Meet Chris Dalton | Owner of F45 Green Mountain

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chris Dalton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, what do you attribute your success to?
We have only had a small taste of success as we are still waiting for our studio to open. The one thing I pride myself and my team on is care. Like the old saying goes, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I have been in the fitness industry for 18 years and lucky to have been brought up by mentors who instilled that exactly. I understand not everyone loves working out like I do and for most people its a chore or their doctor tells them they need to start working out for health reasons. The gym can be intimidating and it’s our job to break that barrier immediately. It’s simple things that make people feel welcomed like greeting them by their name, asking questions about their fitness history and just talking to them so they aren’t standing in the studio alone wondering what they should be doing. The sweetest sound in any language is hearing your name. When you remember someones name after the first time in studio they are blown away. It’s small things like that that will separate us from the rest of the studios in Denver.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
One thing I am proud of is that I stayed with the fitness industry for this long. I’ve had the opportunity to work with multitudes of different owners, bosses and employees that have helped pave my path to where I’m at today. I knew when I was a kid in elementary school that I wanted to own my own gym. Other kids would say things like I want to be a doctor, a fire fighter, etc but I know it was in my blood to own a gym. It wasn’t easy being in fitness this long. Majority of my fitness career was living check to check, no vacations, no insurance and eating chicken and rice out of plastic containers until I grew sick of every condiment known. I missed family and friends weddings and bachelor parties because I didn’t have PTO. There were times I didn’t know what I was going to do and felt stuck. My strength and patience to continue pushing forward goes to my best friend Mark whom I’ve already shouted out. I can remember working with him at his gym back home and he paid for a handful of his employee to go to Chicago Fitness Summit which is one of the largest fitness conventions in the US. I think it was the first key note speaker at the end of the first day. I can’t remember his name but there were close to 400 people in the audience. This man was walking up and down the aisle analyzing the room. He would occasionally comment to audience members to move closer or ask what they learned today. Eventually he got on stage and introduced himself. The first thing he asked was to raise your hand if you could write a check for $5,000……less than half a dozen raised their hands. For me it was a terrifying experience to witness a room of fitness professionals who were all living check to check and eating out of plastic containers like me. The talk was about security and how the majority of fitness professionals work 10-12 hour days, eating the same stuff and not having PTO or enough money to retire. That once we get older it is impossible to continue that lifestyle without a plan. Leaving the conference room I knew I had to figure out how to get myself in a position to become a business owner and not burn myself out training clients all day and night. At that time Orangetheory Fitness was just starting to become popular. Mark and I decided to see if I could get a job coaching there to see how they run things and if we could duplicate it in one way or another. I got an interview after applying every day for two weeks and got the job. It was a great experience and definitely helped me grow outside my comfort zone as you have to be on a microphone and coaching up to 44 members at one time. I quickly started getting more hours and was able to help open a couple studios and become a head coach with my time there. I started to learn the business side and saw an opportunity…the opportunity to buy a franchise. My boss at the time owned to rights to Michigan which was beneficial for me. I networked and found members who wanted to expand their portfolio who had the liquidity and assets that I did not. I must’ve went to my boss 3-4 times with different people wanting to own one. Each time I would learn more and more. Finally I figured everything out. I made three separate business plans with one being what numbers looked like on a lower average, a high average and then actual averages from calling franchise owners across the country, On top of that I had a partner who was ready to go into business with me. This took almost half a year to get everything ready and for what I thought was the last time going to meet my boss to buy into the franchise, he grew tired of me and told me to stop what I was doing and just concentrate on my job and that I’ll never become an owner because I don’t have what it takes. I took that personally and decided I could not work for someone who didn’t believe in my growth. Before I worked for my best friend Mark I actually opened my first business. A partner and myself opened the first CrossFit retail store when CrossFit was still up and coming before you could go to a sporting goods store to get CrossFit shoes and accessories. I didn’t know my partner other than working out together for a year and that the idea was simple and effective. We opened a storefront and in Rochester, Michigan and had customers driving from Canada, Ohio, Indian etc just to come try shoes. The front of our store was a functional CrossFit Box where a customer could try on a shoe and actually squat in it. You could try gloves or wrist wraps and try doing pull-ups on our bar. The word traveled fast throughout the CrossFit community and success was knocking on our door. We even started branding our own equipment through someone we knew in the community that owned his own fabrication company. We started with barbells, dumbbells, squat racks, kettlebells and everything you would want or see in a CrossFit Box. After months of selling bigger ticketed items I started to ask more about where the money was going. My partner at the time had a banking background and took care of all the numbers. I eventually came to find out he was embezzling money the entire time as I was barely making it by just taking a couple hundred dollars cash every week. It was a difficult lesson to learn but I was able to walk away with triple my investment over just two years. Before I moved to Colorado I helped open another F45 studio back home in Michigan. It started out an amazing journey. I was in charge of sales and operations. At the time we were opening F45 in Michigan had basically no brand awareness. I was able to sell over 130 memberships over the phone while our studio was in construction. We opened 5 weeks before Covid happened and unfortunately I did not make it through the down time with the business. These last three things brought me to an all time low especially during Covid. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I started applying to medical sales jobs to get out of fitness. My brother was my saving grace through all of this. He knew I had to leave Michigan and start a new life. He said I could life with him and his family for a couple months and that’s exactly what I did. I moved out here in February 2021 and fast forward a little less than a year I’m exactly where I’ve always wanted to be. I’m blessed to have amazing friends and family who always supported and believed in me. I say this because I want the world to know everything you hear about never giving up on your dreams is true. I am living proof that if you continue to fight and press forward you can make anything happen. I know how cliche I am sounding but it happened to me. All the times I was told to give up or I wasn’t good enough I had someone in my corner to pick me up and help me stay on my path. This is the kind of mentality I have with my business and my team. We will constantly be working to become to best F45 studio in the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh man I am not very exciting at all for this question. I would probably take my friend downtown and eat at all the really good restaurants. I would probably plan this during hockey season to be able to take them to an Avs game. There would for sure be a lot of working out and maybe a trip to the mountains or the hot springs. I am still fairly new to Colorado and haven’t yet explored too much. One thing on my list is to stay the The Stanley Hotel in the haunted room! I am a huge horror movie fan and am very interested to see if that room is really haunted. Besides that maybe a couple coffee shops to work from and/or a trip to Barnes and Noble….yes, the book store.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Without a doubt I would not be where I’m at today without my best friend Mark DuFresne. He’s been there to help pick me up countless times when I was at my worst. He’s helped me better myself throughout my entire life by getting me into reading motivational/business books, teaching me how to change my mindset, paying for me to take Dale Carnegie Business Courses and endless amounts of care and love. Even though we are best friends I still look up to him and consider him a mentor. We both started in fitness at the same small gym over 18 years ago. He has taught me everything I know on how to run a successful gym and how to separate from the rest of the industry. To this day he continues to help and challenge me. I’m beyond lucky to have this man in my life and consider him a brother. It’s ironic I live in Colorado now. We grew up in Detroit and played hockey together. He was always a HUGE Avalanche fan because of Patrick Roy. If you know anything about the rivalry between the Wings and Avs you’ll appreciate this. He would wear his Roy jersey to Wings game and grown adults would throw popcorn at him for wearing it. Now I live in Colorado and am a Avs fan….this doesn’t publish in Detroit, right?

Website: https://f45training.com/greenmountain/home

Instagram: @f45_training_greenmountain @topherdalton (my personal)

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-dalton-864952164/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/F45greenmountain