FOLLOWING THE GAME PLAN

When AFL superstars Taylor Adams and Levi Greenwood aren’t fighting it out on the field, they’re doing it at one of the pair’s 12RND Fitness clubs.

AFL superstars are turning heads off the pitch.

The Collingwood midfielders have amassed a solid resume on the sporting field, but it’s their work in the business arena that is turning heads.

In the high-pressure environment of professional sport, careers can be cut short in an instant, with the threats of injury, form and fatigue looming large.

It’s a known fact that the sporting dream doesn’t last forever, which is precisely why Collingwood players Taylor Adams and Levi Greenwood were on the hunt for a long-term opportunity.

A chance encounter at a 12RND Fitness club on the Gold Coast planted the seed for Levi and it wasn't long before the penny dropped.

“We thought it’d be a great way for Taylor and I to get into business and set ourselves up post-footy,” Levi explains. “At the time, there were only a few open in Victoria so we knew we were onto something.”

The boxing and strength-training franchise seemed like a perfect fit for the two athletes. With a focus on team training in a sporting environment, 12RND has captured the imagination of many ex-sport stars and fitness fanatics.

However, like all good franchisees, Taylor and Levi approached the opportunity with reserved excitement. They knew that while the business had potential, it needed to be a long-term investment that fitted with their already packed schedule. Luckily for Taylor, one training session was all it took for the fitness nut to get hooked.

“As soon as we came across 12RND, we just knew we were onto a winner and were confident that we could make a club work,” Taylor explains.

“I immediately loved the concept, loved the training, the professionalism of the fitout, the fact that there’s a coach in every workout, the variety, the boxing, and especially the strength and conditioning.”

DRAWCARD

Taylor says the real drawcard that inspired him to take the leap was seeing the parallels between his professional sporting career and the 12RND model.

“I’ve grown up involved in team sports, so I loved the fact that we could do something in health and fitness that offered a team environment where I could help people achieve their goals from one workout through to long-term results as an ongoing member,” he says.

It was an appeal that Levi echoed.

“At the start, the concept was the biggest drawcard, the no fixed class times and the fact that you got a full body workout in under 45 minutes; I knew it would be perfect for time-poor people in Melbourne,” he says.

The pair got started on their initial Port Melbourne studio, launching in May of 2019, with Levi revealing the venture was anything but a passive investment.

“In the early days we put in a lot more than we expected to, working on the floor quite a bit at the start to get things into operation as we were finding our staff and to make sure we fully understood our product,” he says.

“The more we got involved, the more we could see and feel that team environment with not just our staff but also our members, where we all work together and create a tight-knit environment.”

Things have certainly changed since then, with the Collingwood superstars slowly stepping back as the AFL season kicked on.

MANY BALLS IN THE AIR

With Taylor and Levi spending up to 45 hours at the football club per week, the challenges of getting your body right while launching a new business were very real.

“It can be difficult, but we came into this prepared, knowing that opening a new business meant that we would need to be as involved as possible regardless how tired or fatigued we may have been from games,” Taylor says.

Employing a great team of staff and managers that they could trust when times get busy was critical, but so too was the reliance on each other

“I think it's important that we’ve had each other,” Levi says. “Throughout some of the uncertainties at the start especially. We weren’t 100 per cent sure when we could actually open and our club opening ended up coinciding with our football preparation, but we made the necessary sacrifices along the way to make it happen.”

“The reality is that we don’t get a lot of free time during the football season, so unfortunately we don't get to be as involved in the clubs as we’d like to be, but we remain highly involved behind the scenes, working to ensure the club services our members as best as possible,” Taylor explains.

The pair are in the club at least twice a week either working out, visiting staff or overseeing operations. Additionally, the co-owners are constantly in contact with

staff and members through email, phone and group messages, however Levi says you can’t underestimate the importance of being present.

“The reason we started this business was to be a part of it so it’s important for us to remain involved,” he says.

FIGHTING FIT

While Taylor and Levi are a model fit for the 12RND system, they aren’t the only celebrities backing the business. Amatuer boxer Taylah Robertson, AFLW player Jessy Keeffe and Brisbane Bandits star Logan Wade are all involved with the brand, however its celebrity status comes straight from the top.

Along with being the face and proverbial colour-scheme for the brand, four-time world boxing champion Danny Green also co-founded the business with entrepreneur Tim West back in 2016.

The influx of professional athletes to the brand hasn’t come through deals or discounts though, with West revealing that much like Danny, Taylor and Levi’s involvement was a project of passion.

“Levi and Taylor have got involved, like Danny because of their advocacy, not because they’ve been given territories or business opportunities,” he says.

“It’s because they, like us, believe that there is a big enough percentage of the population that would love to play professional sport if they were skilled enough or if they had the time.”

Believing in the system is one thing, but having a dedicated franchisor on hand to provide support is another, particularly for two business newbies.

“The most challenging part is taking the leap of faith where you decide to do it and just go ahead and do it. We’re fortunate that we have a lot of great people around us that are willing to help,” Taylor says.

“The opportunity to invest into an already established, successful franchise network has actually been one of the biggest motivators behind going with 12RND; that you weren’t going about business starting from scratch.”

“Coming from an athlete background, owning a 12RND club feels like a natural progression – it’s a high-performance business and on top of that you have the team environment in club with your members,” Levi says. “It makes it an easy decision once you know what you’re getting into.”

NEW VENTURES

If playing professional sport has taught the two Collingwood superstars anything, it’s that hard work breeds opportunity, which is an ethos they’re grabbing with both hands.

Less than a year after launching their first 12RND studio, Taylor and Levi are backing it up with a second studio at Point Cook, but this time around, they have the franchise fundamentals down pat.

“Our Point Cook club came off the back of a fair bit of research of the suburb,” Taylor says. “There’s a lot of development with young families and young professionals, which matches the 12RND audience perfectly.”

“We had a plan all along to have more than one 12RND club, because we have the support of our business partners and are still focusing on our footy, we wanted to build our business to become self-sustaining where we have a network of 12RND clubs that we could all float between, enough to keep us all busy,” Levi explains.

So with two clubs under their belt and a few years of footy left in the body, what’s next for the Collingwood champs?

“Our plan is to keep expanding, we love what we’re doing and we’re definitely looking at opening a third 12RND club in the new year,” Taylor says.

“We’re always up for a challenge,” Levi reveals. “We’re very driven people and have been in a competitive environment for a long time, so if it takes 10 clubs to help us continue with that momentum and maintain that stimulation to avoid complacency then that’s what we’ll do.

“At the end of the day, we trusted the process, product and the system, and just knew to follow the game plan.”