This week on The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with Leah Drury and Lindsey Miller Neal, the co-founders of Battle Republic. Battle Republic is a fitness boxing studio with locations in Homewood, Hoover, and now Tuscaloosa. Leah played basketball at Alabama and coached in the WNBA. Lindsey spent 14 years at Zoe’s Kitchen, where she was acting CFO while the company scaled to 240 restaurants, and she now runs an accounting business for small business owners. They have been friends since they were kids growing up, and they are refreshingly honest about what it takes to run a company with a friend.

The conversation gets into how they hire, which starts with character and gets to kettlebell technique later. They talk about building community in a dark room where nobody is talking, why they don’t require members to own gloves, and what the red light and the blue light at the end of class are actually doing. They also get into growth: what COVID taught them a year into the business, why you cannot pay the bills at your first location with the money from your second one, and how they decide when to trust the data and when to trust their gut.

Small Business Growth Topics Covered in This Episode

What a first visit to Battle Republic actually looks like
Why the workout room is dark, and what that does for new members
How a 45-minute class balances strength and cardio without a plateau
Functional kettlebell training and why it carries into daily life
Why gloves are included and wraps cost $15
Hospitality as a business model, not a nicety
Hiring for character first and coaching skill second
Handwritten notes, milestones, and the systems behind them
Building community in a room where nobody is talking
The red light and blue light at the end of class
Running community events quarterly instead of constantly
Keeping three studios consistent on workouts and playlists
What scaling Zoe’s Kitchen to 240 restaurants taught Lindsey
Why she started an accounting business for small business owners
The case for going into business with a friend
Why you cannot pay for location one with location two
Balancing data and gut instinct in an expansion decision
What signing commercial leases teaches you the hard way

Mentioned in This Episode

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Connect with Leah Drury and Lindsey Miller Neal

Leah Drury and Lindsey Miller Neal are the co-founders of Battle Republic, a fitness boxing studio with locations in Homewood, Hoover, and Tuscaloosa. Leah played basketball at the University of Alabama and coached in the WNBA. Lindsey spent 14 years at Zoe’s Kitchen, where she was acting CFO, and she also runs an accounting business for small business owners.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Below is the full transcript of this episode of The Localist with Leah Drury and Lindsey Miller Neal of Battle Republic. This transcript is provided for accessibility and SEO.

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Carrie (00:11): Welcome to The Localist, a podcast for small business owners where we talk about the highs and lows of building community through entrepreneurship. I’m your host, author of “The Localist” book and small business consultant, Carrie Rollwagen. The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia. Infomedia is a digital strategy company where I work as senior vice president. At Infomedia, we help small businesses get big results online. On today’s podcast, we’re talking with Lindsey Miller Neal and Leah Drury. Lindsey and Leah are friends, and they are also co-founders of Battle Republic. Battle Republic is a really amazing fitness boxing gym. They have locations in Homewood, in Hoover, and now in Tuscaloosa. They really craft an amazing experience, and we’re going to talk today about exactly how they do that. How do they hire staff? How do they build community? How do they approach their workouts? Lindsey and Leah are intentional about everything they do. We say that a lot on the podcast, and I love that they share the behind-the-scenes of how they actually make things happen, because if you have been to a small business, or you’re running a small business, you know that they don’t just happen on their own. We also get into how their backgrounds are so relevant to what they do today. Leah played college basketball, and she also coached in the WNBA. And Lindsey was CFO of Zoe’s Kitchen while they were in the process of going public. So we have the coaching side, and also the accounting and the business side, and we talk about how those things complement each other. We go into whether or not you should start a business with your friend and what you should think about if you’re going to do that. We talk about what it’s like to build a portfolio of businesses in addition to starting one, and we really drill into how marketing, branding, hospitality, and community can help, no matter what business you’re trying to build. This was a really fun conversation for me. I hope it is for you as well.

Carrie (02:12): Welcome to the podcast.

Lindsey (02:14): Thank you.

Carrie (02:15): I’m super excited to have you on. The more research I did, the more I found out about things that you do, so there’s a lot to talk about. But I wanted to start off for people listening. Can you describe the experience of somebody coming to Battle Republic, from signing up to getting in the car to what you want them to experience, so that people get an idea for what the business is?

Leah (02:40): Absolutely. I think we always want people to know it’s scary when you go to a new place and you try something new. So hop in the car. Just come. Come afraid. Come scared. Just come. Because as soon as you walk through our door, you’ve already done the hardest part, and that’s showing up. When you get there, you’re going to feel safe. You’re going to feel seen. We’re going to love on you. We want people to come just as they are. A lot of times people say, “I’ve got to get to a certain level before I can go there.” No. That’s the whole point of us being what we are. We want you to come as you are.

Carrie (03:10): That’s such a big part of owning anything fitness related. People feel like they have to get in shape to go to the thing, and you’re like, that’s literally what we do.

Leah (03:18): I say this all the time. You don’t go to a doctor once you get well.

Leah (03:25): So when you come in, what’s cool is we’re going to meet you right there. We’re going to talk you through everything. We’re going to get you set up for class. The coach is actually going to take you in the room before class starts and give you a breakdown, show you everything. What’s nice is it’s a dark room, so nobody’s watching you except our coach, to make sure you don’t do anything to get hurt. We tell you the first time, take it all in, take it nice and slow. Class is a good combination of strength and cardio. It’s about 50% of both. You’re going to get some great cardio in, moving at your pace, and we really suggest taking it slow when you first start. You’re going to get some strength in, and every day looks different. That’s the purpose of it. People might not know a lot about fitness, but they hear the word plateau, and that’s what nobody wants to do. Our workouts are intentional so that you don’t plateau, and so that we truly set you up to live a longer, healthier life. You walk out being the badass that you were created to be. That’s our goal.

Carrie (04:25): When people come in, they don’t have to have equipment, right? It’s been a little while, but I just came in. They give you the gloves, and even wash the gloves.

Lindsey (04:36): Absolutely. We do require wraps.

Leah (04:39): We sell those, though. They’re $15 and they’re yours to keep. Those are going to protect your knuckles and protect your wrists. You take those home with you and you bring them back. But our gloves come every time with the class. We clean them really well in between classes. They’re not these stinky, gross things. They’re actually really badass and look super slick. Those come all the time, so you just come with whatever you’re comfortable working out in. We take care of the rest for you.

Carrie (05:01): How did you decide to do that? Some gyms sell those things. A million years ago I went to a fitness kickboxing gym. I won’t call them out. I don’t even know if they still exist. They’re not a local business. You got hard pressed to join as soon as you came in. You had to buy all the stuff, and then you’re kind of like, well, I already bought this stuff, so I guess I have to come back. How did you decide you’d rather not focus on that instead of pressuring people?

Lindsey (05:36): I think hospitality is really at the forefront of what we do, and that’s very different and unique in the industry to some extent. We wanted things to be convenient for people. You’re running around, dropping your kids off, going to work, getting your ass kicked during the day. It’s time for you to come kick a little ass, and to not have to worry about, did I grab everything that I need? We wanted to just have that there, because working out and making time for yourself isn’t always easy as it is. We wanted to make it as easy as we could.

Carrie (06:08): I like looking at it that way. You have so much stuff in your head, and you pack your gym bag and think, oh no, I forgot my gloves. Not having to think about that is interesting. From what I’ve read, you think about the business in a different way than a typical pure fitness gym. Did you see other gyms doing it that way, or did you do it the other way at first and realize you didn’t want to? It seemed like you built this to serve what you wanted.

Leah (06:55): We knew from the beginning. We had never been to anything like what we wanted. But there are a lot of different gyms and a lot of different concepts that did things we liked, so it was, let’s pull this together. What do we want to be about? It’s way bigger than fitness, and we knew that from the very jump. We wanted to be this place where people could come and truly let go of everything that’s going on. Let it out on a bag. What boxing does for you mentally, it helps reduce stress and anxiety by 40 to 50%. It gives you this confidence, and it’s very empowering. We wanted this place where it was positive, it was upbeat. We speak life over you, because life is hard. We all have our battles. That’s where the name came from. We wanted a place where you could come in, you could fight your battles, and you could walk out strong and capable, knowing you’ve got this. So thinking about that, what does that look like? That’s where we took that approach.

Carrie (08:00): What are some of the things you do specifically for hospitality? You mentioned you don’t have to bring your own gloves. What else are you doing where you either started that way or noticed a pain point you could solve?

Lindsey (08:24): Everything we do is with intention. Some of it we knew from the jump, and some of it you learn along the way. Even the way we’ve thought about what people read when they see Battle out in the world, even on our website, is to connect to it emotionally and mentally, and not just from a physical standpoint. A lot of times the physical part is what is intimidating or hard for people, but we have to have it to keep our health. So how can we tie it all together so that it makes it a much easier yes to walk in the door? Even what you see out in the world about the brand and the concept is very intentional. They say you can’t scale human experience, but you can put some process around it. We hire for a specific kind of person who is passionate about seeing people and making people feel warm and welcome. That Southern hospitality that we grew up on is a big part of how we hire. And then there are the steps we walk people through to make sure they have a lot of information and education, so they have the best experience and feel the best they can about themselves when they walk out.

Lindsey (09:30): We’re really big on milestones, and I know a lot of fitness places are, but we’ve gone to great lengths to notice when someone’s going through a tough time or a celebratory time in their life, and to be alongside them. And then to recognize milestones in a way that people deserve. A lot of people don’t want to be recognized, innately, but they still deserve to be. So we have a lot of intention around the ways that we see people.

Carrie (10:13): One of the people who works here at Infomedia has come for a long time, and she was giving me a ride the other day. I noticed a card in there that showed how many classes she’s gone to, and I had no idea she’d been going so much. It is cool to see that. And it’s not just for women, but I would guess it’s primarily women who are members. Is that right?

Leah (10:44): About 70/30.

Carrie (10:46): I was going to say, especially women are not recognized a lot in life, so I think that would speak to a lot of that we-see-you kind of thing.

Lindsey (10:57): And handwritten notes have been a part of what we do from the beginning.

Leah (11:01): We write a lot of notes. It’s the best. When you get a handwritten note that’s intentional, you’re like, whoa.

Carrie (11:07): Well, nothing says I didn’t use AI like handwriting notes.

Lindsey (11:16): That personalization, writing a note that isn’t just canned. Every one is written especially for that person, whether it’s their first time or it’s a milestone.

Carrie (11:27): That takes a lot of organization, because you have to know how many times this person comes and what their milestones are. And even training people how to write a note.

Lindsey (11:44): And hiring people who innately want to do that. They love it. It’s one of their favorite things they get to do, acknowledging people. People who love to take care of people seem to find us, which is a pretty big deal. We’re very fortunate.

Carrie (12:04): What about your coaches? What do you look for in coaches?

Leah (12:08): They have to have some knowledge, and they have to be able to lift well and demonstrate. But there are so many things we can teach. We can’t teach if a person is good or not. We have a pretty extensive interview process, and we keep our circle really tight because our culture is everything. So we are very careful with who we let in. Once you get through the interview process, you’re in. We can train you. We can perfect the kettlebell stuff. We can perfect the boxing aspect. But I can’t help train you to be a better person. Truly, that’s the biggest thing. Are you a good person or not? The other stuff is easy. It’s easy for somebody to write a note to somebody they see going through a tough time. That’s who they are.

Lindsey (12:58): And a lot of people were clients with us before they were coaches. They saw how it impacted their life, and they have a desire to impact others. That’s a big thing we’re looking for.

Carrie (13:10): It is amazing how those little things happen. Even here at Infomedia, we read “Unreasonable Hospitality.”

Lindsey (13:18): It’s on our Homewood front desk. That’s a big part of our mentality too.

Carrie (13:23): And we hired kind of that Dreamweaver role. It was the person who met you at the front desk. He already worked here in another job, but he just is that kind of person. It is amazing to see. You’re having a tough day, and he’s washed some strawberries and left them in the kitchen, and you’re like, oh my gosh. It’s the littlest things, but it makes a huge difference. If you trained me to do that job, I might be okay at it, but I’m just not always seeing those things. So in the hiring process, it’s more like, are you naturally seeing these? And let’s develop that.

Carrie (14:07): And as far as teaching the workout, you both learned this for the business, right?

Lindsey (14:17): I still don’t coach. They don’t have me do that, don’t worry. We do not have a background in it. She obviously has a strong fitness and sports background, and a lot of that ties into it. But this in particular, we learned from scratch.

Carrie (14:34): Is that different, because you have a lot of background in professional basketball? Is it different to work with people who are doing this for fitness, or was that natural?

Leah (14:45): It’s a shift in a sense, but we’re still doing the same thing. We’re just not applying it to a basketball court. Now it’s, hey, we’re trying to live strong. We want to live well. My background, I studied it in college. It’s what I’ve studied my whole life. So it is a little different, but it’s still helping people become their best selves, whatever their best self looks like.

Carrie (15:10): Tell me about crafting the workout, because it isn’t just come and hit a bag. There’s definitely way more to it.

Leah (15:20): This is one thing we are very intentional about. You shouldn’t have to go to four different places to get a good workout in and to train everything your body needs. We want to make sure every day looks very different. If you go to the doctor, they’re going to tell you you need strength and you need cardio. Those are two things you’re going to need, and you’re going to get both of those in 45 minutes.

Leah (15:33): For strength we use a kettlebell, and it’s functional strength. Our bodies don’t just go forward and backward. We go side to side. We twist. We rotate. We stabilize. There are a lot of things we do in our daily lives that we need to be strong at. How often do you go pick something up and put it over your head, and then it’s, oh, my back. So we train so that everyday life and these movements we do, we’re not just tweaking our back. We’re kicking ass when we’re doing things, and when we find ourselves winded, our bodies recover quickly. One day we’re going to be picking up heavy weights. The next day we’re going to be picking up light weights, and by the end of it that light weight is going to feel heavy. There’s a reason for it. Some days it’s super fast. Some days we’re slow and controlled. There’s a reason behind every single thing we do. The nice thing is you don’t even have to think about it. You just come in and know you’re getting everything you need.

Carrie (16:38): You have an amazing video on your Instagram, and probably TikTok, that demonstrates exactly what you’re saying. I think it’s pinned, so if anybody’s listening, you can go see it. It shows a side by side of you doing that movement in the gym and then using that movement in real life. I knew that already, but watching the video unlocks something else.

Lindsey (17:13): It’s real. I’m a lot more of a user of the product, because as we said, don’t put me on the stage. That is not my gift in life. I want efficiency too, and I think most people do. Forty-five minutes to move well in the stuff that I do every day, and things that serve me outside of that room, is really important to me. One, I have decision fatigue. I do not want to figure it out. I want you to figure it out. Leah and the team have figured it out. Great. I’m going to go in there, do what you tell me to do, make sure I do it as hard as I can, because the results aren’t there if I don’t. And then I’m going to walk out and go apply it, instead of doing a workout that maybe doesn’t even serve me that well. It goes back to honoring people’s time and convenience and trying to make things as good as we can for people from start to finish.

Carrie (18:23): Can we talk about community building in a gym? My husband owns a jujitsu gym, so I’ve done a lot of reading about how fitness is one of the places community is really built in our culture, which is not great at community. It’s one of the few places you can go where you may not have the same beliefs as somebody, you may have very different interests or lives, but you can actually bond. I think that’s true of Battle Republic. I’ve been there and seen people in the lobby who I know in real life, and they’re very passionate, and they go to these same classes and meet the same people. I was really interested in how you develop that, particularly because the workout itself is in a dark room. You’re not chatting. You’re not using your phone. So how do you develop community?

Lindsey (19:21): When you’re doing hard things beside people, there’s a bond that forms no matter what you’re doing in life. I think it’s inevitable. If you build that, it’s going to happen. There are so many people from different walks of life who have become friends. One thing we really pride ourselves on is that you will see all kinds in the building, and we love that. Leah says she thinks that’s what heaven’s going to look like. If you have a hospitality-forward environment, when people walk in and the team is leading with that, people are going to be a lot more open to getting to know the person beside them, who they’re literally going to battle with. That’s step one in day to day.

Leah (20:05): It sets the tone. There are so many different walks of life, and what’s cool is they naturally start talking. These are people who most likely would never cross paths, and if they did, they wouldn’t have a conversation. So people are learning all these different things, and it’s the coolest thing, because that’s when we grow. We’re outside of our comfort zone. We’re seeing somebody we wouldn’t normally run into, and now you’re talking and you’re learning from each other. We have such an amazing community. These people who walk in our doors are such a blessing to us. They are true badasses. We have so many OGs who have been coming for a long time, and honestly, a lot of times we need to step out of the way, because they come in and they’re the ones who grab that newbie and make sure they feel at home. They have pride in showing them around their gym. It’s really organic. When you set the tone and the culture with your staff, they say everything starts at the top and flows down. As soon as you walk in the door, the tone is set, and it just builds that place to grow.

Lindsey (21:18): A lot of that comes from our hearts. There’s a lot of cliquiness that sometimes comes in fitness. There’s a lot of, I walk in and everybody looks one certain way. We just know that life is bigger than that, and that people’s worlds and perspectives need to be broadened. So we’ve always wanted to set a place where everybody is welcome and included. The cool kids table that everybody’s invited to. That’s the way it should be.

Leah (21:49): We also have a saying that different is sexy.

Carrie (21:53): And that is true. Even those sayings are in your social media and on the wall. It seems very intentional that those are the things you want people to repeatedly see, and branding seems to be a big factor in what you do.

Lindsey (22:19): We’re very fortunate. We also take no credit for most of what’s out there. Taylor is our brand manager and director, and she’s phenomenal at what she does. She already naturally has the heart of what we’re trying to do and understands it, and she’s just really good at how she brings it all together. The way we do community events shows up that way too. Everything is intentional, to build a place where people can grow their perspective, grow their mindset, and get their body strong. Their mind goes right there with it.

Leah (22:58): Every little thing is intentional, from the color of the lights to every little thing that people might not even notice or think about.

Carrie (23:04): Is there anything like that you can think of? You mentioned the lights that you obsess about, but nobody else probably does.

Leah (23:10): We have a freestyle at the end of our workouts, and the lights go red. Let’s freaking go. And then as soon as it’s this intense moment, the lights go to this calm blue, and the music changes to a different tone, almost like a spa-like vibe, a yoga-like vibe. It’s very chill and zen, and it’s like, you just did that. And then there’s going to be some kind of life that’s spoken over you to encourage you to walk outside of these doors and be your badass self.

Lindsey (23:38): The intent of that was, when you go from freestyle, you get to pick what you do. Whatever you feel like you’re missing that day, you get to do, and you get to go as hard as you’ve gone all day. And then you go into this retrospective kind of place. There’s a lot of emotional release that comes there, and people probably feel it and don’t know that’s what it’s there for. Most of us are running the rat race. You don’t really have the time to sometimes have that that you need. So back to small ways of giving people a place to get what they need. That’s another moment that is programmed in.

Carrie (24:15): We talked about community events. Can you tell us about one? How do you approach it? When do you do an event and when do you not? How does that grow the business?

Lindsey (24:28): We’re trying to do less better. We’re keeping things simple, and that’s how you win. We do it probably quarterly, typically. It’s really because we know we want to get to know our people in a different setting sometimes, and we want them to get to know each other in a different setting. So we mix it up, and we collaborate with amazing community partners where we can bring something to them and they can bring something to us, and we can create something memorable. We’re real big on, we’re just not going to do anything half-ass, and we’re not going to do it for the sake of doing it. If we can’t execute in a way that’s going to create something memorable for our clients and for people who show up and for the team, then we’re just not going to do it.

Leah (25:17): We’re not going to waste our time or our clients’ time.

Carrie (25:20): Sometimes that’s hard for people when they ask a small business for help with something, and it’s, well, I can’t always say yes to that, because it depends on what our resources are and what we have going on. If we’re putting our brand on something, it needs to be done well, at the standard of the brand. Do you see people coming together from the different studios at the community events?

Lindsey (25:50): We just did a big Vuori event, and both studios had clients who came. They also cross over in town sometimes, and some of our coaches work at both. And then we have one in Tuscaloosa. There’s a camaraderie, and not just at Battle, but among people who are out there trying to make themselves better. There’s camaraderie that comes with that immediately.

Carrie (26:16): I tell people when they’re nervous about going to a gym, the people who are actually working on their fitness are more accepting, because they know how hard it is. They’re not asking why you haven’t been here. They get why it’s hard.

Lindsey (26:46): We sometimes just assume that people who appear to have a lot of discipline are judging those of us who don’t always have it, and I say us because I’m one of them. But discipline isn’t something that you’re born with. It’s something that you practice.

Leah (27:06): Something you have to practice. It’s hard to be consistent. It’s hard to have the discipline on the days when you don’t want to do it. That isn’t an easy thing. So it’s a like-mindedness that comes together.

Carrie (27:16): Some of the things you’ve done intentionally make the discipline easier. You don’t have to make decisions about what the workout is going to be, or you’re connecting with community, or you’re having fun, or you get that moment of release after the freestyle. You have more in your tank so that you can be disciplined.

Leah (27:54): It takes energy to get energy. A lot of times we’re tired, but you get to this place where it’s part of your routine. You’re tired and you think, oh. But if you don’t go, you’re going to be even more tired. So you say, no, I’m going to go. It gets to a point where it flips, where it’s not hard to go anymore. It’s just, I’m going because I know I’m going to feel better when I leave. That’s where you always want to get to. Just choose to show up every single day, to the point where this is just what I do.

Carrie (28:24): Discipline and willpower are different. Willpower, you kind of have a finite tank. So if it’s fun, if it’s already planned, you don’t have to use as much willpower. And then those habits are part of the discipline.

Lindsey (28:38): A lot of times you’ll see fitness can be an experience, and then it can be very hardcore, this hard thing you go and do. We wanted to have both. It is an experience, and it’s coordinated and choreographed in a way that pulls parts out of you that you didn’t know were there, but the workout is still really freaking good too. Even though we’ve tried to break down some of the barriers and incentivize you to come in, you’re still going to go in and do the hard things that you need to do to remind yourself that you can do it.

Lindsey (29:24): That’s kind of the whole key to all of it. Once you have the resume of, I’ve done these hard things and I’ve showed up, then it’s a lot easier to keep doing it. The 21-days-builds-a-habit stuff that we always hear, that’s really the whole point of it. You start to build a resume of, I can do this, so I will do it.

Carrie (29:40): I like the building-a-resume idea. There’s some research, I think it’s the “Atomic Habits” guy, that says if you tell yourself, I’m doing this because I’m a strong person, that’s different from, I’m trying to get in shape. When you tell yourself, I am this person, it’s just better for your own brain.

Lindsey (29:59): Absolutely. We talk about this a lot. You can do hard things is painted on the back wall of almost every one of our locations. We know that when you build that resume of doing hard things, you become a more resilient person, which combats anxiety, which we know is a big problem in the world too. It’s this trickle effect, but you have to do hard things. You have to start.

Leah (30:24): It helps you handle hard better. And let’s be real, life is not getting easier. So let’s learn how to handle hard better.

Carrie (30:34): You mentioned the Tuscaloosa location. I want to talk about that, because that’s your first location outside of the Birmingham area, right? And you went to school in Tuscaloosa, and you’re from around there.

Leah (30:52): About 45 minutes south. Thirty-six miles south of T-Town.

Carrie (30:57): It is probably still different. Are you in the studio every day? How do you make sure this is still our brand?

Leah (31:08): You hire well. Really good people. I’m down there, but I’m not down there every day. We bounce around to all locations. During the week I’ll hit up all three, mostly Hoover and T-Town, because I’m right there between both of those. The cool thing is we have really good people who want to do things well and serve our community really well. When you hire well and you have people doing what they love, it takes care of itself.

Carrie (31:39): And you have built a strong brand, so it does seem like some of that translates.

Leah (31:44): The cool thing too is our workout is the same no matter what location you’re at, whether you’re in Tuscaloosa or Homewood or Hoover. The playlists and the workout are the same. So no matter what, you’re getting a great workout that day. Our coaches know how to deliver well, with energy, in a way that pushes you to go hard and do things well.

Lindsey (32:09): Everyone wants to have this standard of consistently being excellent with their product. Our product is experience and workout. That is what we do. We’re not building a widget. That might be easier some days, but manufacturing’s a bitch too. A lot of people say they want that. Everybody says they want that. Knowing how to actually get it is a skill set that I think our past lives have really served us well to come in and do. We talk about simplification for the client, and simplification for the employees too. You’ve got to remove noise so that they can focus on the things that really matter and deliver up to that too. I’d like to say we’re pretty damn good at that part.

Carrie (32:56): Your background was with Zoe’s Kitchen and other places too, but you were really involved when Zoe’s was growing. I assume you bring those things, and you also have an accounting business.

Leah (33:11): Amazing business mind right here.

Lindsey (33:15): How a redneck from West Alabama ended up in any of this is still beyond me. I did a lot of the finance side with Zoe’s. I was acting CFO for them when they sold to private equity, so I got to learn a lot of that. I got to scale up to 240 restaurants and ran a lot of those on the operations side. So I have a finance and ops background, and scaling talent, especially store-level talent, and how you make their lives easier and build culture and build the standard because people want to do it, not because they have to do it. I got to learn a lot of that, and she did too in coaching. That has definitely played a part. It plays a part in any business, how to recruit and retain great humans, and then have them be excellent because they want to be. That’s the magic behind any business.

Carrie (34:14): That’s what I mean. Having that background, the coaching is the same. You’re literally coaching people. You’re coaching your team, and your staff is your team. And every team, even if they’re good, does need consistent coaching. And on the accounting side, the two most common things business owners tell me are, one, I learned things about myself from management that I would prefer not to know, and two, I should have hired an accountant sooner.

Lindsey (34:54): That’s why I started that business, because I saw that. Small businesses are the backbone of America. Sometimes they grow and become large businesses, which is great. But either way, that was a big gap where people couldn’t make great decisions about their business, didn’t understand where their money was going, and were not paying their taxes correctly. There are so many booby traps on that side, for people who most of the time have put everything they have on the line. We’re living it too. So let’s go give them the best chance possible. I have an incredible team on that side of the ball, and we do all the bookkeeping for Battle. So we’re never flying blind. Fitness and restaurants are probably the biggest failure rates of any industry, and I love both. We have a lot of restaurants in our portfolio too. But when they work, they work, and when people make them their third place, it is loyalty big time. There are a lot of places to bleed in those industries from a money and profitability standpoint, so it’s hard to do it if you don’t have some knowledge on that part too. I cannot do what they do in the building every day, but I can make sure we’ve got money in the bank, which is also important. We work really well together.

Carrie (36:23): Can you talk about some of the pros and cons of going into business with a friend? I’ve heard everybody say don’t do that, and it seems to have worked well for you. What are some of the reasons that works?

Leah (36:45): No matter what you’re doing in life, you always want to surround yourself with good people, people who sharpen your edges and people who are strong in areas where you are weak. Well, check, check, and check. Those are things to look at just in life, whether it’s business or not, because that’s going to make you a better human. I cannot imagine being in business with anybody else, truly. That’s not cliche, that’s legit, because we see things differently, which is good. We bounce things off each other. We don’t always agree, which is good. We know that we have each other’s best interests. We know that nothing is personal, so we can have any kind of conversation and walk away having gotten better. I don’t have to think, oh, did I handle that well? You don’t ever have to think that way. There’s so much else that you need to focus on. You can’t be distracted by all that other stuff.

Lindsey (37:54): And no one’s offended. You can’t do that with every friend, or every family member. But when it’s a good synergy and you’re both built alike, I mean, we could probably cuss each other out and be laughing about it. Not everybody could. We both go pretty hard in the paint. We’re not punks. We’re going to always find a way, so we can match each other’s energy on that.

Leah (38:25): We’re built very similarly in the ways that need to be built the same way.

Lindsey (38:29): And very differently where we need a different perspective from a business standpoint. So I’m just real lucky that the Lord put her right down the street growing up. People say don’t go into business with your friends or your family. Well, it depends on the friend and the family.

Carrie (38:45): The way you talk about your relationship is that you supplement where the other person is. You already know you’ve had conflict before and how you handle conflict. When it doesn’t go well, it’s not necessarily that you can’t start a business with a friend. It’s that just being friends is not a reason.

Lindsey (39:09): It needs to be strategic all the way around. Who you go into business with is a huge dictator of success. I’ve been very lucky to go into business with a lot of great people, but I also had the privilege of seeing not-good business relationships around me in the past, from a consulting standpoint or being in Zoe’s, and you learn a lot from that, and hopefully you vet that out. If you have a friend that you have great synergy with and you complement each other, and you’ve known each other long enough to trust, that’s different. There are so many businesses that are sidetracked because there’s a trust issue or a resentment issue, or somebody’s trying to screw the other person over. Ain’t got time for that.

Leah (40:04): If you’re trying to do big things, you don’t have time for that.

Lindsey (40:19): My sister works with us, and she’s a stud. It’s one thing to just do it because of that relationship. It’s another when you’re lucky enough to have a really good friend who’s going to be a really good business partner. That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.

Carrie (40:39): Each of you has owned other businesses, and some of those are together. Do you still have The Stable?

Lindsey (40:49): We sold it. We’re still very much a frequenter of it, and we’re still really proud of it.

Carrie (40:55): And then there’s a gym in Greensboro, and your accounting firm. I thought that was really interesting, that you’re approaching entrepreneurship in a way where it’s not all your eggs in one basket, even though it does seem like you’re all in on Battle. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I feel like you don’t see that from women as much. I’ve said this on the podcast before, but when I sold Church Street Coffee and Books, every woman in my life was like, oh no, I’m so sorry, and every guy was like, good, that’s what you’re supposed to do. It was really interesting to me, what we’ve been taught growing up about how you approach business. I do see more guys in my life saying, I own this business, but I’m also an investor here, and I’m also doing this. I don’t see that as much in women. So doing the research on both of you, I thought it was interesting that you’re also building portfolios, not just building a really great business.

Lindsey (42:13): We’re both probably naturally built that way to some extent. I don’t know if it’s being farm kids or what. We’re also both high school athletes. Status quo has never really been either one of our vibes. But also, it’s not necessarily all eggs in one basket. Capacity is a big thing. Women are great multitaskers, and we have a ton of capacity. Sometimes our capacity is not as evident because we’re having to take care of other people. Women are very capable of multitasking and having the capacity to have their hands in several things. A lot of times they do have their hands in a lot, it’s just not businesses. It’s family, or running the household, or taking care of a parent, or supporting their partner’s visions and dreams. You figure out what you want, and then you’ve got to go find the capacity to do it. The biggest thing is women just have to know that they’re capable. They have to be told, you’re capable not only to play but to win. Maybe we were just really lucky that we were both very much raised in that vein.

Leah (43:34): When you think about how women are raised in general, growing up it’s like we’re supposed to be perfect. Boys are taught to be brave. It’s a different perspective, and you hear this all along. We were fortunate enough that it was, you can go be great. Here, you want this ball? Let’s go. We’re going to go work on it. We were very fortunate in our households. It wasn’t about being perfect. It was about, let’s go be brave.

Carrie (44:00): That’s an amazing way to look at it, because if perfection is your goal, in my opinion, small business is not for you.

Lindsey (44:08): Hell no. Life might not be either. It’s unreasonable. But especially small business.

Carrie (44:15): Another pattern I see on the podcast is that I ask a lot of women to be on, and they say, well, I don’t have a real business. And it’s like, yes you do. I’ve literally never had any guy tell me, no, I don’t have a real business.

Lindsey (44:48): And winning looks different. Women need to own the fact that you’re allowed to design your life. If winning for you is that you get to do this really cool thing that you’re really freaking good at, and you don’t want to scale it to be the next private equity exit, that’s just fine. That is still winning. So defining what winning is for you, we’re allowed to do that. And I’m kind of tired of people acting like we’re not.

Carrie (45:20): Or acting like the success of a business defines you. Or that it’s just growing and scaling forever. It seems like you’ve been very intentional with Battle Republic not to scale too fast, not to get beyond what you can build. Was that on purpose?

Lindsey (45:36): COVID definitely didn’t help. COVID made us a lot better in a lot of ways. We came out of the gate doing extremely well, and then a year in, COVID put us on our ass. We learned a lot through that, and it will serve us better to scale. We’ve been waiting, and waiting’s not the right word because we have three, but when we get ready to run, we want to run. Like Leah said, we want to run fast, but we want to run well, and we are getting poised to do that now. A lot of times people scale to save their current locations.

Carrie (46:17): That’s something I read that one of you said. You can’t pay the bills for the first location with the second location.

Leah (46:25): And if you are, you can’t do another one.

Lindsey (46:30): That’s been the big thing with us. It’s got to be financially sound, because if we’re going to put everything we’ve got on the line here, and we’re both very self-made people, that’s it. There’s a balance. You can’t fear it too much, or you won’t go do it. But you do have to be strategic about it, or you don’t give yourself a good chance at all.

Carrie (46:57): Strategy is important, because so many people go into small business with a dream, and the dream is important. You have to care about it, because it’s going to be so much of your life. But you can’t only have the dream. You see people opening a second location because they think, surely it’ll catch on at the second location. Or overextending, or hiring more people. It’s a balance of what does the data say, and also what does my gut say, and not just going completely with the gut even though the data says something totally different.

Lindsey (47:41): We’re decisive people, but there’s a lot of pivoting. Not pivot this much. A lot of it is tweak pivoting. What you know today is different from what you’ll know tomorrow in the small business world. We have a greenfield new store in Hoover, so we know where it needs to be before we go do something else. And when we get close to that, we know what lever we’re going to pull. We’re also really good at finding the people who fill the gaps that we have. We have intention around everything we do, and it’s not always right. In small business, sometimes you just have to go do it, and then if it’s not working, you have to make an adjustment. But you can’t go do it when the data and your gut say don’t. I think people grow for the sake of growing, or for the sake of saying they’re growing a lot, instead of doing it for the right reasons, which is that you’ve got a business model that deserves to be scaled.

Leah (48:49): We’ve also never forced anything. We’ve signed some LOIs where we ended up not having a good gut feeling, and so we backed out. It’s always, don’t force it, go with your gut. A lot of times that has served us well throughout the process.

Carrie (49:04): There’s so much of that in small business. It was shocking to me, because I was really good in school, where you get the right answers and then you get the good grade. Small business is like, here are the rules, just kidding, they’re actually different rules. Anything from taxes to signing leases is so wild.

Leah (49:35): We learned a lot signing leases.

Carrie (49:36): It’s not like a lease to an apartment. I don’t think people get how long they are and what the commitment is.

Lindsey (49:45): And your personal guarantee on it, the cost of the whole lease, every month’s rent times the years. People can be frivolous with it sometimes, and then people can be too scared of it. It’s all a fine balancing act.

Carrie (50:03): I think you’re doing it well. It is really cool to see the business growing and to learn more about what you’re doing. We’re coming up on time, and I could have a million more questions. I’m going to put links in the show notes to Battle Republic and also Empire and anything else you want me to put in, but tell people how to get in touch. Is it follow you on social, or sign up for a class, or just walk in? You get assigned to a bag, right? So should they sign up online first?

Lindsey (50:43): However they would like to get to us. Our Instagram is a great place to start, so at battlerepublic, and then at battlerepublicttown in Tuscaloosa. DM us. There are links there to get you to our intro offer, which we’re doing two weeks for $59 right now. It’s basically a trial unlimited membership for two weeks, which is great, so you can really get in there and take full advantage of that. Text us, DM us, sign up, walk your ass in. However you want to come in, come on. We love to meet people and hear people’s stories and understand their why, so we can serve them better. That’s really what we’re about.

Carrie (51:23): Well, thank you both so much.

Leah (51:24): Thank you.

Lindsey (51:25): Thank you for having us. This very dope podcast.

Carrie (51:30): The Localist is written and produced by me, Carrie Rollwagen. Our showrunner is Taylor Davis. Our outreach manager is BJ Eadie. You should also follow BJ on TikTok at bjeadie. He does really great reviews of restaurants and things to do in Birmingham with kids. And of course, our production is done here at Infomedia Studios. Our engineer with us in the studio today is Paul Bryant. Thanks as always to Infomedia for sponsoring the show and making everything we do here possible. And until next time, whether you’re buying from a small business or running one, thanks for all you do every day to make our community stronger.