Welcome back to the Climbing Business Journal podcast. Today, host John Burgman chats with Josh Haynes. Josh first made waves in the industry as an elite-level climber, crushing top-shelf grades like V14s, 514b’s, 514c’s. But he also worked as a routesetter, which he talks about in this episode, and he had various staff roles at several different gyms. Most recently, he was hired as the new manager of Uplift Climbing in Shoreline, Washington. John and Josh talk about what Josh has gathered from those myriad experiences and how he plans to apply his insights to the managerial role at Uplift. A lot of Josh’s wisdom about climbing gym management can be applied to communication at any staff level and also in any tier of the industry, not just managerial and not just at climbing gyms. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Josh Haynes!
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And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
05:01 – What is Josh Most Excited About at Uplift?
06:42 – Uplift Owner Andrew’s Gym Vision
10:49 – Profitability of Full-Service Gyms
14:37 – More Gyms That Offer Less?
18:44 – Offering All-Encompassing Services and Hard-Core Training
23:20 – Overall Feel of the State of the Industry
26:52 – Industry Trends
37:45 – Recreation and Lifestyle in Climbing
41:17 – Fewer Mentors
47:25 – Gym Responsibility of Members Climbing Outside
51:28 – Balancing Different Staff Groups
59:22 – Bridging the Setter-Manager Gap
01:04:38 – Learning to Manage
01:10:06 – Management Training
01:14:05 – Interviewing Tips
01:19:11 – Firing Tips
01:22:28 – The Word “Culture”
01:27:53 – Making Space for Sub-Communities
01:34:21 – Communication as a Managerial Pillar
01:38:15 – The Socratic Method
01:38:57 – Being Proactive in Customer Service
01:43:38 – Closing
Abridged Transcript
BURGMAN: Josh, thanks so much for coming onto the podcast. I wanted to have you on as soon as I saw the Instagram post that you had been hired as the new manager at Uplift. Specifically, because I was looking at the comments for that social media post and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much stoke for a managerial position, a managerial hire…I want to hear about what it is that makes everybody so psyched.
HAYNES: …I was actually really surprised by the reception of that post, to be honest with you…I was a bit surprised. I mean, it obviously feels really good, but I sort of just assumed the community here would just kind of see me as this random guy coming in, this outsider coming in. And I know that’s not entirely true because I’ve done a lot of work with Uplift in the past, as far as head setting some comps for them and teaching some setting clinics and that sort of stuff. And I used to spend a lot of time here. I used to work for a software company, so I did the whole “work remote/van life” cliche. I would spend most of my summers up in the Pacific Northwest area, and I kind of made Uplift my home gym. So, a lot of people here saw me sitting up there on the couches, working, or climbing and training and that sort of stuff. So, I think more people knew who I was than I expected. And I was surprised by how excited people seemed to be. And now there’s a little bit of pressure that comes along with that to make sure I don’t let everybody down.
Everybody was excited to have you on board at Uplift. What are you most excited about?…
…I’m really excited to get back in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m really excited to finally settle down a bit and put some roots in the ground…Life always has these bunch of different things that lead you to this one moment in time. But to make a long story short, I’ve just known Andrew, the owner, for a while, and I’ve known the gym and the community, and I’ve always really loved the community here, and I love the gym…
…I’m curious to hear what is the overall tone or the overall feel that you get—just the vibe, for lack of a better word—from talking to other managers about the state of the industry right now…How’s everybody feeling about the industry right now?
…I think the general vibe, I think especially at the CWA [Summit] this year, if you went into some of the owner sessions or manager sessions, it was kind of a reoccurring theme of we’re down 30 to 40% from where we were last year. Even the big, mega climbing companies were reporting the same thing. So, I think the vibe wasn’t disappointment or bumness. I mean, obviously there was some of that, but I think it was more, “Okay, how can we flip that script and get it going back uphill faster?” I think in the past you would just wait it out. [Now] it’s like, “Well, this is our gym. What can we do?” So, I think now gym managers and owners are thinking a bit differently and like, “Okay, how can we flip that and help it move up in the right direction faster?”
Also, I think there’s a lot of support that happens when you understand you’re not the only gym going through the same thing. And I think that encourages people to be able to reach out and sort of trade ideas and that sort of stuff. So, I think overall, the vibe, I would say, is positive. I think there are more climbers now than there ever has been, which is a good thing…
…What’s that next thing that’s on the horizon that is going to lead to another uptick, to your point? I don’t know. If we had the answer, we would be billionaires.
I realized I didn’t really do a proper introduction at the beginning of this thing, but I worked for Apple for almost six years. And one of the things that I really learned from Apple and that I think Steve Jobs did really well at and what he hired his team to do is to create products that people wanted but didn’t know they wanted yet. So, originally, they started working on the iPad. That was the first thing, the first tablet thing they started working on. And then as Steve Jobs started playing with it, he’s like, “Oh, man, people would love this as a phone. Scrap the iPad, let’s make it a phone.” And at the time, and I’m paraphrasing his quote, he essentially said, “I saw something that I knew people would want, but they had no idea it would exist yet.” And I think that was the brilliance in him that he was able to sort of, I don’t know if predict is the right word, but he was kind of able to almost manipulate the situation and create something that he knew would be addicting for people.
So, I think the climbing industry, we kind of have this niche in that climbing is cool, it’s outdoorsy, it’s fitness. So, I guess as I think about it, maybe we’re also sort of handcuffed a little bit into fitness trends. During COVID, obviously gyms were shut down and closed, but fitness becomes such a huge thing, like home fitness and all these fitness videos and home workouts. So, as people started easing up the COVID restrictions and people started to get out, they were psyched to go to the gym. I wonder what the increase was after that versus before, just because of that fitness trend kind of skyrocketing a bit. So, I wonder how much of the climbing trends do sort of coincide with actual fitness/CrossFit gyms.
Because really, if you think about the fitness industry, they’ve been dealing with this for years. The Thigh Master comes out, everybody gets psyched and buys a Thigh Master and they go crazy. And then Tae Bo becomes super popular, and everybody swears by Tae Bo and P90X, and then CrossFit and all of these things. So, I think with the fitness industry, they’re able to sort of reinvent what fitness is for that moment of time and create a new trend. Whereas climbing, it’s a bit different in that the climbing is climbing, right? There are different trends as far as speed climbing or competition climbing or more outdoor-style climbing. But it’s hard to create this whole new genre of climbing like P90X did or CrossFit did. And I don’t know exactly where I’m going with that other than just thinking out loud and thinking about the cruxes that climbing gyms and the climbing industry as a whole face.
…You do have more and more people that prefer climbing indoors for all the reasons we just said. There is, I think, a very real, measurable diminishing of mentorship…
You’re completely right. Actually, funny enough, you mentioned it. I was having a conversation with somebody about this a few weeks ago, about just the lack of mentorship in climbing now and my experience. I remember when I started climbing, if I wanted to learn how to lead climb, I had to find somebody to teach me and to mentor me. And the first time, I remember there was a group of guys in Texas, they were all in their 30s and had been climbing for a long time. And I remember getting to meet them in the gym and chatting with them, and they finally invited me outside to go climb one day. And I thought I made it. I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m in!” And I remember, going into it, thinking I knew more than I did because, “Oh, I climb in the gym, I work at the gym,” this and that. And I remember the little things that they would teach me and give me a hard time about, [which] I think really taught me how to manage and respect [the] outdoors a lot more…
Is it the gym’s responsibility to mentor people and prep them? I think in some ways, yes. But when it comes to outdoor [climbing], specifically, that’s a trickier question for me to answer. Because I think if you look at indoor climbing versus outdoor climbing, you’re really breaking it down to indoor climbing is like swimming in a pool, it’s the YMCA or something, and then outdoor climbing is like swimming in the ocean. So, it’s not the YMCA’s responsibility to teach me how to swim in the ocean. They’re just trying to teach me how to swim in general and swim in the pool, and they’re providing safety for the pool. If I’m going to go outside and swim in the ocean, I need to take that responsibility to understand what that means and the elements and all that sort of stuff…
…I do wonder if gyms and maybe gym managers, and maybe you can speak to this, how much they think about, “Gosh, people are coming to this gym…We’re making it pretty easy for them. And I hope that they know when they go outside there is a little more self-reliance…”
I think every gym in the country has this struggle and they have these conversations. And I think at the end of the day, you have to pick your side and go for it. And I do ultimately think it is our responsibility to prep people for the outdoors as much as we can and as much as our insurance companies will let us and as much as legally we can stay protected…And I do know some gyms that offer gym-to-crag classes, where they do some stuff indoors and then they take them outside. And those gyms have to have a special guiding permit, guiding license, and that sort of stuff. So, I do think it works. And I do think it is possible to kind of merge the two. I think it’s just not as easy of a question. Yeah, it’s our responsibility, it is our problem. We are introducing people to climbing and saying, “Climbing is amazing, it’s this wonderful sport. Being outside, there’s nothing better. Okay, good luck out there.” So, I do think we need to somehow figure out a better way to bridge that gap…
…The program director and the routesetter and the customers, they all kind of want the same thing, but I think they all also, in terms of their jobs and what they want out of the experience, it’s a little different. And you, as a manager, have to understand those differences and juggle them all. How do you plan to do it?…How do you listen to all of the wants and needs of all these different departments and try to keep everyone as happy as possible?
…Routesetting in particular, having been a routesetter for so long, you ultimately, in order to really be a successful routesetter, you really do have to learn how to check your ego and just leave it behind. And you have to learn how to hear and listen to all these suggestions and then weed through them and have conversations to decide, “Okay, yeah, we do need to add this foot or turn that hold.” So, I think in a really strange way, that helps prepare people to manage these varying parts of the gym, to oversimplify it. But I think for me in particular, I really try to view management as more of mentorship, to kind of get back to mentoring.
And my goal as a manager is to help mentor and prep my staff to be successful at life, whatever it is they choose to do, whether that’s in the climbing industry, whether they step out and go to another job. I want them to be ready to be able to have these tools to be successful…
I was a lead creative for Apple, and basically it’s a fancy way of saying I was a teacher or an instructor, more or less, for Apple. So, I taught employees how to use Apple software, Apple hardware, how to sell stuff, how to handle customer service issues. I taught customers how to use Apple software, how to make movies and edit movies, and all that sort of stuff. And Apple’s whole method of teaching is the Socrates method of asking questions to discover the answer versus just giving the answer…So, I don’t take it to that extreme when I manage, but I try to keep that same principle in mind in that I try not to just provide answers based on experience…
It sounds like, if I had to listen to this, I would say, “Okay, a lot of this is about creating a culture, making sure people fit into that culture, and if they don’t, letting them go and being firm about it.” And yet you said that you are shy about using the word culture. Can you expound on that a little bit?
I don’t like the word culture simply because I feel it’s become a product at this point. And I’ve always had these pet peeves about power words. And it’s something too, when I interview, people just love to throw power words, like, “Oh, community, passion, I thrive under pressure,” that sort of stuff. Which is cool, it sounds good; these are big corporate words that you almost have to say. But then I really try to push, “Okay, what does that mean? What does thriving under pressure mean to you? What does community actually mean to you as a person?”
So, I think culture, it’s sort of like when the world went through this big eco-friendly phase of recycle, reuse, repurpose. And we’re still obviously in that phase. And I’m a huge proponent of that. And, like I said, I work for Flashed, and that’s one of the things that’s one of our number one, primary focus is how do we create these products and be as eco-friendly as humanly possible. And the struggle we have there is that we don’t talk about it enough. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do, but we don’t toot our own horn…What I’ve seen a lot of companies do—and I’m not speaking for Flashed by any means, it’s my personal observation—is that I think the term is greenwash, to where, “Okay, I’m going to stick my earth-friendly poster on the wall, and that’s my part for the environment,” but you’re not actually doing anything to help the environment. So, I feel like “culture” has taken on that moniker, where it’s almost become this product that gyms are trying to sell versus actually trying to create a truly welcoming and genuine environment…
