The 17-Year Timeline to DeFranco’s “Overnight” Success
Released on March 24, 2016
In this week’s special 2-hour edition of the Industrial Strength Show, Joe D. takes his listeners through his “timeline of success”. This timeline reveals the most important decisions, events and dates that have had the biggest impact on making DeFranco’s Gym what it is today. Taking this “trip down memory lane” will give aspiring personal trainers and gym owners a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to “make it” in the fitness industry. You will quickly realize that there is no such thing as an “overnight success”.
Joe concludes the show by sharing his “Top 8 Business Rules” for success in any industry!
SHOW #TIMESTAMPS
08:35 – Joe reads the question that lead to this weeks podcast topic
19:05 – Joe begins his “timeline of success” by talking about his first internship and job
22:50 – Joe creates “DeFranco’s Training Systems, LLC” and opens his first storage closet “gym”
24:55 – Joe launches his website and starts his weekly “ASK JOE” Q&A
29:00 – Joe releases his first product – a VHS tape entitled, “Mastering the Football Combine Tests”
33:50 – Joe’s first major online interview entitled, “The Pro-Maker” is posted on T-Nation.com
35:25 – Joe writes his first article for T-Nation.com entitled, Westside for Skinny Bastards: A modified lifting program for Hardgainers. The article/program becomes one of the most popular training programs ever written.
41:00 – Joe moves his gym out of the storage closet and into a warehouse that he can finally call his own
46:00 – Miles Austin’s agent hires Joe to prepare Miles for the NFL Combine
56:35 – Joe releases his 2nd product, “Super Strength DVD” and it rapidly sells out to an international audience
63:00 – DeFranco’s Youtube channel launches with a video entitled, “Guadango 54 inch Box Jump”
66:35 – The story behind the STRONG documentary
70:10 – Brian Cushing is drafted in the 1st Round of the 2009 NFL Draft
71:40 – Joe moves into his 5000sq ft dream facility
72:00 – Men’s Health magazine names DeFranco’s Gym one of America’s 10 Best Gyms
73:45 – Tim Ferriss features Joe in an entire chapter of his NY Times best-selling book, “The 4-Hour Body”
76:20 – A WWE wrestler by the name of “Paul Levesque” calls DeFranco’s Gym to inquire about training with Joe
84:30 – Onnit CEO Aubrey Marcus pitches Joe the idea of opening a DeFranco’s Gym in Austin, TX
90:05 – Joe’s Top 8 Business Rules for success in any industry!
114:20 – Joe announces this week’s contest/giveaway – Learn how to win a FREE pair of custom “DeFranco Strong” Fat Gripz!
Important Links from the Show
- The Pro-Maker - An Interview with Joe DeFrancoThis was Joe's first major online interview. It really helped build up his audience and bring more traffic to his website.
- Westside for Skinny Bastards - A modified lifting program for "Hardgainers"One of Joe's original online articles. It went on to become one of the most popular programs EVER written.
- Guadango 54 inch Box JumpThe first video ever uploaded to DeFranco's Youtube channel. (It helped turn Mike Guadango into an internet "celebrity" and started an international obsession with box jumping.)
- STRONG: The MovieThe "underground" documentary the helped Joe DeFranco & DeFranco's Gym develop a global following. [Watch the movie online by clicking the link above.]
- The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming SuperhumanCheck out the chapter "Running Faster & Farther" (starting on p. 347) to learn how Joe got Tim Ferriss to shave 3 tenths of a second off his 40-yard dash time and jump 3 inches higher in ONE DAY!
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-The Industrial Strength Show team
Great Podcast Joe and its brilliant to go through your journey it is vey helpful and interesting. You first came up on my radar back in late 2009 when I was 30 and just starting to take steps to make my passion and hobby into my career after taking another path for 12 years after University. You was a great inspiration and showed me another route into this industry I could take than having to leave my job and go and work in a globo gym as a PT which in the UK at the time looked like the only option to take and something I was willing to do. However, no offence to those that do that job but it wasn’t what I wanted to do long term. I invested in your lost secrects of strength the biz files you did with Zach (who also directly by email helped alot in the early days) and this helped a lot. I went through all you Q&A blog posts and invested in many of your products then eventually in 2011 I left my full time job, and opened my first place. It was a massive thing to do we had just moved house and we had a 1 year old boy but I took your advice and started small and debt free in a 600sq feet unit (which always seemed dirty) and in 2013 we moved to our current place which is 2500sq feet with turf. I will always be grateful for the information you have shared over the years and continue to share I really think without it I would not have had the confidence to take the steps I did back in 2011 to open my own place. Don’t get me wrong I am always learning and there is plenty of work to still be done to get Wellness Strength Training were I want it to be but without seeing and reading about you in those early days who knows what I would now be doing.