Chris Cooper's Blog, page 103
January 12, 2022
“Start a Gym”: Free Prizes Inside
My new book, “Start a Gym,” is out: Get it here.
There’s something in it for everyone—coaches, dreamers and even current gym owners.
This book is tactical. As a left-brain thinker, I don’t want another inspirational book about why I should start a business. I want to know how.
So I put a ton of tactical stuff in this book, including:
The Founders’ Club strategy that has helped over 100 gyms open profitably on Day 1.How to set up a partnership agreement (thanks to our friends at GymLawyers.com for the template!).How to choose a space.How to negotiate a lease—and how to avoid the mistakes that will cost you over $10,000.How to buy equipment that won’t gather dust.How to set your rates!How to make money before you open a bricks-and-mortar location.How to get your website set up and book your first appointments.How to start a blog and YouTube channel and set up your social-media platforms (tip: You don’t need all of them).And my favorite part—I’ll get to that in a moment.
You’ll notice this book is skinnier than my other books. That’s because I wanted a no-fluff, all-tactical book that you could pull out of your pocket and use.
I also wanted to write a book that would literally make the buyer 100 times the investment. If you use the tactics and free templates you get with the book, you’ll save over $2,000 in legal fees and setup fees, and you’ll avoid the mistakes that will compound over decades. But you’ll also earn new clients and set them up for long-term retention by starting the right way.
The Best Part: Advice From Real Gym Owners
I had a lot of help on this book. My friends at Gym Lead Machine provided great advice on marketing and online presence. My buddy Mike at Two-Brain Media wrote the whole section on Building Your Media Platform. And Matthew Becker, Esq. from Gymlawyers.com contributed legal templates and some great “how-to” sections. All that stuff is worth thousands.
But my absolute favorite section came from Two-Brain gym owners in our high-level mastermind program. These people are millionaires (or close to it), and they started with gym ownership. I asked them, “What advice do you wish you’d had when you started?” And then I just copied their messages into the book. It’s a full-on “tribe of gym mentors!” And some of their advice was so great that I literally laughed out loud: “Yep, I should have known that when I started!”
The book is under 20 bucks. You can get it on Amazon here. It includes over a dozen templates that you can download from startagym.com (if you don’t buy the book and just want the templates, go ahead—I won’t tell anyone). If you want more, there’s a self-guided course to help you explore the possibilities of gym ownership. And on the next episode of Two-Brain Radio, Matthew Becker and I will talk through some of the biggest legal challenges facing gym owners.
Our society needs more gyms: yoga, CrossFit, Pilates, boot camp … the methods don’t matter as much as the results do. We need these gyms to stick around long enough to create real and lasting change, and it’s a lot easier to survive if you make the right moves at the start.
The post “Start a Gym”: Free Prizes Inside appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 11, 2022
Start a Gym: Crossing the Chasm
One of the key questions I get from potential gym owners is: “Should I wait?”
This seems like a bad time to start any new business, let alone a gym. Though the U.S. is mostly open after the COVID pandemic, a lot of the world is shutting down. And even though the U.S. indexes are rising, most “experts” fear a market correction.
But no time is ever the right time. Many entrepreneurs simply accept the risk and take the leap, hoping to “build their wings on the way down.” I admire their courage (in my case, it was ignorance—I had no idea that owning a gym is a different skill than coaching). But I don’t want to start fragile gyms: I want to start robust gyms that are profitable from Day 1!
Below, I’ll tell you how to minimize the risk of opening a fitness business with an excerpt from my new book, “Start a Gym.” (Click here to order.)
Crossing the Chasm
Starting a new business isn’t risky. Relying on your new business as your sole source of income is risky.
Eventually, though, you’re going to have to go all-in on your gym if you want it to be successful.
Imagine two cliffs with a chasm between them.
The cliff you’re standing on is your current lifestyle. The other cliff is your dream of entrepreneurship. But if you fall into the gap, it could hurt you.
You’re standing at the edge of your current life. You have to make it to the other cliff.
Many books describe the entrepreneurial “leap.” But I don’t want you to leap: I want to help you build a bridge and then take a small step across into your new life.
Here’s the process we use to help people build a bridge to their new dream life.
Measure the Gap
First, we have to measure the distance we need to cross:
1. Calculate how much you need to earn to cover your current expenses.
2. Now audit your expenses: What could you cut if you had to? In other words, what is your absolute bare-bones income requirement?
For example, let’s say that you need to make $3,500 per month to cover your apartment, your groceries and your car payments, etc. These are the non-negotiables. You don’t need to include a personal budget for entertainment and similar things; you can get by without the pub for a few months if you need to.
Let’s say you work at another job and you make $4,000 per month. You can’t quit that job because you don’t have any savings to help bridge the gap. That means you can’t get leverage from money because you don’t have any to spare. But you can still leverage your time.
Narrow the Gap
Our next step is to narrow the gap by trading your time to get leverage:
3. How much could you make at the gym by working around your current job? If you took a part-time job as a coach in the gym and traded your mornings or evenings, how much could you make? Every dollar helps you bridge the gap. For example, if you got a job at the gym for $25 per hour and you coached six classes per week, that’s $150 per week or $600 per month. The chasm has shrunk from $3,500 per month to $2,900 per month.
4. How long could you survive with the income from the gym plus your savings?
Reduce Risk
Then, if possible, we make the chasm less deadly:
5. If things go wrong, what’s your fallback? Write down that plan.
6. Determine the point at which you’ll pack up the gym. This isn’t “failure”—you can always try again—but it’s important to decide and record your maximum risk before you take it. Your family might be less comfortable with risk than you are.
7. Ask for a leave of absence or to work part time. Create a fallback position before you start and narrow the earning gap as much as possible.
8. If you decide to buy a gym, ask the current gym owner to finance the purchase for you. For example, if the gym has a true valuation of $100,000, would the current owner allow you to pay monthly over a few years if you paid them $105,000 instead? This mitigates your downside a little; gives them 5 percent interest on the “loan”; and they can always take the gym back if things don’t work out.
Make a Timeline
Finally, map out the timeline to step across into your new life.
9. Determine how much you need to earn from your current job. Identify the “gap” you’re comfortable with. Set a target date to go all-in.
10. Forecast your cash flow using your bookkeeping software. Then you’ll be able to see the timeline to becoming a true entrepreneur!
11. Pay Yourself First. It will be tempting to take the money you make from coaching and use it to pay off your loans faster or buy more equipment or get more certifications. You must avoid this temptation. Pay yourself and borrow money to buy equipment. Remove the choice every week by writing yourself paychecks in advance and depositing them at your bank. This will force you to dedicate time to the things that will grow your business.
12. Understand that your job has shifted from “practitioner” to “entrepreneur.” You might still be coaching, but you’re an entrepreneur now. Worry less about acquiring coaching skills and more about growing your business.
Real-Life Example
For example, when I opened my gym, I needed to earn $900 per week. That was enough to pay my bills, but my credit-card debt would still accrue, and I wouldn’t be making any headway at all. Still, if my gym could pay me $900 per week, I could afford to spend all my time working on it.
1. Calculate how much you need to cover—my expenses were really more like $1,400 per week, but … .
2. I could have gotten by—for a while—on $900 per week. That was my bare minimum.
3. By training some clients in the evenings—and one in the morning—I could make around $400 per week.
4. Unfortunately, I couldn’t survive on $400 per week because I had no savings. So I had two choices: build up a buffer or start a waiting list for clients. I chose to build a buffer, so I worked very long days for several months, doing both my regular job and training clients, until I had $4,000 in the bank. That bought me two months’ of expenses. I went all-in.
5. My fallback was to move home with my parents and sell our house. Yes, it was extreme.
When I leapt, the fear of starvation had me hustling hard. Because I was scared of going broke, I asked my clients for referrals, started marketing with email and showed up at every public event with my Catalyst T-shirt on. I hung banners at local track meets, attended my clients’ hockey games and even drove around a triathlon course at 4 a.m. to write messages in chalk on the roads. If I’d kept my job, I couldn’t have done those things.
At some point, you have to focus all your attention on your business; it can’t be a “side hustle” forever. The key is to minimize the risk, not avoid it.
If you can work part time at your current job or take a leave of absence, do it. Keep your safety net in place. You will have the best chance to succeed, thanks to knowledge and mentorship.
But you should never take unnecessary risks. Tens of thousands of gyms have failed because their owner leapt too soon with no safety net.
The post Start a Gym: Crossing the Chasm appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 10, 2022
Start a Gym: Chris Cooper’s New How-To Book
Mike (00:02):
Chris Cooper is just about to release a new book called “Start a Gym.” In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, he’ll tell you how that book and the new “Start a Gym” course can help you build a stable, profitable fitness business. Now here’s Coop.
Chris (00:14):
This is the best time to start a business. And the best business to start is a gym. The industrial economy is mostly over now. There are no more nine to five, punch a clock, and then retire jobs left. You can’t depend on a college degree to guarantee you a career anymore, but here’s the great news. The new economy is a blank slate. You have the opportunity to create any career you want for yourself. For the first time ever, new entrepreneurs have an unlimited audience for any product or service they can dream up. For the first time in history, you have the opportunity to use your passion to help others. Even if you don’t know them yet. Why start a business instead of getting a job? Well, leverage, most people trade their time for money, but entrepreneurs trade their time for more money, and then they trade their money
Chris (01:06):
for more time. Entrepreneurship is a long term bet that creates wealth for the entrepreneur, value for the audience and opportunities for other employees in the future. Entrepreneurs can work really, really hard for a decade and then retire if they start right, scale correctly and finish strong. The world is open to entrepreneurs who can create value for their audience. And the greatest value that we can deliver for the planet is the gift of longevity, vitality, and self-reliance. The gift of health. My name is Chris Cooper, and I’ve got a new book coming out, January 24th, called “Start a Gym.” I wrote this book because what I’ve found after mentoring thousands of gym owners over the last many years, is that the way that you start matters, that every mistake that you make when you’re starting out can take you a year to fix later. For example, if you mess up on your pricing structure, that’s going to take you at least a year to fix after you figure out what your prices should be.
Chris (02:13):
If you choose the wrong location, that’s a three year mistake because you’re gonna be locked into a lease. If you spend too much on equipment or not enough, or you take a partner, these are all things that take time and money to fix. The gyms that grow fastest in the Two-Brain Business mentorship practice are the gyms that start with us before they open their doors to clients, because they’ve launched with the right pricing structure, with the right schedule, with the right equipment in the right space, the right profit margin. And most of these gyms are opening profitably. Something that I could never have dreamed of when I opened my first gym back in 2005, I wanna help the world get healthier. We’ve reached a place where we’ve been evolving now for thousands and thousands of years. And we’ve reached this point after struggle and starvation and feast and famine and war.
Chris (03:06):
Where now we’ve come to this point where we’re as fit and as healthy as we’ve ever been. We have greater longevity than anybody has ever known in the human race. And we’ve done all of this evolution to sit on the couch and watch Oprah. Well, not really, but what we need to take us to the next phase in our evolution is fitness. To improve the quality of life that we’ve spent so long improving the length thereof. And so this book is set up to help you start a gym from scratch. And along with this book, we’re launching a course, call “Start a Gym.” If you visit startagym.com, you can see all of the details. The purpose of this course is to prepare you for one day opening a gym. It’s not an expensive course. It’s not a mentored practice. We do have an amazing program called startup for that, but the start a gym course is low cost.
Chris (03:58):
And it’s a way for you to explore the opportunity of potentially opening a gym someday. So I wanted to offer this course to people, especially the people who buy the start a gym book, because there’s a lot of opportunities in life to make big, costly mistakes that take you years to come back from. And what I really want you to do is to really think about whether you wanna open a gym or not, give you all the tools that you need to do it yourself, and then let you make the decision. So both the book and the course will be available January 24th. And I’d like to walk you through the contents of the book first, because a lot of existing gym owners are actually pretty excited about this because they wanna read it too. More than any other book I’ve ever written,
Chris (04:41):
It’s very clear and very step by step. And if you’ve already owned a gym for 10 years, there might be some things in here that will help you recognize early mistakes that you made and how to fix them. So basically what I’ve done is I’ve first told you like how to make money in fitness. And this is a really important concept because a lot of us just think when we all open a gym, like all I gotta do is open a gym. People eventually show up and pay me money. And it’s just a matter of time. But what I didn’t understand, and a lot of new entrepreneurs don’t understand is that you create money for yourself by creating value for other people. And creating value is much more than just throwing open your doors. It’s much more than just having a lot of equipment. Creating value for us means coaching.
Chris (05:28):
We are building client-centric businesses. We are not selling access. We are selling guidance, accountability, coaching, mentorship, all those things that people need to actually get results. And that’s what this book is about. When you wanna build a business like that, you have to start by making a series of choices. And the first choice that you’ve gotta make is, do you leverage your money or do you leverage your time? Now, each one of these choices basically falls on a continuum. It’s not like you can buy more time and it’s not like you can just borrow all the money that you’re going to need to start a business right off the bat. But the choice that you’ve gotta make in the beginning, depending on how much time and how much money you have, is should I buy an existing gym or should I start from scratch? Should I even take out loan and buy a franchise gym with all its systems done?
Chris (06:22):
Or should I try to learn as I go? This book will really help you the most if you’re choosing to learn as you go and, and kind of build it from a blank slate, and those are the entrepreneurs that I love helping the most, but if you are already in possession of a gym and you’re buying a second gym, this book will start by telling you how to value the other gym and how to make that choice. Like, should I open a second location myself, or should I buy out this other gym in my town that’s struggling. And I think that I could turn it around. And there’s a series of exercises in the book to help you make that decision once and for all, without stressing about it. The next choice that you have to make is, am I gonna do this alone? Or am I going to take a partner?
Chris (07:03):
When I started, I took a partner and I’m glad I did. The partnership didn’t last long because I really don’t work well with partners, but I needed those two guys to really kind of force my hand to make me take action and open my own space. I was lucky after a year when I decided I didn’t want partners, that they just let me out of our contract, you know, and there was a little bit of leverage applied there and I’ll share that story in the book, but when you’re starting out, it can be very tempting to share the risk or share the potential blame if things don’t go well. And there are some reasons to take a partner. There are some instances where partnerships really do work out, but you have to remember that a micro gym is not an investment grade asset. So you should either take a loan from somebody or form a partnership with somebody who will share the workload that will allow you to scale up faster.
Chris (07:55):
Meaning you’re not just both coaching classes, you’ve got an operator and you’ve got one person who’s in charge of like marketing sales and growth. And all of that is included in the book. And there’s a couple of bonuses here too. So when you buy the book, you’ll get a link to startagym.com. And on that page, you can download some templates for each of these decisions that will help you make the decision. And then after you’ve made the decision, you’ll have a template for things like a partnership contract, for example. And gymlawyers.com really stepped up to the plate here and gave you some amazing tools that you can download and use for free when you get the book. The third choice that you have to make when you’re starting a gym is your method. Now, this is an interesting one because most people make this decision before anything else.
Chris (08:41):
And when I was interviewing people for their experience for the book, one guy said to me, Chris, I didn’t just open a gym. I wanted to open a CrossFit gym, and I’ve heard the same about yoga, Pilates, bootcamp, personal training, whatever, you know, sports conditioning, especially. So people usually find their method. They fall in love with their method and they wanna share that method with other people. And that’s why they open a business. And that’s great. You know, this happens outside of fitness too. It happens with chocolate making. The key though, is that you have to understand the difference between the method and the model. The method is not the model. The method, CrossFit, boot camp, Pilates, spin, is the method. And it might change over time. But your business model is the infrastructure of how you actually make money. And while the method might change, evolve, you might combine two methods later, the model will not.
Chris (09:34):
And you have to set up your model early. A lot of CrossFit affiliates actually made this mistake, including me. We thought that the CrossFit method that we saw was the business model. So we saw these group classes going and we thought, OK, well, that’s all I have to do is run group classes, not true. We saw people running free trials and we thought, that’s all I gotta to do is run free trials. But nobody asked like, Hey, does that actually work? Are the people who are running free trials actually building successful gyms. And it turned out that most of them weren’t. So the key here is that you have to understand you need to build a business model that supports delivery of your method. That the method alone is not in a business model. Choice number four, choose a location. This is a huge one.
Chris (10:20):
And it takes up a lot of space in the book. We’ve got some really great tips coming in this book. So the first is like how to choose. And I turn to some of our highest level gym owners who have opened and closed and purchased and sold multiple locations in the past. And I said, what are your top tips for choosing a location? I think some of these responses are going to surprise you. And there’s some great stuff in here about like what to pick, how to make a decision. Here’s a great little exercise. When you think you’ve got a decision, go to that place. Book a day off, find a bench, set up a lawn chair outside the location, and sit there for a day. Show up before six, stay there until about nine. Leave. Maybe you come back around four and you stay until eight o’clock at night.
Chris (11:08):
And what you’re looking for are traffic patterns like who walks past the gym, who works near the gym, do they drive? Do they take the train, are they on foot? These things will help you decide not only who your clients are most likely to be, but if this is even a locatio, that’s going to be viable for you. If something requires people to drive more than about 10 minutes, our data shows that they’re less likely to come there, or they’re more likely to choose a closer option when one opens. And so you want to find out like where your target audience lives and works, and then choose a location based on that. And that’s just one example. Like this book is very step by step. Do this exercise, follow this template. Here’s what the data shows, here’s what’s worked for hundreds of other gyms, no more guesswork.
Chris (11:55):
I wanna make opening a gym as simple as possible for you. All right. Choice number five is buying equipment for your gym. And this is another big decision, but it’s probably the most fun one because all of us wanna build like a CrossFit Wonderland or a weightlifting paradise, right? Or maybe we wanna build like the dance studio of our own dreams, but starting out, that’s probably not what you need. And so there’s some exercises in here to help you decide what’s the bare minimum that you need to start out. And what should you plan on acquiring or growing toward in the first one to three years? So for example, you wanna start out with the minimum viable space and the minimum viable equipment. Now viable is subjective. I mean, you might think that you can’t live without the 50 rowing machines or whatever, but I’ll share a couple of examples here.
Chris (12:48):
And a couple of stories. When I opened up, every barbell in the world was 45 lb. Nobody knew that there was a 15 pound barbell. And so for the first couple years, all of my clients worked with a 45 pound barbell and nobody knew any different. And that’s just how it was. And then one day we bought one 15-pound barbell. And at the time I think that Rogue might have been calling these women’s barbells. And suddenly every woman in every class that I taught wanted to have a woman’s barbell or else, they felt like they were sacrificing by using the men’s barbell. Even though it was, you know, a barbell was a barbell. So after I bought one women’s barbell, I found like, holy crap, now I gotta buy five of these things. So I’d get five. And then we’d run a class of 12 then half of the people in the class would be women.
Chris (13:36):
And one woman would say, oh, I’ve gotta use the men’s barbell. So it’s really important when you start out to understand like what you’re buying and who your audience is, so that you can buy the right best stuff. There’s also a little story in there too, about working with minimal equipment and how I think it can make you a better coach. The next decision that you get to make is to set up your services. And there’s so many things that you could do. You could do group classes, personal training, nutrition, coaching, online, high ticket, low ticket, you know, OnRamp, no OnRamp, sport specific, whatever. And these also always vary by method. So what I want you to do is pick two services. And I actually want you to launch one before you open. And I’m gonna tell you exactly how to do that so that you’re making some revenue, you’re finding some early clients, and you’re really getting some momentum before you take on any expenses or sign a lease.
Chris (14:29):
The seventh choice that you’ve gotta make is how to set your prices. And this is actually one of the biggest problems that we see with gyms is they set their prices based on, you know, what the guy down the street’s doing, or $5 less than the local average. And then it takes them years to recover from that. And five years down the road, they call up Two-Brain and they’re like, I’m not making any money. And we have to raise their rates and it’s painful for them. And it’s awkward for the clients, but they really deserve to make more. Where literally all of that goes away. If you set your prices properly in the beginning. And so in this book, maybe the most valuable part of the book is how to set your rates. And if you’re an existing gym owner, this part of the book is probably a great help for you.
Chris (15:13):
I also tell you how to sell your services. So how to build a pricing binder. What should you do about discounts and how to overcome your own limiting beliefs about price and budget. The next decision that you have to make is your schedule and your payment system. I give you a bit of advice on setting up your payment system. I mean, the goal here is really recurring cashflow. You wanna build your services so that people are subscribing and paying monthly instead of just paying for something high ticket upfront one time or not paying at all. So, I tell you how to do that. And then also how to set your schedule and then how to set yourself up so that you can change your schedule as your clients’ needs evolve. This is another big sunk cost for a lot of gyms. They open the door, they set up their schedule based on what they used to do at their previous gym or what the guy down the road is doing or what they would wanna work.
Chris (16:08):
And then it’s really hard for them to change it because, oh, if I take, take away the 9:00 AM class, those two women will cancel their memberships. Instead, there’s a way that you can set yourself up to have a schedule that changes every quarter and people will just expect that. And you won’t lose clients when you change your schedule. I tell you how to do that right in this book. The next thing you have to do is set up your media platform. The bottom line here is that people will buy from people that they trust. Now, people are more discerning about the people they buy from than the services they’re actually buying. And so every entrepreneur has a media platform and is a media personality. If people like you, they will buy from you no matter what you’re selling. And so I go really deep here into how to set up your media platform.
Chris (16:54):
And I enlisted some help from our friends at Gym Lead Machine here too. But also as some know, I own a media company. And so I’ve got some great advice in here from the Two-Brain editor in chief, Mike Warkentin, my co-founder in our media company about how to start a blog, how to start a YouTube channel, how to start a podcast, to set up your social media, where to focus so you’re not just spending all day on 50 different channels. The next choice that you get to make is how to get your first clients before you open. Now, one of the first strategies that I ever employed to great success was called the founders club. And this one has been copied and knocked off by a lot of people since, but that’s great, cause it’s really, really effective. What I want you to do is to get clients in the door, committed to paying you, paying you if possible, but at least you’ll have their voided check or their credit card number, on opening day.
Chris (17:49):
And the founders club strategy is a great way to do that without doing any discounts because there’s no reason to do discounts. It also sets you up on a great platform for future promotion locally by partnering with other businesses. So that’s the founders club and I walk you through it step by step in this book. In fact, you know, I think the book is 20 bucks and the “Start a Gym” course is 500 or something like that. The founders club strategy will pay for both of those things many, many times over. In fact, our top gym, like the record I think had 103 people sign up for their founders club at a $200 a month rate before they even opened their doors. Imagine opening on day one and collecting $20,000 in revenue. Like what would that have meant to your gym? I know it would’ve meant a huge difference to mine.
Chris (18:36):
Then I give you some checklists. So we’ve got a pre-launch checklist, all the things you have to do before you open then a post-launch checklist like, OK, the doors are open. What do I do on day one to make sure that I’m keeping up this momentum and growing my gym. And then I give you some steps to scale up from there. And finally, my favorite part of this whole book is some advice from our most successful gym owners. So these are people who are at or closing in on a million dollars in net worth. These are like gym owners who are millionaires. And I treated them like a tribe of mentors for this book. And I went to them and said, if you could give yourself some advice six months before you opened your first gym, what would that advice be? And each of them gave me something super profound and very useful.
Chris (19:23):
And I put that whole like tribe of mentors advice in the end of this book. And that’s my favorite part. So I think even existing gym owners will probably enjoy reading that part too. I also give you an out. So at the very end of the book, I give you a list of reasons to not open a gym or not open a gym right now. And what I’m trying to do here is to help you make a decision on maybe the biggest leap of your life, right? You’re rolling the dice. And I wanna give you a good framework for actually making that decision and choosing to open or not open or choosing to wait based on certain factors in your life. And so I end the book with that. The step between the book and the start a gym course is not a big step.
Chris (20:13):
The difference is that in the course, we will teach you with video and audio. We will give you templates and say here, fill this out. And we’ll also give you some more lessons. Like here’s why this is important or here’s how I’ve learned or you know, here’s how I’ve screwed this up. I do that a lot. And so the course is really to help you decide is opening a gym, right for me? Is opening a gym right for me right now? And if those are true, then how do I do this? How do I launch this without making mistakes that cost me a hundred thousand dollars and five years to fix. This is a passion project of mine. I love the idea of more gyms opening around the world because our species, our culture, our society needs your help. We need better health.
Chris (21:01):
We need better fitness. And when I was talking about this group or this book in our private Two-Brain group somebody that was newer to the group said, well, I’m not sure that I want more competition on my street. But the reality is that when somebody quits your gym, they usually don’t quit fitness, right? They quit your method. Maybe they might go try something else. Maybe they quit your location. They go to something that’s closer. That’s OK. Right. Fitness is usually a stepping stone to more fitness or other fitness. It’s never a stepping stone toward a premature death. It’s never a stepping stone toward diabetes. Good coaching is a stepping stone to better coaching. And if you are the best, the most established, the most expert, the most authoritative, the most trusted in your location, then every new gym is a stepping stone to you. The more gyms that we start in the more cities around the world, the more people that we can help, the bigger difference that we can make, the bigger impact that we can have on public policy, on the longevity of our species and the happiness of our kind. That’s why I want more people to start a gym. And that’s why I wrote this book.
Mike (22:13):
Two-Brain Radio airs twice a week and features all the info you need to run a successful fitness business. Subscribe so you don’t miss a show. Now here’s Chris Cooper one more time.
Chris (22:21):
Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.
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“Start a Gym”: The New Book From Two-Brain Business
This is the best time to start a business.
And the best business to start is a gym.
But every mistake you make at startup will take a year to fix.
So I have a new book to help more people open gyms, avoid my mistakes and grow quickly. Because we need more gyms.
Click here to preorder the book.
First, why start a business?
The industrial economy is mostly over. There are no more 9-to-5, punch-a-clock-then-retire jobs left. You can’t depend on a college degree to guarantee a career anymore.
Here’s the great news: The new economy is a blank slate. You have the opportunity to create any career you want for yourself. For the first time ever, new entrepreneurs have an unlimited audience for any product or service they can dream up. For the first time in history, you have the opportunity to use your passion to help others, even if you don’t know them yet.
The world is open to entrepreneurs who can create value for their audience. And the greatest value we can deliver is the gift of longevity, vitality and self-reliance: the gift of health.
What produces health? Fitness and nutrition. How are fitness and nutrition best delivered? Through coaching.
Open Your Gym—The Right WayI’ve been a gym owner since 2005.
I opened a gym because my family was starving on my personal trainer’s salary. But no one told me how to open and run a gym well. So while I survived, it took me nearly a decade of stress and pain just to fix the mistakes that I made in the first week of business ownership.
The decisions you make at startup—or even before—will affect the rest of your life. Your business can be the engine that feeds your family, pays for vacations and changes the lives of hundreds of people in your city. Or it can be the thing that ruins your life. The decisions you make now will echo for decades.
So I want you to make the right decisions. In this series, I’ll share some excerpts from the book—and a couple of the amazing bonuses that our partners contributed, too!
The post “Start a Gym”: The New Book From Two-Brain Business appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 8, 2022
The Business Metrics That Every Gym Owner Should Know
Your gym business relies on your intelligent decision-making to be successful, and you can’t make good decisions without knowing your gym metrics.
With every major business move, your time, money and other assets are at stake in a tough business environment with a slim tolerance for trial and error. The basis for your decisions and strategies must be sound.
A data-driven business decision-making process eliminates the need for ballparking and guesswork. So, gym metrics can be your best resource for making your fitness business more profitable. This article highlights the key performance metrics for gym owner success.
What Is a Data-Driven Gym Business?
A data-driven fitness business uses gym metrics to:
This means decisions are based on numbers and research. They aren’t based on:
Smart gym owners understand the value of collecting data from various sources, including performance records, financial tallies, industry groups and mentorship programs. But, at the same time, they realize that using data for business decision-making is not the complete answer. Instead, they must use the correct data.
Some numbers simply aren’t important. Take, for example, gross profit—which many entrepreneurs focus on. This number is actually irrelevant in gym ownership. It’s possible to gross $10 million in a gym and still go under if expenses are $11 million. Not all metrics are equal.
Your clients track data—you should, too!Gym Metrics: How Data-Driven Management Helps Your Gym’s Profitability
Being a data-driven gym owner doesn’t mean you solely rely on raw numbers for critical decision-making. However, in an industry full of market disruptors and competitors, your key gym metrics can be your most valuable assets for becoming prosperous. Also, decisions based on gym metrics reduce risks and support positive outcomes.
According to a McKinsey survey, the return on investment (ROI) for data-driven businesses is 2.6 times higher than non-data-driven competitors when it comes to client analytics. The businesses that review client numbers are also 23 times more likely to acquire new customers/members.
By basing decisions on sound gym metrics, owners greatly increase their chances of avoiding costly errors, reaching profitability sooner and sustaining solid profit margins long term.
The Data We Count On
Most of the facts in this article come from data collected from an international group of 14,162 gyms and presented in Two-Brain’s 2021 “State of the Industry” report. The comprehensive report contains hard data from:
Key Gym Metrics That Count
When most people encounter a super-buff bodybuilder, they typically ask, “How much do you bench?” Of course, many bodybuilders will give a polite answer. But anyone knowledgeable about bodybuilding knows that a bench-press max has no relevance in the sport. The same is true about the significance of this gym metric: total members. Yet gym owners are always asked how many members they have.
Despite its popularity, the total membership metric has no utility as a performance metric for owners. For example, 100 members paying $300 per month each are better than 300 members paying $100 each because it costs less to serve and maintain the first group. They’ll use less space and equipment, they’ll put less strain on coaching staffs, and the retention costs will be lower. Imagine sending birthday cards to 100 members vs. 300.
Further, our data indicates that stronger relationships with fewer clients will increase retention rates (and reduce “churn”). This knowledge saves a gym money because replacing existing clients is more costly than retaining clients, and long-term members are more likely to stick with the program than brand new members.
It should be clear that some metrics are simply not essential—Facebook likes and total owner hours are two more you can ignore. The critical business metrics you should know are:
Operating profit (sometimes called “owner’s profit,” or “net owner benefit” in Two-Brain Business terms) and effective hourly rate.Expenses, return on investment (ROI) and profit margin.Average revenue per member (ARM).Length of engagement (LEG).Lifetime value (LTV).
Real monthly net owner benefit stats from some of the top gyms in the world.Operating Profit, Net Owner Benefit and Effective Hourly Rate
You might love the gym atmosphere and helping people reach their fitness goals. But you put in the massive commitment of time, money and effort to own a gym, and you deserve to prosper financially. Otherwise, you could just remain a coach in someone else’s business.
If you don’t gain control of your budget, you could allow extraneous expenses to squeeze you out of a payday each month. It’s all too common for gym owners to pay their expenses, spend some profit on upgrades and then have nothing left for themselves.
Your operating profit is what’s left after you subtract staffing costs and fixed expenses from gross revenue. The owner’s compensation comes from this pile. In the Two-Brain model, 44 percent of gross revenue is allotted to staff costs, 22 percent is allocated to fixed costs, and 33 percent is profit.
Profit is an essential gym metric. Because entrepreneurs find clever ways to pay themselves and avoid excess taxation, Two-Brain takes it one step further to calculate net owner benefit (NOB). This number includes everything the gym pays you (salary, dividends, etc.) or provides for you (like a car or cell phone). Your first target: an NOB of $100,000 per year.
We’ve presented profit and NOB first because owners must pay themselves first or their lives and families will suffer. The “pay yourself first” model is a directive strategy that requires you to pay yourself before taking care of any other expenses.
Effective Hourly Rate
Finally, you can determine whether your compensation justifies the time you spend on your gym by calculating your effective hourly rate (EHR). To calculate your EHR, tally all the hours you work on or in your gym business. Next, divide your NOB by that number. For example, if your NOB is $6,000 a month and you work 160 hours a month, your EHR would be $37.50 per hour.
This gym metric is a powerful decision-making instrument in determining your hiring strategy and how you use your time. You should seek to offload tasks valued below your EHR so you can spend your time on high-value tasks that grow the business.
For example, if your EHR is $37.50 and you spend 10 hours a month on cleaning, you’d be wise to hire a cleaner for $14 or so and use the 10 free hours working on tasks that generate more than $14 per hour. If you know your EHR, you’ll know exactly which roles to offload first—we call this process “climbing the value ladder.”
Fitness equipment is expensive. Will you get a return on your investment?Expenses
As mentioned earlier, the operating profit target is 33 percent, and it’s sound to allocate 22 percent for fixed costs. Because a great deal of the gym’s success depends on the quality and performance of your coaches, they get the lion’s share of the gross revenues at 44 percent.
This is called the 4/9ths Model, and you can use it to ensure your expenses never get out of control. If you don’t track your expenses, start now. If you don’t, you’ll have no idea how they affect your cash flow, and your profit could disappear in a heartbeat. So could your owner’s pay.
While controlling and tracking expenses is vital to owning a successful gym business, cutting your costs too far can actually limit growth. For example, in our 2021 study we found that 85.3 percent of the gyms that spend over $20,000 a month are profitable, while only 65.7 percent of gyms that spend at least $6,503 turn a profit. This data doesn’t imply that prosperous gyms are successful because they spend more than their counterparts. Instead, it is more of an indication that profitable gyms can manage larger expense totals if they make sound spending decisions and calculate return on investment (ROI).
You won’t succeed by being cheap. You’ll need to spend some money. But that money needs to generate a return for your business.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Expenses can be a gym owner’s friend or enemy. If an expense gives you a healthy return on your investment, it is a valuable ally. However, low-ROI expenses can choke all the profit out of your business if you aren’t careful.
To determine the ROI of an expense in ratio form, you calculate the income generated by that expense. For example, if your group training class brings in $4,000 a month with expenses of $1,000 per month, the ROI ratio would be 4:1. This ROI ratio means you get $4 for every dollar you spend on group training.
What if you only earned $1,000 from group training? That would mean the expense is not generating a profit. In that scenario, you would be wise to make adjustments. For example, you could determine which classes have too few participants. If you cancel those classes, you’ll reduce labor costs and might get back to profitability.
Marketing is another area where ROI is critical. For example, it’s pointless to spend money on Facebook ads without tracking ROI. But if you know that each lead costs $25 to acquire but you make $100 each time a new client signs up, your ads are a “good expense.”
Some fixed expenses are more difficult to analyze, like utilities. But you can still calculate revenue per square foot and balance that against fixed costs such as lease payments and utilities.
When you spend money, always calculate the return on that investment and make sure the expenses are worth the reward. Be wary of things that seem “cool” but don’t add value. Do you really need three different music subscriptions? Does that athletes lounge actually improve retention? In both cases, the answer is no.
Analyze your ROI for everything!
Bonus: To learn how to increase the ROI on staff expenses, download the “Intrapreneurialism 101” guide from our Free Tools page.
Boost your average revenue per member: Your current clients are most likely to purchase more services from you.Average Revenue Per Member (ARM)
Average revenue per member (ARM) is a gym metric that measures the amount of money your gym generates from each member each month. It is a valuable tool in monitoring your marketing and sales—the value you deliver to your clients.
You can calculate your ARM by dividing your monthly revenue by the number of members. So, if your revenue for the month is $20,100 from 134 members, your average revenue per member is $150.
A $150 ARM is a good starting standard, but we tell gym owners to target $205 because we’ve proven an owner can make $100,000 per year with 150 members if ARM is $205. Reaching this revenue level requires a potent sales and marketing strategy featuring prices and services with high-income potential.
But you don’t have to stop there. It’s not uncommon for Two-Brain clients to have ARM numbers well over $300, earned through high-ticket coaching, personal-training packages, and hybrid nutrition/fitness programs.
Conversely, blindly selecting prices and service packages can lead to a chronically low-yielding gym. For this reason, you must identify a target market composed of high-value clients, then create the services that will solve their problems.
Identifying Your Target Market to Increase ARM
Identifying individuals willing to pay a premium price for the services you offer requires research. Initially, observe and talk to your current gym members. Through them, you can find out:
What they love about your business and its services— what qualities they value most in your gym.Whether they would pay more for premium services.What services and products you can create to solve additional problems.What needs improvement.
For best results, choose your “seed clients” as your in-house research subjects. These individuals are usually your highest paying clients and the most cooperative. Plus, they are more likely to recommend your gym to other prospective high-value clients. To learn how to identify them, click here.
As you do your research, note your present high-value clients’ gender, age and other distinguishing factors. You want more people just like them.
Reaching and Signing up ARM-Increasing Members
“Affinity marketing” is the best way to sign up high-value clients. It costs nothing but your time. Get a free guide to that technique here.
When using paid advertising—online, TV, radio or print advertising—you should carefully track the ROI. Digital platforms will allow you to do this most effectively.
The key gym metrics for gauging the success of your marketing and sales results are:
Set rate: the number of leads who book a free No Sweat Intro.Show rate: the percentage of booked individuals who keep appointments.Close rate: the percentage of people who show up and become members.Boosting Your ARM With No Sweat Intros
An effective way to boost your closing rate is to use the No Sweat Intro (NSI) strategy. An NSI is part of the “prescriptive model” for closing a sale. If you use it, you’ll abandon the long-standing and ineffective practice of just placing prospective members into random classes. The NSI allows you to get to know the client, highlight your expertise and then offer assistance on a personal level in about 20 minutes.
NSIs eliminate amateurish sales pitches and introduce a methodology that encourages useful dialog between you and the potential client. Backed by a script, general plan and professional sales binder, the process allows you and your staff to identify potential members’ needs so you can offer the best solutions for them.
The prescriptive model works best when you practice offering free advice and confronting objections until the process becomes natural, fluid and stress-free. The NSI process has gone through rigorous testing, and it has been proven to increase ARM.
The longer you retain clients, the healthier they’ll be—and the stronger your business will be.Length of Engagement (LEG)
Because it monitors your gym’s retention rate, length of engagement (LEG) is an excellent performance indicator for your gym operations. In addition, this gym metric indicates the specific times that clients are more likely to quit. With this vital information, you’ll know when to ramp up retention efforts.
A few gym management software platforms feature length of engagement calculations. But some do not, and some gym managers prefer to get the essential data from spreadsheets. Either way, our data shows that you must target average length of engagement of 14 months as a starting point.
Given that it is much cheaper to persuade a current client to stay than to acquire a new client, your gym’s primary goal is to increase your LEG number. Some Two-Brain clients have LEG scores of more than 50 months.
Because happy current clients stay longer, the best way to boost LEG numbers is to increase the excellence of your operations to optimize the clients’ experience. You can improve your retention rate by:
Focusing on your seed clients. These are long-term clients who pay the most, bring you the most joy and are most likely to promote your gym. Nurture them and produce more.Being consistent in service, professionalism and treatment of customers.Hiring knowledgeable coaches with solid people skills.Highlighting client successes and accomplishments.Maintaining an upbeat and fun environment.Delegating retention efforts to a client success manager.
Any improvements in LEG will dramatically increase the success of your business. Don’t ignore this key gym metric.
Lifetime Value (LTV)
You can determine clients’ lifetime value by multiplying average revenue per member per month (ARM) by length of engagement (LEG). You can improve your LTV metric by improving your ARM, your LEG or both (Two-Brain teaches clients how to do it in our RampUp program).
For example, if you have 150 members, $205 ARM and 14-month LEG, you know the average client will spend $2,870 at your gym (LTV), resulting in revenue of $430,500 (or $30,750 per month for 14 months).
Imagine this scenario, which some of our clients achieve: 150 members who pay an average of $300 a month and stay for 24 months or more. With a 33 percent profit margin, that gym is going to provide a great life for its owner.
You can use your LTV number make revenue forecasts and strategic spending decisions. For example, gym owners who know their LTV is $2,870 don’t mind spending $100 to acquire a client. If your LTV is $200 and your cost of acquisition is $250, you’ll need to make adjustments or you’ll be out of business soon.
For clients and gym owners, the first step to improving your numbers is knowing your numbers.Gym Metrics and Their Value
Monthly tracking of gym metrics is essential, and Two-Brain has an app for clients that makes the process easy. It also allows them to measure improvements and identify trends. Make sure you track your numbers and review them to ensure key metrics are always improving.
In a highly competitive and complex business environment, your gym’s metrics can make all the difference. Without them, your gym will never reach its maximum profit potential.
If you aren’t sure how to change your key numbers for the better, consider working with a professional mentor. Through Two-Brain’s gym-owner mentorship, you can get in-depth training in business metrics through a program that produced six first-time millionaires in 2021.
About the Author: John Burson successfully ran a personal training business for over 20 years, and he has written volumes of published articles on business entrepreneurship, finance and the fitness industry.
The post The Business Metrics That Every Gym Owner Should Know appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 7, 2022
Frustrated, COVID-Weary Gym Owners: Read This
On Jan. 3, Premier Doug Ford of Ontario said the province would close gyms once again, this time from Jan. 5 to at least Jan. 26.
It’s incredibly disappointing news for entrepreneurs who have been dealing with varying levels of COVID restrictions since early 2020.
The news comes with gyms in British Columbia and Quebec already shuttered and other provinces no doubt considering similar restrictions.
The good news: Two-Brain can help.
Our “Second Shutdown Guide for Gym Owners” is full of high-speed tactics that can save your business. They’ve been tested, implemented and refined over previous lockdowns. They work, and they’ll give you the best chance to get through another tough period.
I’ll link to it below—but I want to call attention to Chris Cooper’s final note in the guide first:
“The greatest differentiator between gyms that thrived in the first shutdown and gyms that faltered? It was leadership.”
That was true in the second lockdown, too—and it will be true in this round.
Right now, it’s pretty tempting to throw your hands in the air. I understand. I’m resisting the urge, too.
Let’s be clear: It’s not fair that gym owners have to bear a disproportionate share of the COVID burden. There’s bitter irony is setting up a business to help people stay healthy and then being told you can’t operate because of a health crisis. And we’ll ignore for a moment the fact that it’s now widely accepted that being overweight or obese increases the risk of severe COVID symptoms and death.
But, as a microgym owner, you’ve got to move past that and continue leading the people who rely on you. The clients who just got locked out of your gym didn’t vanish over the last two years, and they didn’t trade your services for a Peloton bike. They want what you offer. So continue to give it to them with a smile—even if it’s forced right now.
Your clients are frustrated, too. Many are worn out or angry. But no one wants to see a leader falter, so it’s up to you to inspire your clients even if you don’t feel inspiring.
Do whatever you need to do first. Shout at the ocean, max out your deadlift or maybe write a protest email to a local politician. Get it out.
At this point, I won’t caution you against a pointed, well-considered Facebook post, blog or public statement. It’s possible the time for quiet acceptance is past and members of our industry need to be more aggressive in calling for equitable treatment. I’ll let you decide if that path is right for you and your business.
If you choose to speak, be direct and assertive rather than crass or vicious. Advocate for your business and your clients as an angry but well-informed professional. Rely on data and provide a voice of reason even if your terse words pass through gritted teeth.
Essential Reading
In the last 20 months, this article has been a hit every time we mention it: “How to Lead in a Crisis.” That’s because gym owners like you know they need to be leaders right now but don’t know how to do that when they’re angry, stressed and frustrated.
After you’re done venting, read the article, get yourself squared away, and then get back to serving your clients.
Remember this: People need you now more than ever.
That’s not hyperbole. You can actually help people avoid severe illness and stay healthy—physically and mentally.
Now, take action and dig into the second resource you need right now:
“Shutdown Plan for Gym Owners”
The post Frustrated, COVID-Weary Gym Owners: Read This appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 6, 2022
Yoga No-No: Stop Offering Free or Discounted New-Student Offers
Shannon Brasovan, Two-Brain Yoga Business Mentor
Do you want to make more money, retain more clients and have a greater impact on your yoga students? Then stop offering free or discounted offers to new students.
In the yoga world, the common bait for new clients is the “free first week” or discounted start-up offer. Almost every studio uses something like this, but here’s the thing: Retention for those types of offers is so low that the return is practically nonexistent.
Worse, these offers drive down prices for all yoga studios.
While you might think discounts and free weeks make yoga “accessible,” what it really does is create a situation that’s unsustainable for both the studio and the client. The studio misses out on revenue, and if a client can’t afford the cost of membership before the intro offer, there’s no way the client can handle the expense after it expires. You want to attract clients who can make the investment now and will stay long term to get all the benefits of yoga practice.
So what should you do instead?
Use Free Consultations to Create Value
Businesses grow at the speed of their relationships, so build relationships. Get to know your clients through a free consultation, which takes 15 to 60 minutes max. Taking the time to sit with prospective clients shows them the benefits of your services and creates brand evangelists instead of wayward discount seekers.
Will you get fewer prospects this way? No.
Will your retention go up? Absolutely.
Will you show the true value of your service to everyone who walks in the door? Yes!
Start by setting up a clean space where you can sit down and have a chat with a client. In those consultations, ask clients about their goals, share what’s so amazing about your studio, explain how you can help them achieve their goals, and provide a practice prescription that will help them reach their goals with you.
Make sure to use the person’s name, make eye contact and ensure they leave feeling seen, heard and ready to get started. Sign clients up right in those meetings and start changing their lives.
Ditch your free trials and start-up discounts. Your client journey should begin with a consultation that builds a relationships, shows how you can help people achieve their goals and establishes the value of your service right from Day 1.
Click for more info about mentorship for yoga business owners.
The post Yoga No-No: Stop Offering Free or Discounted New-Student Offers appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
How Does a Pastor Build Community at His Gym?
Mike (00:01):
Fitness businesses and churches: Is there a connection? Gym owner and pastor Tres Kennedy will answer that question today on Two-Brain Radio. I’m Mike Warkentin, your host for this edition of Two-Brain Radio. Before we roll, please pound a like onto this video with my sincere appreciation, and don’t forget to subscribe. Now. I’ve had some religious experiences in my gym, usually after a benchmark workout that left me in a higher state. Tres Kennedy has taken that a lot further. He’s the owner of CrossFit Wotown and a pastor at Move Church, both in sweet home Alabama, just north of Birmingham. Tres, I’m super curious how your life as an entrepreneur influences the church and vice versa. Are you ready to go?
Tres (00:40):
I am beyond ready to go.
Mike (00:42):
All right, let’s hit it. I wanna know which came first. We talking gym or church. And when did both come into be?
Tres (00:48):
Yeah, so the church came first. Our church Move Church is seven years old. So me and my best friend, we planted it in really kind of our hometown seven years ago. So we did that, go through the whole, you know, find a location, meet people, build like your web of folks. And then hopefully from there grow and do all those types of things. For seven years and in the middle of that, or actually in the beginning of that, I went through this whole fitness journey, transformation, lost 80 pounds, all this stuff doing CrossFit. Oh yeah, it was wild. And then, somewhere along the way, you know, I met my wife, we got married, asked her to do CrossFit with me. It’s kinda like I got down to one knee with a little Qalo ring and was like, Hey, will you do CrossFit with me? It was super cheesy. If I could go back, I wouldn’t do it.
Mike (01:40):
It’s a good story though.
Tres (01:41):
But then she got really, really good at the fitness and exercising cause she had like a background playing college softball. And so she started coaching at the gym that we were a part of. Did that for several years. And then she was like, she was a dental hygienist and she, one day we were actually on vacation and she said that she didn’t wanna be a dental hygienist anymore. Or for the rest of her life. I was like, well, OK. Like what do you wanna do? And she was, she said, I honestly don’t know. She’s like, I like coaching at our gym. And I was like, do you wanna like open our own gym? And she was like, I don’t know, maybe. So, I was like, OK, well we’ll pray about it. You know, maybe in the next five years, we’ll figure out how to do that. I talked to our gym owner, all that good stuff. And literally that was a conversation in July. And then October of that same year we opened our gym. So it was just a few months. It was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that was two years ago. So October two years ago, we opened up our CrossFit gym.
Mike (02:42):
So when you started the church, did you have zero members? Like, was this just starting from zero and away you go?
Tres (02:48):
So we had a net of people. We knew like people that we had been in relationship with for literally probably half of our lives. And they went and planted this church with us. I wanna say it was probably around when we started probably around a hundred folks and we successfully grew it to like 60, you know, in our first year. And then from there we have just continued to figure out our DNA and kind of grow from there. So yeah, the bumps and bruises of like figuring out your culture, what you stand for, getting the right people in the right seats and honestly, you know, pouring into people, it’s a whole lot while managing finances and having your own kids and families and all that stuff. Sounds like a gym life, right?
Mike (03:38):
And that’s where I’m going with this because there’s some obvious similarities between coaching, you know, a coaching gym and a church. Like I think a lot of people will see that right away. You’re trying to help people live their best lives in both and you’re building community. Right. So what are some of the specific aspects of Move Church that are gonna be very familiar to gym owners and Two-Brain clients specifically?
Tres (03:57):
So, a lot of, because I make the joke all the time, people are like, wait, how did you do this with your gym? I’m like, it’s literally the same thing as planting a church. Basically you have people that you care about and they’ve got road blockers and you’re trying to remove those road blockers so that they can move forward in their spiritual journey. Same with fitness journey. Right. So like literally our service. So our once a week gathering of people, actually operates like a no-sweat intro for non-believers or new folks to the area. And then it’s also where your member, your group class happens on a weekly basis, as well as is the service. Beyond that, like we’d have like, so an on-ramp program or a foundations program or whatever, to get someone acclimated into your specific movements or stuff, we have the same, literally like the same thing.
Tres (04:53):
It’s called Move classes. What do we believe? What are our statements of faith? You know, what are like the path of a believer? What could you do inside the church, all this stuff, boom, that’s their next step, right? To get ’em acclimated. Then we, you know, we got a private Facebook group, just like our gym has a private Facebook group where we’re engaging with people on a weekly basis, creating new content, video, content, blogs, all that stuff, sharing with ’em, whatever, you know, help them with resources. We got one on one like coaching that would be like discipleship, right? So figuring out where people are in their life, figuring out what some good next steps are holding, ’em accountable to those things, helping them where they’re struggling, all that, just being present in their life with the one on one types of goal reviews, checkins. Literally see it’s a hundred percent the same. That’s kinda like a client journey roadmap. We’re mapping out the same stuff with people, you know, in their relationship and their life with God. Cause it’s like literally, like they’re trying to better themselves spiritually in the same way people are trying to better themselves physically.
Mike (05:55):
So this is fascinating. And I love the parallels that you’ve got there. Now tell me this. Did you have this stuff in place at the church initially, and then you kind of started doing the Two-Brain thing and realized it synced up, or did you backfill some of the stuff from after learning more about the Two-Brain and the business aspects?Tres (06:11):
It cleaned up a lot when we started doing the Two-Brain stuff, what was funny is my best friend. He’s the other pastor at our church. He actually coaches at our gym too. And so we were sitting in a staff meeting for the church one day and he was like, Hey, all these systems and things we have in place at the gym, it’s really easy for someone to figure out where they are in life or in their fit life. And know what that next clear thing was like. So what could our no sweat intro be? And then like, that’s what he said. He’s like, what do we do. So we started, like, we literally listed out all the stuff that we use at the gym with Two-Brain, like, OK.
Tres (06:56):
So how could we use some of the same things for our church? So we had all this other stuff along the way, but we just saw so much success on some of these things as well. Maybe this is kind of more of some of the things that we’re trying to do, because it really is customizable to everybody rather than just like a cookie cutter. Hey, here’s the flow, here’s the system you gotta do these steps one two and three. But so we took more of the customizable approach with the one-on-ones and stuff like that.
Mike (07:25):
In the religious community. How common is like an introductory process or a member journey? Is that a thing in the religious community or is that, you know, a newer thing that you were developing?
Tres (07:34):
No it’s been around, shoot. A lot of churched just have like a membership process. We don’t really have like a membership process. We’re just like, like some core things in discipleship, honestly. Like, Hey, here’s like some pillars in faith that we should be moving towards as, you know, go back to teachings in the Bible and try to figure out what those things are and kind of just move towards those spots. But as far as like helping people get acclimated into it, those things are probably newer in the last, I would say church history, maybe the last 40 years has been a slow development towards those things.
Mike (08:12):
And that’s fascinating because, like the average person who doesn’t work out can be very intimidated to join a gym. Right. It’s scary. There’s all these tattooed people in the corner, grunting and sweating, it looks horrifying and all this stuff. And Two-Brain has realized that like, yeah, you need to show people how to become a part of this group. And then on the other side for non-religious people who decide to join a church and become religious, that could be intimidating too, because you’re walking into this congregation of, you know, people who all believe the same thing. And they’re obviously very welcoming because that’s a tenet of faith, obviously, but it’s still intimidating because you don’t know anyone. You don’t know, like where do I sit? What do I do? All that other stuff. So that integration process must, I’m guessing that that makes it so much easier for new members of your church to find their home and feel better.
Tres (08:55):
Yeah. So that was like the other thing too, is like the biggest intimidating factor walking into a church, really two things, one, like everyone’s a goodie two shoes and they have it all together and perfect. And no one else, like if someone who just walks in off the street, like, oh, I’m nothing like them or two it’s like, oh, these people are like major hypocrites and I don’t wanna get sucked into being a hypocrite. Right. And so trying to break down those barriers and just, Hey look, nobody is perfect. Please don’t think that I’m perfect. Please don’t think, you know, that anyone is, we’re all trying to figure out life together is really the biggest thing. So the same way of posting pictures at the gym of not the, like the dude with this shirt off doing all this stuff, right. It’s the mom who is trying to figure out, you know, what’s for dinner while she’s swinging a kettlebell or something like that. You know, that’s kinda the same thing with the church that we’re trying to portray as well.
Mike (09:51):
Yeah. And in your client journey at the church, have you identified like common dropping off points where people might struggle to keep going and things like that? Just like in fitness we realize, OK, 90 days, getting tough for some clients, you know, we know those points are coming. Do you see that in the, I’ll call it the member journey at the church, I suppose.
Tres (10:08):
Yeah. Major life events. Whether it be loss of family member or job change, new season of life as a parent, someone who’s walked through divorce, you kinda see what those key indicators are like, OK. If these are the things like, we need to be aware of these things. And so we’ve started like building out like one day events, kind of like, you know, the tinker calls or anything that would happen in Two-Brain where you’re like on these special calls talking about specific things, we’re doing those now, whether it be for finances or marriage, or, you know, the whole gamut on that end and figuring, OK, what are the things that we need to be building beyond just a sermon, but we can incorporate into these people’s everyday lives and how do we create those tools to give it to them?
Mike (10:55):
So do you do that as a reactive thing, like, OK. Oh, I know, like, you know, Chris had a divorce, we need to kind of reach out and see if we can help. Or is it something where you are more proactive and you’re like we teach you finance and we teach you coping skills for life events, or how do you operate like that?
Tres (11:12):
Both. Yeah. Current experience. So you gotta like your finger on the pulse on what’s going on in your congregation, or like what’s going on in the members of your gym. That’s a big part that we’ll talk about later. It’s like, if you know what’s going on, then you need to create things for the people who are already there. It would be kind of pointless to come up with all these lists of things for people like, yeah, those are great ideas, but that’s nowhere near where I’m at right now. So I’m like, OK, where are you in your life? So the reactive, but also with the proactive, like, Hey, I think the proactive is important. Cause it gives someone an idea of where they can be in the future. So creating both.
Mike (11:52):
And what about, call it general self improvement, like finance and fitness and things like that, do those things carry over from your gym, into your teaching as a pastor with your congregation?Tres (12:02):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So we talk about holistic discipleship. So your whole life being transformed into the image of Jesus. So I think he has a say beyond just what’s in here and like what’s in here, but how you act and respond like in the world. So I wanna be a good steward of my money. I wanna, you know, I wanna be a good steward of my body. We know the longer, like the better, like the healthier we are, the longer we’re probably gonna live, which means the more impact we’ll have in our family’s lives and our friends’ lives and our communities’ lives. So it’s important to do those things. So it absolutely translates to those things. How you treat people at your job, you’re growing in education, so you can just contribute to as society as a whole, all those things are important.
Mike (12:50):
So do you teach your congregation finance fitness stuff as well, or is that, you know, maybe a recommendation saying like, Hey, you know, your life could be improved by, you know, getting your financial house in order or maybe working out. Does that ever kind of cross over?
Tres (13:01):
Yeah. So we do financial, we call ’em financial workshops. Yeah. So I’m huge into financial education and learning that stuff. Cause we don’t learn it in our schools, not the right way. So trying to teach young people, one, like, Hey, how do you budget your money? How, but beyond that, what’s passive income? What’s cash flow? All these, what are investment strategies? Like obviously we can’t say, Hey, you need to do this. Invest here. We’re not investment, you know, professionals, but teaching them, you know, about real estate, teaching them about cash and passive income. Those are not words that I knew at 18 years old, or I didn’t learn about those till like I was 30. So trying to shrink that gap to help people say, Hey, look, if you’re, you know, financially, if you’re healthy, you don’t have to be a slave to your job and work 80 hours a week and do all the extra overtime and all that stuff and miss out on just life in general. And then the fitness side, it’s like a, there’s a tightrope there. Cause I don’t wanna use my influence in the church to persuade people to join our gym. So I’m like, Hey, you should definitely take care of your health. You need to be a steward of your body. So whatever works best for you works best for you.
Mike (14:14):
It’s interesting. I’m actually, I’m editing an article right now. It’s our yoga mentor, Shannon Brasovan. And she’s talking about how money is often, you know, a bad term in the yoga community because a lot of people do it for the love of yoga and so forth. And they’re almost embarrassed about making a profit. Her position though, is that if you make a profit and you get your finances in order, you can have a bigger impact on the world by doing good with that money. Chris Cooper obviously subscribes to that too, in his help first philosophy. It sounds a lot like you, you’re gonna be less stressed, less angry, less, you know, you’re gonna be able to focus on your family and do more as a person, whether it’s through tithing and giving and all the other important things if you have your finances in order, than if you’re just stressed, working 80 hour weeks, like you said, so I love the holistic approach to it. And the same goes, I won’t get into the, you know, the details of all the gym owners already know, the same goes if you’re healthy. If you’re not, you know, it’s hard to take care of someone else or your, you know, your brother, sister, if you can’t, you know, get the log of your own eye, I think is the biblical reference. If I’m not mistaken.
Tres (15:10):
I use Coop’s story all the time about, or the question about who eats the sandwich on the airplane. All the time. With folks. But then even like, as a believer, it’s like the most valuable resource you have is your time. Like one on one time with somebody, if all of my time is spent at my job, then I’m not using my resources properly. So I’m trying to help people say, Hey look, you can do stuff with your finances to free up your time so that you can make a much bigger impact
Mike (15:40):
Listeners. If you don’t know the eat the sandwich story, the short version is if there is a pilot on a plane full of people and there’s one sandwich, who gets it? The answer is the pilot, because if he or she crashes the plane, everyone goes down. So you gotta get that person whole before you can serve the rest. Same thing. Principle is putting your own oxygen mask on before someone elses. So that’s the analogy there. Let’s flip it the other way now. So talk to me about your experience as a pastor. How does that influence your business and your life as an entrepreneur? Because that’s gonna be a really interesting one. You had this church going and you decide to open a gym and now you’ve got the church of fitness going on the other side.
Tres (16:16):
The church of fitness. That’s great. Some of my friends are gonna listen to this and they’re gonna start using that term.
Mike (16:21):
I’m sorry.
Tres (16:24):
No, that’s a good one. I’ve not heard that one at all. So it really is like, it starts with belief and faith. Like I do believe, cause the question was, how does what I’ve learned as a pastor translate over to me being an entrepreneur. I do believe that I think God works in the world through believers, right? And the church. And that’s not just like in the literal building and the lives of the church, the church’s people, it’s not a building. And so through that, the term is build the kingdom of God. So building the kingdom of God really is like in all these other areas of life. So individuals, marriages, families, towns, businesses like leaders in businesses, all those spots, that’s where God’s doing stuff. So like my life, my worldview, my like scope is I want to do those things and be parts of all those spots.
Tres (17:21):
So what I’ve been learning this stuff. So I’ve been a pastor for 12 years. So now it’s translating over into all these other areas. Cause I see it and I’m in my small town. Our town is super small. Wanna say like 3000 people total. And that’s like, if you add up two other small towns with us, right. So really kinda a small town, but I just see like how, as you care for people, you can really see things begin to shift and change in a community. So I’ve learned all this stuff, how to care for people on the spiritual side, like be in their life when they’re going through the worst stuff they’ve ever been through. That’s the first person they’re gonna call is like, in our context, the person they’re gonna call is their pastor.
Tres (18:06):
Cause they’re like, Hey, you obviously know something I don’t know, like help me through this. You can see from like, you know, up in the air what’s going on, which is so crazy to think about, but it’s always the call. And it’s tough to be with somebody after they’ve received news that they have cancer or that someone they love has just died. And you’re like the first phone call or first interaction somebody has with somebody. So that prepared me a lot just for like, people are gonna go through stuff in the gym. Like, like there, it would be a great spot if no one dealt with anything in their year. And they just came and worked out, went home, had a nice meal, woke up, did it again tomorrow, but that’s not the case. It’s stressful day at work or my kids going through something or I’ve got 5 million things on my calendar, whatever, you know, the gamut on ? Side.
Tres (18:57):
I know all gym owners do, but like, OK. So what do you do with that information as a gym owner? Be like, well, you know, suck it up. Like do the stuff. Yeah. Like, but that’s not it, that’s the part that I took into it from the very beginning is just caring about people. And knowing that it’s so much more than this one hour that they’re spending in the gym with us, I want to get them to spend that one hour in the gym with me, but what do I have to do that? What barriers do I have to remove so that they can spend that one hour at the gym with me or that they’re like, you know what? It is worth it for me to be here. So that was like the biggest lesson on gym ownership side that I’ve learned.
Tres (19:37):
But as far as just like the town and community, I feel like we are responsible as business owners and entrepreneurs to make our communities better, not just like, not just bring new businesses or every chain restaurant, whatever possible so you can make the most money or bring as much business or development to the community as possible. I love my small town. I want my small town to stay a small town, but I would love for there to be valuable things within our community that last beyond my lifetime, for sure. That’s not like I want to see the biggest movie theater possible in our town. Right. I think it would be way more valuable to just have some business leaders who actually care about their community and know finance or whatever, you know, all the help first model, I think those things really do matter.
Mike (20:28):
I think you’ve really hit on an important point of coaching where, you know, maybe 10 years ago, maybe less, a lot of gym owners and coaches really thought, you know, being the best technical coach was super important, more certifications, more tech, cues, more knowledge about, you know, sarcomeres and all the other Krebs cycle and all the things no one really cares about except in a textbook. But what we are realizing more, and this is with Two-Brain Coaching and Two-Brain Business is the best coaches are really the ones who get clients to work out and do the workout that’s gonna help ’em with their goals. And so that gets into a whole different side of things where it’s not about squat cues anymore. It’s more about life coaching, you know, and its very interesting. Do you find that that life coaching then they kind of bleed over like holistically, if you’re talking about, I look at your church and you’re talking about dealing with people as a whole and you’re talking about finance and body and soul and so forth in the gym, you’re kind of doing the same exact same thing.
Mike (21:16):
And that must make you guys great coaches in your gym.
Tres (21:19):
Yeah. I dunno if you’ve ever heard the quote before people don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care.
Mike (21:25):
Is that Roosevelt?
Tres (21:25):
Sure. I don’t know. I’ve heard it so much in my life. Michael Scott said it, who knows. But that really is true. Like if you know all the, the points of a squat like, but you don’t know that my daughter’s been in the hospital for like a week and that’s why I’ve not been at the gym. And like, how does that translate over, you know, at all, literally that was a conversation I had with one of our members today. And I just got on Facebook, saw that they were at the hospital, turns out they’ve been in the hospital for a whole week. Just shoot ’em a message on Facebook messenger. Hey, I just saw this. How are y’all? Is there anything I can do? Like that stuff really does like translate cause they’re like, oh, well they really do care. So then the next time they’re in. OK. Tell me about all these points of the squat. Again, why do they matter? But if you don’t have that, you know, that buy in from them, then it really doesn’t matter.
Mike (22:20):
And you’re not doing it, you know, as a retention tool, but it does turn into a retention tool because I think it was Greg Glassman I think that said it’s easy to quit or it’s easy to quit a gym. It’s hard to quit a relationship or some variation of that. And what our goal is as coaches and you know, even as a pastor, working for self improvement in any avenue, you need people to keep doing the stuff that you know is going to work. Building that relationship we found in gyms is absolutely critical to getting people, to do it. Cause the best workout program in the world is useless if they don’t show up to do it. So your actions in building community and relationships definitely become a retention tool. Does that actually show in your numbers at the, do you have retention numbers at your church?
Tres (23:01):
Yeah, but yeah, I do, but there’s a fine line there too though of the caring do I care because I’m trying to get this person stay here for as long as possible or do I really care about this person and their stuff? There really is a fine line there, so you have to figure out like, think you have to do soul searching on that end. Cause at the end of the day, like people are gonna leave our gym. People leave our gym all the time. Right. And at first that was the hardest lesson was learning at first people weren’t leaving — I thought people were leaving me, but actually they just have other things going on. So as a gym owner, business owner, whatever, you can take that stuff super personal. And that was a hard lesson to.
Tres (23:41):
Oh, I a hundred percent did. I was like sitting in the corner and like, like, oh my gosh, I thought me and this person were tight.
Mike (23:46):
They don’t like me!
Tres (23:47):
Exactly. And that’s not the case. And so it’s like, you know what, for every one person that leaves, there’s probably like 10 people who like will stay and find these things worth value. And that’s totally fine. So whoever it’s supposed to be, it’ll be those people and whoever it’s not supposed to be, I mean, it’s not gonna be that person and it’s not no sweat off our back, but that was a hard, hard lesson to learn. So, but yeah. The question was leg length of engagement for church?
Mike (24:17):
I mean, that’s interesting one I’ve never thought of, but it’s key.
Tres (24:20):
Yeah. I, well, I didn’t think about it until a year ago. I was like, I wonder what the length of engagement of people at our church is. And so I just started plugging it in because we do like our Move owners class, or our membership class. And so we know when people went through those and so our just got this Excel sheet out, started like actually I used the Two-Brain one and just plugged the people in with those start dates. It’s really wild. But yeah, our membership or our LEG is like 45 right now.
Mike (24:51):
45 at the church?
Tres (24:51):
Yeah. 45 at the church.
Mike (24:53):
And that’s months?
Tres (24:54):
Yeah. 45 months.
Mike (24:55):
Is the gym higher or lower?
Tres (24:57):
Our gym’s only two years old. So it’s hard. Our LEG at the gym’s like almost 11, 10, 9.
Mike (25:04):
Yeah. And I’ve known from interviewing other gym owners the longer you’re in business, the higher your LEG will go because at least if you’re a good gym owner and you survive, you have a 10-year client, that’s gonna bump it also.
Tres (25:14):
It’s yeah. It’s only grown. It’s never decreased.
Mike (25:16):
They’re going up though. That’s the key though, right? OK. So that’s interesting. Let’s now we’ve often talked, when I worked at the CrossFit Journal, we published an article on this, but gyms and churches are often called third places. It’s that place you go when you aren’t at home or at work, it’s that other place, you know, Cheers where everyone knows your name, that kinda thing. Right. What advice can you give gym owners who are looking to create tightly knit supportive communities? You’re obviously a master at this because you’re doing it at the church and at the gym. How can other people do that in their gyms?
Tres (25:47):
So you have to know what’s going on in your members’ lives outside the gym. You have to know. I know Coop talks about it a good bit. Like just set a goal, talk to somebody about, you know, Hey, you got a kid, do they play sports? And then following up with them the next week, Hey, did they, how did Johnny’s game go or whatever, but that’s just like one small instance, but you have to know. And I think it’s important to know that. And then to hire people that also have that same framework. Yes. It’s great to have coaches who are experts in all this other stuff. But if they don’t like, if they can’t translate over to how this, how you’re leading someone to a healthy life, not just a healthy one hour, but a healthy life, then they’re gonna miss it on that end in my experience, you have to know what’s going on.
Tres (26:33):
I needed to know that two of our members, their daughter was in the hospital. I needed to know that. So then I can reach out and that would explain why they’re at risk and haven’t been to the gym in a week. So, I mean, now you’re not freaking out on all this other stuff, but you need to know when people are going through stuff, seasonally, like, you know, members who maybe have lost a family member around this time of year. And that’s why they’re not motivated to come to the gym. It has nothing to do with what cool program or offering you have at the time. But like there’s other things that correlate outside of this one hour, yes. This one hour or this time in gym is going to help them reap huge benefits in their everyday life.
Tres (27:15):
But what happens outside of the gym is the number one contributing factor to if they’re gonna come be a part of your gym or not. So you have to know, and then you cannot be cynical towards people when they leave or you get hurt. You know, we’re talking about that earlier. Cause what can happen is you can get super cynical. Like, you know what? I put myself out there, people left, I’m not doing that anymore. They’re all gonna leave at some point in time. And you know what, they might leave at some point in time, but maybe you weren’t supposed to be their coach for the rest of their life. Maybe it was only supposed to be for 12 months, six months, six years, whatever. And just kinda have to settle in your identity and worth stuff as a coach, knowing like, I know what I’m doing is making a difference in our community and in people’s lives and whoever’s here is that’s gonna happen. So you can’t question that stuff and not like get cynical that, oh, this person’s only gonna be here for like two months and then they’re out.
Mike (28:08):
You know, when I hear you talking about that, I’m gonna guess that you’ve had to have the same conversation with yourself as a pastor when someone leaves the church. Am I right?
Tres (28:16):
Oh, hundred percent man.
Mike (28:17):
That’s so spiritual. You’ve got this deep spiritual connection. Yeah.
Tres (28:21):
Yeah. You’ll pour your life into someone. I just honestly just I’m walking through this right now where I have poured myself into someone for years and years and years and years. But now they’ve decided to leave the church and you’re like, OK, how do I not take this personal? And you just have to identity and self worth, you know, it’s not in like it’s not in that person. It was in the task that I was responsible for doing for that time.
Mike (28:48):
I really like that one that you might not be the coach or the gym or the pastor for life, but you serve a purpose for a specific period. I really like that one because that could certainly help some people. I know I’ve beaten that crap outta myself a few times when people have left and maybe there were some failings on my part, but on the other side of it, you know, there were aspects where it’s like, I couldn’t control this person moving to another city to take a new job that’s gonna better their lives. You know, I couldn’t stop that.
Tres (29:14):
Yeah. I mean, if the same person was leaving all the time for the same thing, OK. I need to look at my systems or look at how I’m delivering something. Maybe it is me, but you know, a lot of the times it is just certain circumstances that are outside of your control. You can’t do anything about it.
Mike (29:29):
Listeners, I’m gonna give you a couple of assignments here based on what Tres has told you. I want you to contact five members today and just ask them and do it right now. It’s not gonna take very long, just text them or direct message them or even call them whatever you have the most direct line of communication. Just check in with them. How are you doing today? OK. And if you know something specific about that person, like someone that might be struggling, check in with them on a specific thing. OK. That’s your first assignment. Second assignment is, I want you to pull out the last group photo that you took at a holiday workout or at your gym when there’s like 10, 20, 40 people, whatever. Go through that group photo, go to every person. And can you name what that person does for a living?
Mike (30:09):
Can you name a family member of that person? And if you can’t, make a list and I want you to find out over the next months or weeks, even better, as soon as possible, find out something about these people and that may, you’re gonna have to start a conversation. You’re gonna have to chat with them. You’re gonna have to find out, you know, cause you can’t just go up and say, uh, OK, what, what do you do for a living? What’s your wife’s name? OK, bye. Right? It’s gonna seem weird. You gotta have a conversation and get to know your members. Some of you are going to go through this exercise and you’re gonna find that, you know everything about those two things about every member. And that means you are already having great connections, find out something else that you don’t know about those people. Those are the tasks that I’ll give you guys listeners to do today. After this show. Tres, I wanna thank you for this. This has been fascinating because I haven’t had a chance to talk to someone who runs a gym and a church at the same time. The parallels are incredible. I wanna see in a couple years what your length of engagement does at both. I wanna see if the gym can catch the church.
Tres (31:02):
That’s the long-term goal. On my side, I’m trying to have more members at our gym than we do at the church personally.
Mike (31:10):
Fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.
Tres (31:14):
Hey, thank you so much, Mike.
Mike (31:16):
That was pastor and gym owner Tres Kennedy on Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host Mike Warkentin, and I’m all about telling stories of amazing gym owners. Subscribe for more episodes. And don’t forget to hammer a like on this content. Here’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a final word.
Chris (31:32):
Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.
The post How Does a Pastor Build Community at His Gym? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 5, 2022
The “Two-Brains” Approach to Solving Problems
Every problem in your business is either a “process problem” or a “people problem.”
And your business has two sides: operations and audience. When you’re trying to solve a staff problem, your processes are your operations and your audience is the staff person in question.
In the previous post in this series, I shared the series of questions I ask myself when I’m trying to solve a problem with a team member. Today, I’m going to tell you how to take action after you’ve answered those questions for yourself.
The Roadmap to Success
You must give the staff person absolute clarity: “You did it wrong, and here’s what I want you to do instead.” But you must also deliver that clarity in a way that encourages them to want to fix the problem (and to stick around).
Here’s how to do it, step by step.
First, book a Career Roadmap session with your staff person.
Start with their Bright Spots: Ask them what they’re really happy with in their role.
Then ask for their ultimate goal. What do they want to achieve on the platform you’ve built for them?
Now we’ve started to rough in their future path to getting what they want. We’ve established Point B (where they want to go), and we’ve also started to get a sense of where they’re starting (Point A).
This is really important for context: We need to show them that correcting their current performance is part of a larger picture and not just a beatdown. We need them to know that we don’t think they’re a bad employee, just that some of their performance isn’t quite good enough yet. Looking at the big picture puts the focus on the “yet.”
Then you pull out your evaluation form.
Again, focus on what they’re doing well to start.
“OK, James, you want to make coaching your career. You’re off to a good start. You have great presence in class and you make good connections with our clients.”
Then highlight the best opportunities for improvement.
“If you want to get to your goals, our first roadblock is how you show up to class. You’re consistently running in at the last minute. That affects how clients see you—they think you’re disorganized or distracted. They’re less likely to want to book 1:1 time with you because they don’t see you as careful and prepared. Does that make sense?”
You have to frame the required improvement in a way that benefits them. This isn’t a laziness thing or a millennial thing: It’s just good marketing. Good leaders sell their staff on the benefits of doing things well.
Next, prescribe a very specific action.
“I want you here 10 minutes before class, clean, dressed, greeting people and organized for your class. I want you to tell me your class plan every day. Can you do that?”
Next, define a window for measurement.
“We’re going to try this for the next 90 days and then meet again to discuss your improvement.”
Finish on a high note.
“James, you’re a really strong coach, and you can go really far. You have great rapport and knowledge. The things holding you back have to do more with signaling and perception than actual skill or smarts. That means they’re easy to fix.”
Don’t Wait Until You’re Mad
The biggest mistake I’ve ever made in giving staff corrective feedback?
Failing to schedule their evaluations in advance. I hated giving them because I don’t like making people angry. But I failed to see them as a gift to my staff—so I’d procrastinate until I was really mad and couldn’t hold it in anymore. Then, of course, staff would hate evaluations as much as I did.
It’s OK for people to make mistakes. It’s not OK for people to repeat mistakes.
Create clarity, wrap it in kindness and let them deliver to the level that would make everyone proud.
The post The “Two-Brains” Approach to Solving Problems appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
January 4, 2022
Process Problems and People Problems
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance.” —Hanlon’s razor
The following is an excerpt from “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief,” my bestselling book on the phases of entrepreneurship. The second edition will be out later this month!
“My staff never cleans up before they go home.”
“Our front office is a pigsty!”
“No one returns phone calls or emails quickly.”
“No one cares except for me!”
If you struggle to get consistent action from your staff, there are two possible causes.
The first probable cause is your process. The second probable cause is your people.
Process Questions
Question 1
If anyone on my staff is failing to perform at the highest level, I first assume it’s my fault: The process isn’t clear enough to them. I ask myself:
“Have I told them exactly what to do and how to do it?”
As founders, we frequently assume that everyone knows what we do or that our knowledge is “common sense.” But of course that’s not the case: No one knows how to write a compelling quote for a client until we tell them. Often, our instructions are too complex or contain gaps that our own brains skip right over.
I once had a cleaner named Sean. His checklist said “mop the floors.” So he did—but he didn’t use any soap because I didn’t write “pour a cup of soap into the hot water.” The dirty floors were my fault: Sean was just following my poor directions.
Question 2
If I’ve told the staff person clearly how to do a job and they’re not meeting expectations, the next question I ask myself is:
“Have I shown them what ‘perfect’ means?”
My definition of “clean” is different from your definition. To my kids, “clean” means “tidy.” To my wife, “clean” means the involvement of bleach and rubber gloves.
To me, “on time” means 15 minutes early—at minimum. But to a teenager, “on time” might mean two minutes after 9. If my front-desk staff arrives at two minutes after 9 on the weekend and I’ve only told them to be “on time,” I’m allowing a subjective consideration into my process.
Clearly spell out the gold standard in all work. If possible, take a picture: “Here’s what a clean office looks like.” No one can live up to an imaginary standard.
Question 3
If they know the gold standard and they’re failing to meet it, I ask myself the third question:
“Have I reviewed their performance with them?”
This is usually my weakest link. But if I haven’t told the staffer that their work is subpar, they probably think it’s just fine. Over 80 percent of drivers claim to be better than average because our egos won’t ever let us believe we’re bad at anything. Your staff is the same way: If you don’t rate their performance, they will assume that it’s good enough.
Schedule quarterly reviews for all staff. Do it in advance. And give them the scorecard (your evaluation form) on the day of their hire.
Question 4
Finally, if I’m sticking to an evaluation schedule and they’re still failing, I ask myself a fourth question:
“Do they have an emotional reason to succeed?”
You can tell a staff person to take out the garbage because it’s their job. You can impose your authority and threaten punishment. But we’re all human and driven by irrational desires. At 9 p.m., when your cleaner is tired and wants to make it home in time to watch “Shark Tank,” they might skip the garbage takeout. It might not even be a conscious decision.
But if they know that the president is visiting tomorrow, they won’t forget. Our job is to make them see the consequence of their failure through the eyes of others: If they don’t empty the garbage tonight, sweet Mary will have to do it in the morning. She’ll be finishing their job for them. Just as your mom used to guilt you into doing work by doing it for you while you watched, we need to give our staff an emotional reason to succeed.
Ask them, “How will this affect the other staff if your work isn’t done?” or “What impression will our clients have if the floor isn’t clean?” or “What will the buyer think if you spell his name incorrectly on the invoice?”
If the four questions above don’t solve the issue, you don’t have a process problem: You have a people problem.
People-Problem Questions
The wrong person is doing the wrong job.
If you have a great person, they could be doing a job that doesn’t optimally challenge them.
Question 1
First, ask:
“Do they have a clear view of their future in the company?”
In other words, do they see how their progress in this role will affect their opportunities later? Do they believe they’re stuck cleaning the kitchen for life or do they know it’s a short-term step before being promoted to assistant manager?
Set up regular goal-review meetings for your staff.
Question 2
The second question:
“Does their future position depend on success in this position?”
Meaning: Am I judging their worthiness to be a great coach on their ability to sweep the floors?
No one is perfect at everything—not me, not you and not our staff members. The person could simply be in the wrong seat on the bus.
I am not a great cleaner, but I’m a good motivator. Placing me in a cleaning role won’t make me happy—unless I see the big picture and my place in it, with a timeline for advancement.
Question 3
The last question:
“Will this person be part of the team that takes us to the next level?”
The people who got you here might not be the same people who get you there. It’s true of your staff and true of you: While you’re busy developing your entrepreneurial skills with your mentor, your staff might not be doing the same. And that’s OK: They might want to vacuum forever. Some people do.
But when you move to the huge warehouse without carpets, they’ll need a new skill set. And if the staffer isn’t ready to acquire the necessary skills, you have a new people problem. You should chart their career path—or their exit—again.
One of the greatest questions I’ve ever learned to ask is this: “Do you still want to do this?”
Surprisingly, the answer is sometimes “no”—and that’s much better than “maybe” because it allows both the founder and their staff to move forward, even if it’s not together.
Ask and Act
When your staff isn’t living up to your expectations, first assume you have a process problem. But if you’ve satisfied the first four questions above, you have a people problem. That’s tougher but still solvable.
Most of the time, the first question you should ask is, “Am I the problem?” And if you are, create the process that gets what you want, then get out of the way. The greatest gift you can give your staff is the opportunity to succeed.
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