Guys Do What I Do. They're Just Not Me. — Getka

Guys Do What I Do. They're Just Not Me.

Every facility owner eventually runs into the same wall. Somebody down the road offers the same thing you do, for less. The equipment is comparable. The certifications are comparable. The website is fine.

Mike Getka has an answer for that, and it is the most honest positioning statement I have heard on this show:

"There's a lot of guys that do stuff that I do. They're just not me. The way that I do what I do is going to be different than other people because they're not me."

He is not being arrogant. He is being accurate. And if you own a training business, that sentence is either your greatest asset or your biggest unbuilt one.

Getka spent over two decades in the Navy — first with the Seabees, then EOD support, then SEAL Team Two and Naval Special Warfare. He put roughly 2,400 candidates through BUD/S and was named instructor of the year in 1999. After the Navy he ran a Warrior Challenge recruiting district covering Georgia to Cocoa Beach, prepping about 2,000 more. Today he runs Getka SEAL Mindset, taking athletic teams and business teams through SEAL-style training. On Episode 47 of the Athlete Builder podcast, he laid out how he sells something no one else can copy.

Sell the decision, not the program

Getka wanted to be a SEAL after reading a Navy magazine. He was five years in, not a runner, not a swimmer — and he hates both to this day. His entire process: "I looked at all the requirements, I put my request in, I trained probably for about a month and took the screening test."

Then the line that explains every high performer I have ever trained: "If running is part of the job, well, that's what I'm gonna do. If swimming is part of the job, then that's what I'm gonna do. It didn't matter. I just wanted to be a SEAL."

I told him on the tape what I tell every athlete: it is the front-end decision that has to be made, and most other decisions then just go away. There is no negotiating whether you get up at five. That was decided the day the destination was. People stall out because they think they can still renegotiate — maybe not today, maybe I skip this — and once that seeps in, momentum runs the other direction.

For an owner, the takeaway is a sales lesson. Your prospect does not need another program comparison. They need help making a decision. The facility that helps a family commit, out loud, with a destination attached, has already done the hardest part of the work — and the retention takes care of itself, because a decided client stops shopping.

An offer that reveals people

Here is what Getka actually sells, and notice it is nothing you can buy off a shelf. He takes teams to the beach — deliberately out of their element, not the field they practice on. Boat crews. Crew leaders. A designated captain he briefs, who briefs the leaders. And for the first hour, in his words: "Everything's going to be too slow. Even if you do it right, it's going to be wrong."

Then the payoff, which is for the coaches as much as the athletes: "You'll see some of these guys that you think are going to be the rock stars that actually maybe they don't want to be there... Then you see these unassuming guys that you wouldn't even think would step up. That environment just brings something out of them. So that could be a potential leader."

Adversity does not test character. It reveals it. And a service that reveals who your leaders actually are is worth more to a head coach than any conditioning session — because it answers a question they cannot answer on their own field.

This is the part most facility owners skip. You are probably selling sessions. Getka sells information the buyer cannot get any other way.

The renewal engine nobody names

Getka has worked with the same lacrosse team three years running. Watch what happens to the product over time.

Year one, he burns a chunk of the day just getting them out of the water and counted — guys running in circles, no system. By the end of that first hour, they gel. Year two, he does not have to spend that time at all: "It's already done. So I can get into pushing them even harder and teaching them more stuff on trust and communication." And the returning athletes now teach the new guys what is coming before he ever arrives.

That is a retention engine described without using the word. The standard sets in year one, the client's own people maintain it in the offseason, and the coach gets a better product in year two for the same fee. Compare that to the way most facilities renew — by hoping.

The design principle: build your offer so the second year cannot be a repeat of the first. If a returning client gets the same session they got last year, you have priced yourself as a commodity. If they get the level they earned, you have priced yourself as a partner.

Put the onus on them

Getka's coaching posture is the opposite of the concierge model most gyms drift into: "I'm not going to spoon feed you a bunch of stuff. I'm going to ask you why. And then I'm going to have you do most of the heavy lifting. I'm not just going to give you a workout program. I want you to go out there, do some research and bring something back to me, and then I can add to that."

And the standard is measured, not vibed: "If your numbers are the same as they are right now when I see you a month from now, you need to think about doing something else, because you're not committed. Every single month I see you, you should be stronger."

He also names the cost of half-effort with the best metaphor in the episode. In BUD/S, fall behind the cutoff on a soft-sand run and you land in the goon squad — eight-count bodybuilders, wind sprints into the surf, getting hammered until the last man catches up. His coaching point to future candidates: "All that energy you just spent in the goon squad getting crushed — had you used that effort and energy just to stay up, you'd be much better off."

Every gym has goon-squad clients. Same money spent, twice the suffering, half the result — because they will not commit at the front. Naming that dynamic out loud, kindly, is one of the more valuable things a coach can do.

Do not blend in

One more, because it is the thing that makes his own marketing work. Getka has no patience for the advice to keep your head down and be the gray man: "There's no CEO or anybody that's got to the highest level that just blended in. Never. You should want to be number one. If you end up number ten, okay — but at least you were striving for greatness."

His BUD/S version is blunter: you get attention two ways. You are a turd, or you are exceptional. There is no third category, and the middle is not safe — it is just invisible.

The balance is the humility he pairs it with: "The greater the man or the woman, the more humble you should be. If you've got to tell somebody how great you are, you're probably not that great." Stand out through the work and let other people do the announcing. That is a marketing strategy, not a personality trait.

If you own a facility

All of it runs on measurement — his numbers are stronger every month or the relationship is over. That is exactly why our freeAthlete Builder Scorecard(athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest) baselines every athlete across six blocks on day one: you cannot hold anyone to a standard you never wrote down.

If you want to talk through the version of this that fits your building — the offer nobody can copy, the year-two design, the intake that produces a decision instead of a comparison — book a Game Plan Session: link.closersoftware.com/widget/bookings/ab-gameplansession.

Or answer this one: what does your facility do that literally cannot be bought from anyone else within twenty miles? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Win the Day. Stay Relentless.