tell members that for every strength workout, they should also do a strength and yoga workout too.
The concept really took off. We were at capacity in 2019, but early 2020 lockdowns hit and Sydney was one of the worst hit states for lockdowns.
“Selfmade” is a myth. We all received help, no doubt you love to show appreciation to those who supported you when the going got tough, who has been your most important professional inspiration?
Ben Lucas: A former client of mine, turned mentor, investor and friend Steve Sargent. He has had an incredible business career himself and I have learned so much about him over the years. Values and integrity in business being 2 of his most important lessons.
How did your journey lead you to become a CEO? What difficulties did you face along the way and what did you learn from them?
Ben Lucas: Flow Athletic was a very different beast from the fitness studios that I owned. My learns came in so many forms
– The fit out, it cost a lot more than we budgeted for, but we are really happy with the look and feel of the studio. Now we know what to expect so when we make updates we know what will happen.
– Staff, our team is incredible, but it took us a while to get our hiring methods down pat.
– Community, our business is all about the community and the relationships between our members and our staff. Now if a member is being challenging for no reason, we don’t try to keep them because we want to keep our community happy and strong
– Community events, from challenges to Flow After Dark yoga events, we always have something going on to keep the community engaged and social
Tell us about your company. What does your business do and what are your responsibilities as a CEO?
Ben Lucas: My responsibilities include:
- Programming
- Rostering staff
- Setting up the processes to up skill staff and keep them engaged
- Teaching
- Customer service
- Crisis management, which I never really had to do until covid
- Finances
- Business and financial goal setting and reviews
What does CEO stand for? Beyond the dictionary definition, how would you define it?
Ben Lucas: Being one of the driving forces that keeps the dream alive, and that keeps everyone else on track, engaged and focused.
When you first became a CEO, how was it different from what you expected? What surprised you?
Ben Lucas: I expected to be doing the finances, and organising the classes/ offering but working out how to hire the right people was different. We have it down pat now. We have a great team, most who have been with us for a few years and our members are incredible and so supportive.
There are many schools of thought as to what a CEO’s core roles and responsibilities are. Based on your experience, what are the main things a CEO should focus on? Explain and please share examples or stories to illustrate your vision.
Ben Lucas: The big thing for the CEO is to keep your staff on board with the message and what you are trying to achieve. Having a great outward facing team who work with the clients is key to ensuring everyone gets world-class service and wants to keep coming back.
Of course you need to stay on top of the finances, coming up with new revenue streams, keeping an eye on what is happening in the world so you can pivot and update your services as needed, but keeping people happy in the first place is key. Your members tell others who then become members, so they are the people you need to impress.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Ben Lucas: We kept paying our full team their full wage during the Covid lockdowns. It wasn’t their fault the situation we were in. We didn’t really have the money but believed we would turn it around long term and it would benefit by keeping our team and community together
How would you define success? Does it mean generating a certain amount of wealth, gaining a certain level of popularity, or helping a certain number of people?
Ben Lucas: Being a known business due to the positive comments that people are making about you is success to me. Be it through word of mouth, PR, a speaking gig, you want your business to be thought of positively
Ensuring you have enough money coming in and saved to keep everyone on the payroll is also important
And having members and staff who stay with you for years!
Some leadership skills are innate while others can be learned. What leadership skills do you possess innately and what skills have you cultivated over the years as a CEO?
Ben Lucas: I think two of my innate skills are the ability to make a firm decision when needed and empathy towards my people.
The skills a have learned over the years through modelling leaders I admire, reading and personal development are negotiating skills and how to hire staff.
How did your role as a CEO help your business overcome challenges caused by the pandemic? Explain with practical examples.
Ben Lucas: The pandemic definitely put myself and my team through our paces.
As soon as I saw what was happening in LA, we started planning, and sure enough, a week later Sydney was in lockdown.
We worked hard and fast to get an online solution up so that our instructors could keep teaching and members could keep training. We hosted the classes live to keep things as normal as possible. We started doing PT sessions via FaceTime, we hosted online events and gave the proceeds to charity. We did everything we could to keep things normal.
The online sessions went well, so we have since invested in an online portal which we are selling both to members and to companies which has been a good back up revenue stream for us.
If you were a CEO who is not open to change, it would have been a harder two years. Fortunately we have always tried to innovate every few months from the beginning. In the case of the pandemic, I won’t say it was fun, but at least our mindset was in the right place.
Do you have any advice for aspiring CEOs and future leaders? What advice would you give a CEO that is just starting out on their journey?
Ben Lucas: You may start your business thinking it will run one way, but be open to changing direction or tweaking what you are offering. You need to listen to what your members want if you want to keep them.
Make sure you have a “rainy day” fund. I am so happy we had one or we may not exist anymore
Keep an eye out on the latest tech as some technology may make your life easier if implemented properly.
Thank you for sharing some of your knowledge with our readers! They would also like to know, what is one skill that you’ve always wanted to acquire but never really could?
Ben Lucas: Yes, I wish I was more technologically advanced than I am. My 5 year old knows more about tech than me.
Before we finish things off, we have one final question for you. If you wrote a book about your life today, what would the title be?
Ben Lucas: Easy, Be Your Own Hero. Pre-order now.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ben Lucas for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Ben Lucas or his company, you can do it through his – Instagram
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