Chris Cooper's Blog, page 110

Chris Cooper’s Gym-Owner Challenge: Steal 5 Exercises!

Andrew (00:02):

On this edition of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper is here to challenge you to become a better coach and get better results for your clients. Are you up for it?

Chris (00:10):

Chris Cooper here, have you got a website designer, a marketer, a landing page software, a calendar, a CRM, and a form builder, communication platform and connecting software? You can get rid of all of it by switching to Gym Lead Machine. I use this platform along with 60% of the Two-Brain mentorship team. The average gym owner saves over 300 bucks a month with Gym Lead Machine and they’ll waive the thousand dollars set-up fee for Two-Brain Radio listeners. Switching is easy and you can go live in a week, visit gymleadmachine.com to watch a demo and book a sales call.

Chris (00:42):

Hey everybody, Chris Cooper here. And today, I’m going to talk about building your practice using novelty and filters. So I’m going to start with the Two-Brain story of how we did this. And then I’m going to talk about how Greg Glassman did it with CrossFit.

Chris (00:59):

And then I’m going to talk about how you can do it at your specific business. For Two-Brain, it started with Gym Launch. In 2017, we had a problem with Gym Launch and maybe it’s not the first one that comes to mind if you’re familiar with the program. But a few owners in Two-Brain were trying the Gym Launch program and they were having some early success, right? And that’s great. Unfortunately, some of them copied some Gym Launch material and they started trying to share it with other owners, which is very bad. We remove them from the Two-Brain group and I apologized to Alex. He said something about lawyers and that was the end of it. And that was a painful process, but it really forced me to think at a higher level, namely, Hey, if this thing is working for gym owners, then I should just acquire that knowledge for Two-Brain gyms.

Chris (01:45):

So I spent a year traveling around learning how to advertise on Facebook, and John Franklin, Mateo Lopez. They were already click funnel certified. So they built a course for me on Facebook advertising. They were using it successfully in their gym already. We had solid data, great proof that it would work. And so we took their system and we tested it on 10 gyms and it worked perfectly on those 10 gyms. So we just added it to our ramp up program. And we gave the course to everybody in our growth program for no additional charge. Now, some owners in Two-Brains still preferred to pay Gym Launch or whatever the other options were at the time, I forget, but they were paying up to $16,000 outside of Two-Brain instead of learning the strategies themselves. And I totally understand the value of doing it that way, but we dramatically increased the value of Two-Brain mentorship by acquiring that knowledge.

Chris (02:37):

And we saved gym owners a ton of money. So I loved it, right? Two of my favorite things, acquiring knowledge and saving gym owners money. So that process became our SOP. So here’s another example. In 2019, we saw gym owners paying companies to learn how to build and sell personal training programs. So we talked to the gym owners who are selling the most PT and we built a full course with them. And now that’s on the Two-Brain roadmap in Growth. It’s also part of our ramp up program. In 2020, we saw gym owners paying companies to learn how to build and sell nutrition programs. And these are great options, but we didn’t really like how these companies were just kind of like build forever to use the programs. So I talked to Lindsay VanSchoyck and I talked to Jen Broxterman about how they were doing it.

Chris (03:22):

And they built the nutrition program that’s now part of Two-Brain mentorship. And then when COVID began locking gyms down, we knew we had to acquire knowledge about coaching online. So we turned to the best gyms for online coaching in Two-Brain. And we built a program with them. So thanks to Josh Grinnell and the others who helped out there. Now, some gym owners will always benefit from going deep with outside experts and paying 10 to $20,000 to get one-on-one coaching in any of these specialties. And I totally see the value there. I do it all the time myself, but this week, some owners in our growth program asked some great questions about high ticket coaching. And we already had this workshop planned in the tinker program. Lindsay VanShoyck has been teaching high value coaching, which also has a high ticket price. And so she taught a great lesson on high value coaching that aligned with the Two-Brain ethos and other mentors like Anastasia Bennett in New Zealand have been doing high ticket, remote coaching for a long time.

Chris (04:22):

So now we’re going to build a course with all the tools that our clients need to do high-ticket coaching. If it’s right for them, and their mentor will help them decide. So there will always be value in talking to outside experts. And some people will go get coaching from Xander Fryer’s group on high impact coaching or whatever to deliver a high ticket program at their gym. Right? There’s always value in that. Where possible I try to acquire knowledge and bring it back to Two-Brain. And we’re careful because I have to do it without taking anybody else’s unique intellectual property. So we always turn to people who have implemented their own programs with success, who are inTwo-Brain. And then we buy the rights to use their knowledge and give it to our clients. This kind of reinvestment costs me a few hundred thousand dollars every year, but it’s one of my favorite investments.

Chris (05:13):

And it’s one of my favorite things about Two-Brain. You know, I hope Two-Brain gyms love it. I sure do.

Chris (05:17):

We know that getting clients results isn’t enough to make a great business or a great career, but it is the foundation. If you’re not getting your clients results, none of the other stuff matters. Your marketing plan, your operations plan, your retention plan, your systems, how much you care about the clients. You need to get them results. What does it take to get a client results? Long-term behavior change, short-term habit change. It means learning skills like motivational interviewing, peer-to-peer programming. It means focusing on things like adherence and retention instead of novelty. And I built twobraincoaching.com with my partner, Josh Martin, to teach coaches how to do this. More than ever before it is critical to get results for your clients. You need to charge a premium fee. You need to provide high value to warrant that fee. And what is most valuable to the client? What do they care about the most? The results on the goal that they choose. Twobraincoaching.com has programs set up to help your clients achieve those goals. We will train you and your coaches to deliver personal training, group training, online training, nutrition coaching, and coming soon, mindset coaching, in a way that’s simple for you to adopt, it’s legal everywhere. And it’s super effective. These courses were built by experts with years of experience getting clients results. Twobraincoaching.com is a labor of love for me, and I know you’re going to love it too.

Chris (06:46):

Now, let me quickly make a pivot to talk about a parallel subject, which was CrossFit. So if you were around when CrossFit was really becoming popular, I don’t mean like the early days, 200, before there were any affiliates or 2003, when there was less than 10, or I’m talking like 2008 to 2012. What you would see as a primary criticism of CrossFit is not like that doesn’t work or that causes injuries.

Chris (07:12):

What you would see is I thought of that first, or this isn’t a unique idea, or I’ve been doing that same stuff all along. And this was coming from other people in the fitness industry who in hindsight were probably just jealous of the package that CrossFit was. So back then CrossFit would include kettlebells, calisthenics, sprints, but also long runs, five or 10 K runs or rows or, you know, endurance work. It would include parkour. In the earliest days pre-website, it would include cycling. And there were a lot of other stuff too. And the beautiful thing here is that Greg took from all these other different modalities. OK? These things that were not universally popular, but were like the cult favorite of a small subset. So there was always a group of kettlebell aficionados, right? And they would follow like Pavelle and Dragon Door and the RKC and all that stuff.

Chris (08:11):

And they would get really, really good at kettlebells. But the value of using kettlebells was not clear until it was brought into part of a bigger package. So Greg used kettlebells as part of high intensity interval training, combining that with 400 meter sprints. Now, if you were an overweight dude in de Moines with a desk job, you would not go to the track and run 400 meters to lose weight, right? Like 400 meter intervals, you would not do that. You would probably not do calisthenics though you might try some push-ups and sit-ups on your bedroom floor. But what Greg did was he brought these things together and then he gave them a name, and that’s so important. And the name CrossFit was clear enough to define what kind of went on. Everybody could picture what a CrossFit workout was, or, you know, by this point they could, but it was also fluid.

Chris (09:02):

And so in the Fitness in 100 Words when Greg said regularly, learn and play new sports, what we can take away from that as coaches and affiliate owners was we should go out and try new things, find things that work that are not part of our coaching practice yet and involve them. It doesn’t mean running a separate yoga class. Maybe it doesn’t mean running a separate weightlifting class, maybe, but it does mean incorporating those things if they work. So for example, you could bring a great hip flexor stretch, for example, from yoga and make that part of your CrossFit class that day, the model was fluid enough. Now we work with a lot of CrossFit gyms, but we don’t exclusively work with CrossFit gyms. We have a lot of boot camps. We have yoga gyms, we have ninja warrior camps and, and all kinds of different schools, you know, sports specific training programs like D1 prep.

Chris (09:54):

We even have some university strength and conditioning gyms in Two-Brain right now. But the lesson here is what can you bring from outside of your current silo of knowledge that will actually improve your clients? So if you’re training sprinters, could yoga help them, could Pilates help them maybe. And what’s stopping you from using that right. Could running help your sprinters or something else? What brought this to mind was I’ve been a coach in the industry for 20. This is my 25th year, very close to 26 years now, actually. And I thought like, OK, I’ve seen a lot, but what happens is like we pick from a variety of exercises, right? Like a menu. And over time we actually narrow the number of exercises that we use. So I learned parkour. I learned how to climb a rope. I learned how to swing a kettlebell.

Chris (10:47):

When I started doing CrossFit, I was a powerlifter before that and a cyclist before that, I didn’t know how to do those things. And it was super exciting. But over time I actually do less of those things, you know, maybe age or whatever, but some things appear less in my programming now than they did back then. We never do parkour at catalyst. I can’t remember the last time we did it. When we opened catalyst, we did truck pulls. We did a tire flips. I can’t remember the last time I flipped a tire, but what I see now on my Facebook feed and on every other app that shows me ads is these at-home workout programs. And it’s primarily aimed at women, but it’s like, you know, they’re rotating through 12 different exercises, just in the little video ad. And I’ve never seen any of these exercises before, but they all make sense to me, both as an exercise science grad and as a coach who loves novelty.

Chris (11:40):

And so what I challenge you to do is in the next 30 days to go out and find five new exercises, not philosophies, not methods, just five exercises that you can bring back into your practice that will add some novelty, but will also improve your clients. Maybe that’s swimming, OK. Maybe that’s Jiu-Jitsu. You know, maybe it’s like carrying people. Maybe you pick up something from firefighting. And what I’d like is not like a one-time challenge. Like we’re all going to go over to the firefighting station, put on air tanks and run up and down a set of stairs. What I’m thinking of is five exercises that you would regularly incorporate that you don’t need new equipment to do. That you don’t need to go get a new weekend cert to achieve, but five exercises that will actually, and measurably improve the fitness of your clients.

Chris (12:33):

Now, if you’re CrossFit, this is actually pretty easy. But if you’re a Pilates coach, a yoga teacher, a bootcamp instructor, this might actually be hard because now you’ve got to go outside of the dogma. You got to go outside of the method. You’ve got to go outside of what you have been taught by your teachers. And that is so important. You must constantly acquire knowledge. Why? Because that is what your clients deserve and demand. That’s why Greg Glassman did it. That’s why I’m doing it with Two-Brain. And that’s why you should do it in your gym.

Andrew (13:11):

Two-Brain Radio is your source for the best advice in the gym business. Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And now here’s Coop with an invitation.

Chris (13:18):

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 Chris Cooper’s Gym-Owner Challenge: Steal 5 Exercises! appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

By the Numbers: ARM Secrets From Two-Brain’s Leaders

What if every member at your gym paid you $205 per month?

How would that average revenue per member (ARM) affect your profitability?

Would that solidify your business?

Would it allow you to focus more on the clients you have instead of spending time trolling for more?

Would it allow you to keep your business open longer?

The data says yes.

Target No. 1: $205

The top 10 percent of gyms in our 2020 State of the Industry data set earned at least $205 per member per month. And the top Two-Brain gym in September 2021 earned double that much per member per month. But most microgyms are a long way away (less than $100 per member per month).

That means most microgyms need twice as many members to make the same revenue as the top gyms. But with twice as many members, they also need a lot more space and staff, and other expenses increase as well.

In other words, it takes most microgym owners 250 clients to make the same income as a Two-Brain gym with 100 clients.

Worse, gyms with over 150 clients are almost always the gyms with the worst retention rates. It’s an extremely fragile model.

I’m going to let the leaderboard champs tell you how to increase your ARM. The leaderboard above shows you what the top gyms in Two-Brain scored in ARM in September 2021. Here are the ways the people on that list got there:

“Two main things: sales and quality of packages. I spent a lot of time on sales training learning how to ask the real questions and get to (people’s) real issues of why they want to join our gym. Then we grouped our services (PT, nutrition and mindset) into one package and as a result were able to sell it at a higher rate.”

“I’ve focused on prescribing higher value services to prospective clients—PT packages and hybrid options. I start from the top of our sales binder with most folks and work my way down.”

“We work really hard to identify who belongs in group programs and who should do 1:1 programs.”

“I started sharing some of our goals with our staff. I decided it was time to share where I thought the gym could be with the team, where the opportunities are—I communicated ‘this is what you can do to make this happen.’ I gave them more focused goals based on achieving results—specific to their skill and focus—which was different than the past.”

They Were Like You

$205 ARM isn’t the right target for everyone. But it’s probably the first target for most gyms. And here’s the bonus: all of these gyms started with a low ARM, just as you might have!

The post By the Numbers: ARM Secrets From Two-Brain’s Leaders appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

The Best Content Marketing Idea of 2021 for Gym Owners

Need a killer content idea in the last quarter of 2021?

Here it is: a best-of list.

People love lists and annual compilations, and you’ll love this opportunity to help clients and prospective clients, establish expertise, connect with other local businesses, and score some SEO points for your business.

The best part: This project is low drag. You just have to list stuff you like and tell your audience why each thing made your list.

For an example, check out the GQ Fitness Awards 2021.

Below, I’ll give you three approaches to this kick-ass piece of content.

Quick and Easy

If you’re busy and want to hit “publish” fast, here’s your step-by-step plan.

Pick a topic from this list:

Best workout clothes.Best wearable fitness tech.Best at-home fitness equipment for [your client avatar].Best at-home fitness movements for [your client avatar].Best shoes for fitness training.Best places to run in [your town].Best places to do an outdoor workout in [your town].Top 5 strength workouts of 2021 for [your client avatar].Top 5 conditioning workouts of 2021 for [your client avatar].Top 5 high-intensity workouts of 2021 for [your client avatar].Best local restaurants for fitness freaks in [your town].Best local services for gym goers in [your town](massage, physio, etc.).

I could go on, but you get the point. Pick a topic that doesn’t require much thought, list five things, and write a short blurb about each thing. Whatever you choose, look for ways to tailor the topic to your audience.

For example:

Good: Best wearable fitness tech.Better: Best wearable fitness tech for people in New York.Best: Best wearable fitness tech for busy parents in Manhattan.

Be sure to add a call to action. Examples:

Got a question about something on this list—or did I miss something? Message me here!We’re your local fitness experts. To talk to us about your goals for 2022, click here (link to calendar).

Hit publish—then send the blog to your mailing list and post about it on social media.

Go Bigger

If you want, you can put in more effort to create a “pillar post”—a big-deal post that really stands out.

Here’s the plan (feel free to omit parts if you like):

Pick five or more topics from the list above and present them in a “best of 2021” guide.

Follow the same plan described above for each section: list stuff, then say something about each thing. Add hyperlinks to everything you’re recommending so people can get more info.

Be sure to close with a call to action, and then share your post everywhere.

Rule Your City

If you want to, you can make your pillar post even more effective with a few simple steps.

First, dial in your best-of lists to your exact audience. For example, here’s what I would do if I still ran a bricks-and-mortar location in Winnipeg.

Best outdoor workout locations for busy professionals in St. James (the area of the city my gym was in).Best places to run in Winnipeg.Top 5 fitness gear retailers in Winnipeg—and the first 5 items busy parents need at home.Best places to buy workout clothes in Winnipeg.Best Winnipeg restaurants for people who want to lose body fat.Best supplement stores in Winnipeg for people who want to build muscle (I didn’t retail supplements).

The purpose: Help people in your area find the stuff they need. The benefit: This post will be packed with terms local people are entering into search engines. (Check out Gym Lead Machine’s blog for a definitive guide to local SEO.)

Here’s the power-bomb finishing move: Contact the local businesses you’re writing about and tell them they made your list. Ask them if they might want to highlight a special product or service or provide a discount or deal for your audience. If nothing else, you’re starting a conversation with a local entrepreneur who might send clients your way.

If you happen to earn a commission from referrals, be sure to disclose that so it doesn’t look like you’re accepting a bribe to include people on your list. I don’t recommend setting up commissions in most cases. You want connections and clients, not 50 cents for each person who buys Syko-Jakked Elite Muscle Enhancer Pre-Workout Serum.

When your article is published, share it everywhere—but be sure to contact every business on your list again. Congratulate each one and ask the owner to share your post and link to your article. Backlinks are great for your site’s SEO—especially links from prominent local businesses.

Protip: Provide a hyperlink and a simple, social-optimized graphic local businesses can share—like a badge that says “We made the [your gym name] best of 2021 list!”

Extra credit: Create a video in which you go over the list and get it out on social media or YouTube/Vimeo.

Pick and Publish

Don’t feel pressure to go big. Just get something out in the time you have available. If you’re swamped, pick a softball topic and list five things fast. Do it in 500 words and publish.

If you have more time, spend 2,000-3,000 words creating a definitive list for 2021. Help your audience, make local connections and generate more web traffic.

Whatever you do, start planning now and get your blog published before the end of the year.

And then put “best of” on your content calendar for 2022. The best part about this idea: You can create a new list every year.

Start typing!

Two-Brain clients: I’ll lead you to create this blog in Office Hours on Oct. 27 at noon Eastern.

The post The Best Content Marketing Idea of 2021 for Gym Owners appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

The 02 Story: Dave Colina on Helping Gyms

Chris (00:02):

Hey, it’s Chris from Two-Brain Business. And my guest today is Dave Colina from Drink O2. Dave’s story is a great one. He started off by identifying something that would help the other members of his gym. And when he started coaching, he found that more and more gyms wanted to get on board with this. And eventually he founded Drink O2, but the real story started when COVID hit, because Dave saw an opportunity to take some action, to help out gyms. And he did it. He pulled together a bunch of different companies and together they took some action that helped out some gyms in the short term, and then learn from that experience and started helping more and expanded that help. And now today on the show, he’s going to reveal an amazing new initiative that you can all benefit from.

Chris (00:48):

I’ll give you some specifics on how exactly it’s going to help your gym, but more than anything, I just want you to have this story of somebody who’s getting rewarded for doing the right thing. And I don’t think we hear these stories enough. So, Dave Colina from Drink O2, enjoy.

Chris (01:03):

Back to Two-Brain Radio in just a minute. Your gym members will love O2’s hydrating, non-carbonated beverages after a tough workout. Even better, O2 is a community-based brand that wants to give back to gyms. If you sell O2 at your gym, you get a free sponsored event every year. Gym owners who wholesale O2 also get their first order for a dollar. Visit wholesale.drinko2.com to apply for an account today.

Chris (01:28):

Dave Colina, welcome to Two-Brain Radio.

Dave (01:31):

Thanks man.

Chris (01:34):

Yeah, we’ve been trying to do this for a while and you have such an interesting story to tell. Maybe we could start with the founding of Drink O2. What led you to that?

Dave (01:43):

Yeah, so I’ll actually work my way backwards here. So, for people who don’t know what O2 is, so we are the official one-liner on the company here is O2 is an Inc 5,000 carbon neutral company that makes clean hydration and recovery drinks that are packaged in sustainable cans. And so that’s been a journey to get to that point, you know, with the Inc 5,000 thing and the carbon neutral thing, which we’re super excited about. And that journey started out of the back of my car about seven years ago. And unfortunately it’s not an overstatement to say that O2 launched out of the back of my car. And I still have that car. I was a one man show for the first year and a half of the business. And I didn’t come from a beverage or a startup background.

Dave (02:34):

I worked in corporate strategy for about five years at a fortune 100 insurance company. But I did have a little bit of an entrepreneurial experience. I actually cut my entrepreneurial teeth founding a private nonprofit charter high school in Columbus. And so it was through that process that kind of became my night job. And then I had this demanding day job. And so it was through that process where I became hooked on, you know, pretty unhealthy, sports and energy drinks. So that’s the founding story around O2 revolves around this nasty habit of Gatorade and Red Bull that I had. And so I set out to make something better and I partnered with a physician friend of mine, who was and still is a medical doctor at Ohio State on the formulation. And he and I developed O2, you know, with a lot of trial and error, over the course of a couple of years. And then we finally launched it out of the back of that car. And so we we’ve always been rooted in the fitness community because after I left my day job, I started coaching CrossFit. And so that’s how we kind of got our footing in the CrossFit market. I managed to convince a bunch of friends of mine who owned gyms to carry my product as a favor initially. And then it did really well from there.

Chris (03:50):

That’s amazing. Where were you coaching CrossFit, Dave?

Dave (03:53):

It’s a gym in Columbus called Buckeye CrossFit.

Chris (03:55):

Buckeye. Yeah. Great one. And how long ago was that, you said was that seven years?

Dave (04:00):

So, O2 launched seven years ago, I started coaching, let’s see, first it was martial arts and then that led me into CrossFit. And so I started coaching CrossFit I think in 2012. Yeah, 2012. And then coached for a couple of years and then O2 launched.

Chris (04:18):

Beautiful. OK. But the story really starts to like grow to its crescendo during COVID. Right. So, what happened then?

Dave (04:29):

Yeah, so we’ve been growing pretty steadily from inception and granted we were starting with a small base, but you know, we were growing at a hundred percent year over year, each year. And, over the course of time, you know, we got to a point where the majority of O2’s revenue was coming from gyms carrying our product, you know, so mostly CrossFit gyms, some, you know, smaller boutique fitness studios, but it was all independently owned gyms. And so, you know, one of the two things that I think I got right with the business at the outset is that we’ve always been very oriented around doing the right thing, especially when it’s hard. Like we’re very much a values driven company. And so when COVID crept up, you know, I am sure like you and a lot of listeners had had my eyes on what was going on with COVID well before March.

Dave (05:24):

And so were just ready for it as we probably could be, but we still didn’t know what the hell the deal, you know. But we did see, let’s see, I think we had 70% of our revenue was tied up in the gym channel and that effectively shut down within the week, you know? And so it was that weekend of March 15th and I think back cause that’s when shit really hit the fan. And so like I said, I wasn’t sure what to do, but I did know that the other thing that I think I got right at the outset, everything else has changed. But the other thing that I think I got it right at the outset was the liquid formulation of the product. People who drink O2 drink a ton of it.

Dave (06:05):

And it’s always been really, really well received. And so we knew that gym members were going to continue buying O2 when gyms shut down, they were just going to shift their purchasing from their gym to drinko2.com. You know, and we were fortunate in that. I mean, it sucked that so much of our revenue shut down, but man, we were fortunate that we had another channel that was fully functional and that was our website. So, we decided that the right thing to do was not to just sit back and let that happen. The right thing to do was to do what we could to share some of the upside with gyms that would have been otherwise capturing that revenue, from gym members purchasing O2. So on March 18th, we announced that we were going to split the profits from every case of O2 that was sold to a gym member online. We were going to split the profits directly 50/50 with that gym member’s local gym owner. And when we announced that, we saw our online sales, I mean it 10x’ed, literally, you know, the community showed up in a really big way. We did not expect that at all. We just thought it was the right thing to do. And within three days we had done more sales of O2 online than our best month ever.

Chris (07:30):

Doing the right thing paid off.

Dave (07:32):

And I think that that’s a testament to the community too. You know, people really appreciated that and it wasn’t so much about O2 as it was, Hey, this is a great sort of non-awkward way to support my gym owner instead of Venmoing 20 bucks. I can, you know, buy a few cases of O2 online and everybody wins, you know.

Chris (07:53):

So it seems obvious to me that the next step would have been, you know, what else can we do for this community? Because it just been such a win for everybody.

Dave (08:01):

Totally. So I knew within a few days that there was something there. And so I reached out to a few other friends of mine who have brands that are popular in the CrossFit community. Bear Handlon is one of them from Born Primitive. And he was my first phone call and I told him, you know, look, we’re doing this thing. We’re sharing our profits with gym owners and people are being really, really responsive. Do you guys want to get on board with Born Primitive and you know, honor that same profit sharing commitment and, you know, in typical fashion he was like, hell yeah, let’s do it. And so, those guys came on board the following week. And then we managed to get a few other brands on board over the course of the next few weeks.

Dave (08:46):

And over the course of March, the last two weeks in March and the last three weeks or the first three weeks in April, our brands combined, we got about five brands in this coalition. We generated almost a quarter of a million dollars in cash to give back to about 2000 gyms that were participating. That was impactful, man. I mean, you know, quarter of a million dollars, isn’t an insignificant amount of money. And I think that what we did best was we were the first domino to fall that really rallied the community around the gym support, you know, and we knew that, we knew that that spread out among 2000 gyms, $250,000 is gonna come out to about a thousand bucks or a hundred bucks a gym. So it’s not life-changing right. But it was more the, yeah, the spirit behind it, you know.

Chris (09:48):

So just for people who don’t know, Dave, like when you say that you came together and you did this thing, like what did the community coalition look like at that point?

Dave (09:57):

It was we were flying by the seat of our pants at that point. I mean, we we did brand it. So we branded it, the Community Coalition, which we thought was fitting to, you know, a group of brands that are all devoted to this community, coming together to do something impactful for that community. And it was O2, Born Primitive, Puori, and another brand called Chomps and then Bear Complex came on towards the end. So we had a powerful consortium of brands. And so each group kind of told each other’s audience what they were up to. And there was some cross-pollination there as far as marketing goes and the whole idea was rooted in the, you know, that principle that, you know, the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole sort of thing, you know? So it was a powerful initiative.

Chris (10:48):

And how did it work? I’m sure some people here just aren’t familiar with it. So you would go to community coalition.fitness and sign up and then what happened?

Dave (10:57):

Yeah. So, so we actually, I don’t think we stood up that website, at that point, but what we did was we basically created, you know, 2000 or 2,500 coupon codes that were unique that gym owners could share with their members and each one of those unique codes would tie back to the gym and it would also get their members, , you know, a special offer on our website and Primitive’s website, Bear Complex;s website. So it was just a great way to, you know, great way to get a deal that on the member side, but at the same time support, you know, what I think is the hub of community and CrossFit, which is the affiliate. And we saw people be really, really responsive to that. So it was a simple.

Chris (11:47):

So Dave, this all happened really, really fast, like between mid-March and the end of March, you were really getting the gears going. Yeah. Was anybody else doing anything at this time too, to kind of rally the community together?

Dave (11:58):

I think so. I,you know, as I mentioned, I think we were the first to move, and that’s one of the benefits of being, you know, small and agile. Like we pulled this together really, really quickly. I mean, it was March 18th when we made this, you know, the first initiative come to fruition. But I think, you know, I like to think that we inspired some action among some larger companies and larger organizations. But I know that, you know, CrossFit was doing something, Loud N Live was super supportive. They pulled something together, I think NOBULL did as well. So there were a good handful of brands that were taking meaningful action.I thought, and there were some that were taking kind of less than meaningful action, so maybe paying some lip service to the community. But for the most part, you know, we saw people really show up n a big way,

Chris (12:53):

You know, three months into that. You’re still going strong and CrossFit changes ownership.

Dave (12:59):

Oh, well, I haven’t even touched on the most impactful thing that we did. If you don’t mind, if we touch on that for a second. All right. So let’s go three weeks in. March 18th goes by, and then, you know, we get towards the end of March and then we kind of come in early to mid April and you remember this, I mean, nobody still really knew what was going on. We were all kind of holding out hope for May to bring kind of a return to normalcy, but that hope started to diminish pretty quickly as time progressed in April. And so, I had several conversations with a number of friends and I believe you were one of them. I can’t remember the time distortion is just a mess from COVID times. But, uyou know, I’m fortunate to have a good group of friends who own gyms and kind of provide a sounding board sometimes.

Dave (13:55):

And, you know, everybody really appreciated what we were doing with the community coalition profit sharing piece. But it wasn’t, you know, like I said, that wasn’t keeping anybody in business, you know, that wasn’t going to be super impactful for anyone really. That was just more of a meaningful gesture. And many of the gym owners that I talked about were growing increasingly concerned about what May would, would bring because, you know, what we saw was a lot of people at that time, you know, nobody canceled their membership in March because nobody knew what the hell was happening. Right. And then April came along and for the most part, you know, everybody stuck around and decided to, you know, take some equipment from the gym or try these at-home zoom workouts or whatever. But it was getting kind of tough for a lot of people to justify, continuing to pay, you know, 150 $200 gym membership when they couldn’t go to the gym.

Dave (14:50):

Couldn’t work out with friends, couldn’t get hands on coaching. And so, gym owners recognized it, and, you know, quite frankly, I think that everybody was kind of at a loss for what to do. And so that was the common problem that everybody shared. And I remember a conversation I had with Jason Khalipa in particular. And he was like, dude, what you’re doing with the community coalition is great. Is there something you can do to encourage my members to keep their memberships active in May, because that’s really what I’m worried about. And so we went back to the drawing board and there was an idea that I had that I remember at the time thinking this could go either really, really well or really, really poorly. It’s probably not going to be anywhere in between.

Dave (15:33):

And that idea was rooted in the notion that O2, and some of our brand partners, we could all kick in a $25 gift card to our websites to encourage a member to keep their gym membership active in the month of May. So if O2 did it, it would just be $25, but wouldn’t it be cool if O2 and Born Primitive and, you know, a few other brand partners, wouldn’t it be great if we each did? And we each said, OK, we’re going to give a $25 gift card to our websites combined among four brands, a hundred dollars total. And that was the idea. We would come together to offer that to really every gym member in America who’s working out in a CrossFit gym. And as long as they kept their memberships active in the month of May. And so we announced that at the end of April, I think it was April 28th.

Dave (16:23):

We announced this program that we branded stay for May. And we said, you know, every gym member who keeps their membership active for May gets a hundred dollar gift card to O2, Born Primitive, Puori, Bear Complex, as long as they keep that membership active. And we had more inbound in two or three days from gym members wanting to make sure their gym qualified, gym owners telling us it was, you know, the most that any brand or any organization ever done to help them at a time like this, we had more inbound in two days than we had the proceeding two years combined easily. And so that program was super successful because it was a win for everybody. You know, the gym owner got something at no cost of value to offer to their gym members for keeping their memberships active, and the gym members got something at no cost, as long as they kept their gym memberships active, you know, a hundred dollars gift card to some brands they already liked. And the brands involved got a tremendous amount of trial. Granted, it was subsidized like nobody was making money from these sales, but the trial was super impactful because O2 got, you know, 10,000 new customers in a matter of a couple of weeks. And that was pretty impactful for us and the other brands. So it was one of those rare win-win situations. We ended up having about 60,000 CrossFitters participate in that initiative in one month.

Chris (17:41):

That’s really amazing, man.

Chris (17:43):

Back to Two-Brain Radio in just a minute. Chalk It Pro is a fitness app designed and built by gym owners for gym owners to solve annoying problems that make running a gym hard. It’s an all-in-one app that manages your members, including remote members. It also takes care of programming and it will help you keep clients engaged for longer. Use Chalk It Pro to increase value and build your bottom line. Add more personal training and remote coaching clients. Build a thriving community through social engagement and save loads of time on the backend. Do all this with one app, not three or four. Get your free trial at Chalkitpro.com.

Chris (18:16):

So you’re going through all that, all these CrossFitters are participating, but meanwhile, CrossFit HQ itself is kind of going through some turmoil. And, how did the community coalition interact or dance around that whole month of June?

Dave (18:32):

It felt like the world was on fire. And you know, I don’t know if any business owner or member of the community for that matter, really knew how to react to that. You know, with everything else going on, it just seemed like, oh my God, here’s another thing. But you know, we took a pretty firm stance early on to clarify what we stood for as a brand at O2. And we saw our partners do something similar. And I was, I remember being really, really, really skeptical that any sort of transaction was going to occur, from, you know, from Glassman to another party in any sort of time frame that would really mitigate the damage that was being done to the brand. And it was really unfortunate, I thought, because just another thing, you know, because now every, every CrossFit gym owner across the globe had to, you know, further justify their value to their members and further, it was just like kicking a man when he’s down, you know, it was just another thing.

Dave (19:49):

And I remember having a conversation with a good friend of mine who has been working at CrossFit forever. And, you know, he and I were both like, this is terrible. There’s no way that Glassman is going to sell any time soon. And there’s no way that this damage can be undone anytime soon. And there’s just going to be, you know, it’s going to be a steady decline of people leaving CrossFit. And so I was shocked when the announcement came through that the Glassman had sold, you know, sold CrossFit to somebody else. I didn’t know the new guy, did some light Googling, seemed like a good thing, but I was just floored that it happened in the time frame that it happened, and really excited, too.

Chris (20:35):

You actually met with some people at HQ. I’m not sure if Roza was among them at first, because they saw, I think, what you were doing with the community coalition and they thought, OK, maybe this is something we can get behind.

Dave (20:48):

I did. When he joined, you know, I reached out to him as I’m sure a lot of people did. And we had just gotten some really great coverage from that initiative. We landed the cover of entrepreneur startups magazine with an article on how we managed through COVID and, and how we managed to grow pretty significantly while at the same time benefiting our core community. And so I sent him that article. I was like, Hey, just, you know, thought you’d want to see what some members of your community been up to. And he responded right away. He was like, this is awesome, man. Let’s, hop on the phone and get to know each other a little bit. And so we did,and I can’t imagine how many of those calls he was having at the time, but to his credit, you know, we talked for a good half hour within a few weeks of his assuming ownership of CrossFit. And I felt pretty, pretty strongly after that conversation that, you know, that the future of CrossFit was in really good hands.

Chris (21:53):

So now, this podcast is coming out on kind of the day after a big announcement with CrossFit. And I’ve got to assume that all this goodwill really led up to this point, right.

Dave (22:08):

I mean, we’ve, I don’t think that the actions that O2 and others have taken, over the past 18 months have gone unnoticed by that many folks. And I’m really proud of that, you know, it was a moment where we got to show off our values that we’ve been living for a long time, honesty, humility, and hustle, to the world. And I’m proud of my team. And I’m proud of the initiatives and I’m proud of the impact and what we’ve seen unfold, since, you know, the new CrossFit administration, uis that there’s a lot of folks who are attached to CrossFit who were parts of those initiatives and were really supporters of O2 and the community coalition and what we’re doing from the outset.

Dave (23:05):

And we’ve been in a fortunate position such that we’ve gotten to know a lot of those folks, at, you know, the senior leadership levels of CrossFit and have entertained various partnership campaigns and partnership activities, and partnerships structures. And by the time that this podcast airs, we will be one of two drink brands that are offered on CrossFit’s brand new affiliate partner network, which I think is a brilliant idea. And that’s something that we’re super, super bullish on both from O2’s perspective, but also, even more so from the value that this is going to provide to CrossFit affiliates, it’s basically pulling together some best in class vendors to provide really, really strong offers to the CrossFit community, better than they can get anywhere else. And O2 is proud to be a part of that.

Chris (23:57):

Well, hey, tell us about the program. Like what can CrossFit affiliates expect from this?

Dave (24:02):

I mean, we’re weeks away from this and it’s still unfolding as we speak. It’s a very new program for everybody, but at its core, the idea is rooted in the principle of CrossFit finding new and unique ways to make the $3,000 affiliate fee a no brainer for people. And when CrossFit went out to affiliates at various points over the course of the last 12 months or so, and asked them what they could do to help it was all about, you know, help me get more members and help me cut costs. So drive sales and lower costs and to CrossFit’s credit, they’ve really focused on bringing some programs to fruition that do exactly that. The CrossFit affiliate partner network being the first. at least that I’m a part of and aware of. People can log into crossfit.com and as long as you’re an affiliate, you’ll be presented with a landing page, basically that will have, I’m not sure how many partners at launch, I want to say around 10.

Dave (25:10):

But you know, everything from drink partners to supplement partners and you know, various equipment providers. And you’ll be able to access special deals as an affiliate from those partners. And I can say definitively that O2’s deal that we’re offering CrossFit affiliates through the CrossFit APN network is the best that we’ve ever done. And it’s the best that we’ll ever do because it’s incredibly impactful. At least that’s my intention, for affiliates who want to drive some really meaningful, profitable retail sales at their gyms. And so we’re offering 55% margins on our product, which is really high, standard best in class is about 40% in the CPG industry. And we will be also offering a mini fridge, branded mini fridge, which I haven’t done before. And I”m excited to get off the ground too. And then last but not least, we have a program that was rooted in the stay for May concept where we’re offering affiliates who buy O2 through the APN unlimited a hundred dollar O2, Borm Primitive, RPM, Puori gift cards that they can award to every new member who walks through their gym over the course of the rest of this year and next year. And that’s been a really, really well-received program so far as it’s been in beta mode.

Chris (26:43):

That’s amazing. And so if you’re a gym owner and you’re listening to this, here’s how you can picture yourself using these cards. When a new member comes in right now, many gym owners are tempted to give a discount to incentivize the member to sign up. Instead of doing that. And you should never do that. But instead of doing that, you can give a bonus. And what Dave has done here is given you the bonus that you can give to the client. So it’s basically a a hundred dollar gift card. And if the client signs up today, they start going through your on-ramp program. You can choose when to give them the gift card, but it’s a great incentive if you want to help them decide to sign up that day, or it’s just a great new member bonus for somebody as a reward for signing up. So I think it checks a lot of boxes for CrossFit affiliates and the beautiful part is that it’s brands that a lot of people would want to go after anyway. Right?

Dave (27:33):

Yeah, totally. And we designed it to be kind of like a new member fitness starter package. Hydration from O2. You’ve got your, get a jump rope from RPM. You get your protein from Puori, and some gear and apparel from Born Primitive. So it’s, you know, the gyms that have had the most success with it have positioned it like a fitness starter pack.

Chris (27:54):

It’s amazing. I mean, I remember last year at the at the Games, so many people saying like, what are you doing for gift boxes for new members? How are you rewarding them? And they would ask me because we shipped gift boxes to every gym owner at Two-Brain, but it was tricky because they’d have to hold inventory or they would have to like put out money to buy the skipping ropes or whatever. And so finally the idea just kind of died, but this is a much better way to revitalize the idea and reward your members and give them a bonus and give them some equipment. You know, it’s just amazing for retention and conversion.

Dave (28:27):

Thanks, man. I haven’t been a that part of that many things in my career that are such a win-win for everybody involved. And so we’re really, really pumped about this program. It’s going to be free for anyone who becomes an O2 wholesale partner through the APN, and we’re going to continue to build on it and refine it in the future. So this is one of the many things that we feel we can bring to the table. In addition to just a great tasting hydration drink, for gyms, is we feel we can help them not only drive retail sales, but also, you know, do some positive impact on the retention side as well.

Chris (29:03):

Great man. So CrossFit affiliates can find out about this by just logging into the CrossFit website. What about non CrossFit affiliates? Because you do work with other gyms, like where can they get more information on this offer from, Dave?

Dave (29:16):

So, so the best way to do that would probably be just to send us an email at gyms@drinko2.com, and ask about the new member gift card program. And we’re offering that, you know, I believe it’s the first pack of 25 are free, for everybody. And we can make sure that’s the case for Two-Brain listeners. And then for every pack of 25 that follows, we’re just asking you to pay cost, which is 15 bucks, basically for materials and shipping. It’s a tangible, like it’s a real life gift card. It comes in a beautiful branded box, you know, it’s got within the box. There’s a thing. There’s a very nice thing that you can hand people when they join. So that’s probably the easiest way, gyms@drinko2.com. That’s the letter O the number two. And then we also have a webpage that folks can find out more on, it’s communitycoalition.fitness/twobrain.

Chris (30:18):

We’ll link that. Thanks so much, Dave, this is great. And you’re right. We don’t always get to see these win-win wins scenarios, but when we do, I love it when they come from a help first initiative, like you guys have going so strongly right from the start of COVID. So thank you for that.

Dave (30:34):

Oh, it’s our pleasure, man. It’s been an honor of my career to be in a position to do some good and grow O2, it’s just been a blast.

Chris (30:42):

That’s great.

Chris (30:42):

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 The 02 Story: Dave Colina on Helping Gyms appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Be More Valuable: Appreciation

If you want to make more income, you must provide more value.

In this series, I’ve been sharing lessons from Bob Burg, author of “The Go-Giver.”

According to Burg, value has five components.

In Part 1, I shared the first two: excellence and consistency.

In Part 2, I shared the second two: attention and empathy.

The fifth element of value is appreciation.

Appreciation closes the loop on value. There are some obvious ways to show appreciation:

“Thank you.”Big hugs.Handwritten notes.Quick texts.

You have to be consistent with these. But there are also less-obvious ways to increase value through appreciation.

Show Progress

The first way to grow value through appreciation is to reveal progress. Many people just don’t see the progress they’re making (it’s true in the gym and in business, too!). So you have to review their progress every quarter, at minimum.

If you’re using a system like Level Method, you can track a client’s progress in many different categories. But even if you’re not, simply having a Goal Review Session each quarter creates an opportunity to say, “Look how far you’ve come!”

Balloons and Confetti

The second way: Celebrate progress. You must make your clients famous. That means putting them on a podium in front of the cameras and saying, “You’re amazing!”

Many people read that strategy and think it’s a marketing gimmick. It’s not: It’s a value play.

Sarah doesn’t feel famous anywhere else. Nobody else puts Jamal’s picture on Facebook and says, “This man is awesome.” As the only person in their lives who says “you are doing great things,” you become very valuable to your clients.

Rewards

The third way to grow value through appreciation: Reward the behavior you want.

Instead of offering 20 percent off for referrals, surprise clients who refer their friends with a thoughtful gift. This will show that you truly appreciate their vote of confidence instead of viewing their buddy as one more transaction.

The best show of gratitude is an in-person, hand-clasping, full-eye-contact “thank you. I truly appreciate it”—not a free month.

You’re valuable to your clients. Your thanks will be meaningful.

Don’t forget to thank people. Do it one at a time. But also give them a reason to celebrate themselves.

You’ll be the only one in their lives who does.

Other Media in This Series

“How to Be More Valuable: Excellence and Consistency”
“How to Be More Valuable: Empathy and Attention”

The post How to Be More Valuable: Appreciation appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Be More Valuable: Empathy and Attention

In the first post in this series, I told you that your income was determined by the value you create. In the words of Bob Burg, author of “The Go-Giver,” “Money is the thunder to value’s lightning.”

2020 was a massive test of value in the gym business. Gym owners and trainers who provided real value to their clients did pretty well. Gyms that didn’t actually provide value—like the big, 24/7, all-access gyms—really suffered.

Sadly, some owners of coaching businesses learned (the hard way) that their clients didn’t value their services as much as they thought. I’m lucky: I learned this lesson (also the hard way) years ago. So when COVID, hit, I was ready to move online quickly.

The third and fourth elements of value are empathy and attention.

I’ll start with empathy because you probably have that dialed.

Seeing the Other’s Perspective

Empathy means you can understand the client’s perspective. You can put yourself in the client’s shoes.

Empathy creates value because you can share experience. You’ve been where they are, and you know what it’s like.

Empathy is the reason why a coach who has lost 50 lb. is often more valuable than a coach who has competed at CrossFit competitions. Remember: Excellence means getting clients to the goals they want, not the goals you want. If a coach has achieved the same thing the client wants, the coach can empathize.

Empathy doesn’t mean sympathy. It doesn’t mean doing anything for free. It means being a valuable resource because you have the experience, not just the knowledge.

Noticing Everything

Now, here’s the harder part: attention.

Even if all your clients attend group classes, you must have a 1:1 relationship with them that includes goal setting, progress reviews and a long-term plan.

If people simply sign up for group classes, attend group classes and post their scores, you don’t have a relationship with them. You’re easily replaced by the gym down the street.

Gyms that do a lot of 1:1 training, follow the Prescriptive Model and track their clients’ progress keep clients longer. They also have higher-value clients.

Their average revenue per member per month (ARM) and length of engagement (LEG) both rise. And in times of crisis, people are less likely to quit.

Gyms who sent each client a short text each day during COVID retained their clients up to 40 percent longer. And because most gyms don’t have a 40 percent profit margin, this was the difference between staying profitable or losing money during lockdowns.

Your Income Is Based on Value

If you want to make a greater income, you must provide more value.

So far, I’ve given you four elements of value:

ExcellenceConsistencyAttentionEmpathy

In the next post in this series, I’ll give you the fifth element (it’s the one most people miss).

Other Media in This Series

“How to Be More Valuable: Excellence and Consistency”
“How to Be More Valuable: Appreciation”

The post How to Be More Valuable: Empathy and Attention appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

CrossFit Precision Care: Will It Benefit Affiliate Owners?

Andrew (00:01):

Today on Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper digs into CrossFit Precision Care, the newest offering from CrossFit, LLC.

Chris (00:09):

It’s Chris Cooper here. Your gym’s programming won’t attract new clients, but it can help you keep your clients longer. Good programming includes benchmarks, novelty, skills, progressions, leaderboards, you know all that stuff. But great programming contains something more: a link between each client’s fitness goals and the workout of the day. Your coaches need to tell your clients more than what they’re doing every day. They need to explain why they’re doing it. Gym’s whose coaches could explain the why connection had a 25% better retention rate during lockdowns. Imagine how that translates into better retention when things are back to normal. Now, I want to solve this problem for gym owners. Programming is the service you deliver to your clients. So I partnered with Brooks DiFiore, who had one of the highest adherence rates in the world for his group classes at his gym to build twobrainprogramming.com. We built this for Two-Brain gyms and we give them free access in our mentorship program. But I’m now making this available to the public. Programming proven to improve retention and cashflow in your gym. Visit Two-Brain programming.com to get it.

Chris (01:17):

Hey everybody, Chris Cooper here and today we’re talking about CrossFit HQ’s new initiative, Precision Health. And I know that there are some mixed reviews about this. Whenever I’m trying to decide or predict how something will go, I tend to break the new idea down into three layers. First, will this benefit the affiliate owner. Second, will this benefit the affiliates’ clients, and third, will this benefit the staff at the affiliate. In this case? I think it’s wise to introduce a fourth question, which is, will this benefit HQ? So let’s go through each of those layers one by one. First off, will this benefit the affiliate owner? I mean, obviously that’s what I’m most concerned with. And in this case, it’s kind of unclear.

Chris (01:56):

Nobody’s really done this Precision Health yet. Nobody’s taken advantage of it. We don’t even have N equals one data. So what will we do as Two-Brain Business? We’ll test it, we’ll sign some people up and we’ll provide you with feedback and as much objective data as we can, as we go along. Here’s my opinion as somebody who’s been in this industry for a long time, and for somebody who’s owned a gym now for about 17 years. When you’re working with healthcare professionals, you always want to be working with them kind of in a network. And we’ve got this, blog series coming up about building that local network and working with therapists and healthcare professionals to create cross-referral, a web basically of referrals. And what you’re trying to do is really kind of create this ecosystem of referral around your gym. Now, the problem is that many affiliates don’t have that ecosystem of support.

Chris (02:50):

In fact, they might kind of be competing with therapists and sometimes even moving beyond their own scope of practice, to like do therapy in their gym., Really what should be happening is we should be looking for ways to extend our care to our clients. Now, you know, could CrossFit have made this a slam dunk for affiliates? Yeah, absolutely. They could have charged a hundred dollars more per month and paid a referral fee to the affiliate. So the affiliate feels like all of the hard work required to recruit their clients is somehow benefiting them instead of just in this larger kind of unmeasurable sense of like, OK, I’m linking my clients to this HQ initiative. Years ago, I had a high ticket client named Keith and his wife, Anne, and these were amazingly good clients. They both did three PT sessions per week, which was about our highest ticket package back then.

Chris (03:41):

And Keith announced one time that he was going to be paying for private healthcare. And this was kind of a taboo in Ontario at the time, you have to understand the Canadian healthcare system, but our healthcare system is actually like not very good. So if you want to talk to a doctor, you have to kind of find a doctor or a clinic that will accept cash, which is hard. And it’s kind of taboo. Nobody likes the guys who jump the line, but those of us who can afford to do it, we all want to do it. And so they were looking for preventative care. And at first I kind of was like, ah, Keith, come on, you’re gonna pay 2,500, stay overnight in Toronto for a couple of nights to do all these tests. You know, I can do most of these tests or we could set up some blood testing for you.

Chris (04:27):

And he was like, no, no, I’m going to do it. So he goes to these tests and he did some blood tests. They do like sleep testing on them. They measure his like blood cortisol level stuff and they do some fitness testing. And when he comes back, he’s telling me like, yeah, we did fitness testing and I rocked it. And then we did BMI testing and I was kinda like, ah, Keith, come on, BMI, who cares? Fitness testing, like, you know, it was kind of garbage. They took skinfold, who cares about that? And we, you know, we laughed it off and Keith felt better because he had this preventative early stage care. And I just kinda forgot about it for two weeks. And then the test came back and Keith had cancer and they caught it early.

Chris (05:15):

Thank goodness. They sent him for a deeper diagnosis right away with his primary care physician. And he had surgery and removed it. And within two months he had, you know, discovered the cancerous mass, had it removed and he was back in the gym.

Chris (05:33):

We’ll get back to the show, right after this. Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by Forever Fierce. Reach out to them to sell more apparel or retail items. Matt Albrizio and his team will save you time with templates. They’ll provide ideas and tell you what’s selling best. And they’ll supply marketing material and preorder sheets. If you want to get serious about apparel and retail, visit foreverfierce.com.

Chris (05:52):

Now, if he hadn’t been doing this preventative care, there’s a great chance that this could have, you know, the tumor could have grown for years before it was found and actually put Keith in a bad spot.

Chris (06:05):

So from that point on, I stopped questioning all of this, you know, secondary or primary care that people get. And I started understanding why people want to be proactive with their health. Now, what CrossFit is doing is really interesting and they’ve partnered with, I think it’s Wild Health or something like that. I’ll post a link in the show notes and they will give you like a link where people from your affiliate can sign up and you, as the affiliate owner can sign up for maybe half price or something and your coaches can sign up for half price or something too. So there’s no direct financial benefit to the affiliate. I think that might be setting some people off. However, what you are doing is creating this ecosystem of care that includes CrossFit, if you’re a CrossFit affiliate. And so instead of working against local doctors, you can actually help your clients get extra care.

Chris (06:56):

Now is this competing with affiliates? I don’t think so. Like while the Precision Care model is a lot like SEMM, which we teach in Two-Brain Coaching, sleep, eat, move, manage. It’s a lot like what OPEX has been talking about for nearly a decade of managing the client’s entire health picture holistically, unless you’re already offering all of those things, CrossFit HQ is not competing with you. They’re not going to give your clients a different exercise prescription. I don’t think they’re even going to sell them supplements, but here’s the thing. If you’re selling supplements or you’re doing blood testing, or you are prescribing meditation or evaluating your client’s sleep, your clients are just going to keep coming to you for that anyway, instead of this faceless entity that they don’t know because you are their coach. So if you’re in a position where you’re offering those things, congratulations, you’re at the tip of the spear.

Chris (07:47):

The top 5%. You can just keep offering them and your clients will buy those things from you. And we started talking about this more during COVID about the SEMM model, S E M M, sleep, eat, move, manage, really CrossFit HQ is just offering you an option. If you’re not doing that at your gym already. I think you should do it yourself. But if you’re not prepared to do that, here’s a clinical option. It helps your clients and it keeps them in your gym probably. OK. So while we’re going to wait and see if this benefits affiliates, let’s go to the next step, will it benefit clients? Well, I think we can all agree that it does, right? So if we take the cares about HQ and their relationship with affiliates off the table, I do think this will help clients a lot, get some preventative care.

Chris (08:33):

And in the podcast that I’ll link below with Julie Foucher and Eric Roza, Eric continually refers to our current health care as really sick care. And I do agree with them. That’s something that he had in common with Greg Glassman and something that I think a lot of CrossFit affiliates can get behind. So offering this to our clients, I do think is a good thing. They’re not going to choose to pay Precision Health over their gym membership. If they have to choose between one or the other, this probably isn’t for them. And they’re probably going to choose you anyway. All right, third, will this help the coaches at our gym? I think so. I think like if the coaches can get this for half price, that’s a good reason for them to stay employed with you. You know, if they want this, they might not. Where it will help them is in the pursuit of mastery.

Chris (09:21):

I think that a lot of coaches should be focused on leveling up and turning themselves into like a health coach level. Health coach is not a protected term. There is no international or national college of health coaches, which means there’s no licensure. There’s no registration process to call yourself a health coach. You just got to find somebody who’s willing to insure you, basically. And so you can find health coach certifications online, call yourself a health coach, start selling a higher value, higher ticket program that includes sleep, eat, move, manage, and just do it all yourself. Alternately, you can turn it over and let CrossFit and Precision Health do it for you. And then finally does this benefit CrossFit Inc? That’s the fourth question we’re asking ourselves. So, you know, obviously it does, right? Like they have just turned 15,000 worldwide affiliates into unpaid salespeople for them.

Chris (10:13):

There are people like me who will probably refer clients to this program, probably less than 10% of my clients I would refer to this depending, when it comes to Canada. But in the states, you know, they might get more referrals to really make this a slam dunk. You know, the winning lottery ticket for affiliates, I think it would be wise to raise the price of Precision Health and include a monthly referral fee for the gym that refers the client. I mean, if you really want to set up a referral network, it’s not a bad way to do it. And lord knows that gyms could use it. So, when we’re evaluating this, it’s too early to say for sure, yes, this works. Don’t worry, Two-Brain’s got you covered. We’re going to be doing those tests for you. We’ll pay for them.

Chris (10:58):

And then we’ll tell you the results for free. Is it too early to say this will help affiliates? Yeah, we can’t say for sure. Will it harm affiliates? I don’t think so. Next. Will it help the clients of affiliates? I think so, you know, it’s more good than bad. Most won’t need it. Most won’t want it, but those who do will probably benefit from it. And it won’t harm the affiliate because those people are not going to quit their gym to talk to a doctor. It’s not one or the other. Third will it help the coaches in the gym? It might because it could provide a model for the coach to follow when they want to level up into a health coach, you can look at like what these healthcare practitioners are providing through Precision Health. And you can model that in your own gym and DIY, and then fourth, does it help HQ? And obviously it does. So that’s my initial take. We’ll be back probably in three or four months with some actual data, some objectives results, and kind of our final analysis on Precision Health.

Andrew (11:58):

Two-Brain Radio is your source for the best advice in the gym business. Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and now here’s Coop with an invitation.

Chris (12:05):

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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How to Be More Valuable: Excellence and Consistency

You deserve to be paid what you’re worth. But that’s not happening.

How do you earn more? By increasing the value of the service to your client.

Bob Burg, author of “The Go-Giver,” says that “money is an echo of value.”

In this series, I’m going to tell you how to increase the value of your service and make more money.

I’ve been studying with Bob for the last several months. His books have been life changing for me: He’s affirmed that you can succeed at business while being a good, caring person.

We’re going to license some of his best material for Two-Brain clients. But I’m going to share some of his lessons with you now.

If you want to charge what you’re worth, you first have to make sure you’re really providing value to your clients. Simply “being open” isn’t enough.

Value has five parts. Here are the first two: excellence and consistency.

The Truth About Excellence in Fitness

Excellence: Your service must get people results.

Yes, you gym should be clean. Yes, your coaches should be experts. Yes, you should understand the method you’re teaching very well.

But if you’re a Level 7 Black Belt Bootcamp Instructor and your clients aren’t getting the results they’re paying to get, then you don’t have an excellent service.

This was a really hard pill for me to swallow. Years ago, I wanted to be (and maybe was!) regarded as the local “expert” who knew the most about fitness. I wrote posts about periodization. I drew graphs about energy metabolism on the floor of my gym. I gave lectures on nutrition. I had a bachelor’s degree and five certifications on my business card.

But my clients weren’t getting results. So they quit. And they were right to quit. Most of them found trainers who knew far less than I did but helped them get much better results.

My education and knowledge made me feel great. But it didn’t help them at all.

You will be rewarded for the value you create in the lives of your clients.

You will be rewarded for getting them the results they care about.

That is excellence.

Excellence Every Day

Now, if you want to deliver a high-value service, you have to deliver excellence consistently.

That means your excellence has to extend to every part of your business, not just your primary service. It also means that your primary service must be delivered to the same level by everyone. You can’t be the thing that makes your business special.

This was also a very, very hard lesson for me to learn. My ego loved it when clients said, “It’s not the same when you’re not here!” or “I don’t want to work with another trainer—I only wanna work with you!”

I was flattered. I felt important: “Nobody can train these people as well as I can!”

Of course, I also felt overworked, exhausted and underpaid.

Finally, I realized that if I was irreplaceable in the business, I’d always be overworked and underpaid. My first step to improving the value to my clients was actually making myself replaceable.

So I hired a fresh, energetic college student to take the 6-a.m. class. She didn’t know what I knew about fitness. But she was bright and happy at 6 a.m., and my clients loved her. They wanted her to be the first person they met every day, so they started to show up more often—and then they got better results.

Money is a reflection of value. Value is determined by our clients.

Excellence means getting results for clients. Consistency means doing things the same way every time for every person.

Those are the first steps we take in our RampUp program.

Other Media in This Series

“How to Be More Valuable: Empathy and Attention”
“How to Be More Valuable: Appreciation”

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Avoiding $100,000 Mistakes and Huge Amounts of Stress

I hate open gym.

As the owner of a coaching business, I get a sick feeling in my stomach every single time I think about it.

Yes, I offered open gym in the past. But I regretted it deeply and struggled with removing it until the problem was solved by default when we closed our physical space to move completely online. I’d never offer facility access without coaching again.

Here’s why I put open gym in place back in the day, why doing so was a huge mistake and how I could have avoided a major problem.

I offered open gym at our facility for years because I didn’t understand what I was selling and to whom. Even years into running a gym, I didn’t have a good grasp of my ideal client.

My ignorance came from good intentions: I believe fitness is for everyone, so we worked to build a business in which anyone would feel welcome. I don’t regret that.

But excessive focus on my goal of inclusivity meant that I tried to do too much for too many people. The successful entrepreneurs reading this will know that was a mistake.

It’s impossible to please everyone. I would have been better off finding out what my very best clients wanted and shaping my service around their needs and wants. Then I should have found more people like my very best clients.

Instead, I punched a hole in my coaching business by giving away facility access.

A mentor could have warned me off this plan before I created a difficult situation for myself.

Back in the Day…

For me, open gym came about because our business started in a garage. It was always fun to get together and train. So we put an open-gym slot on Sunday morning.

You can guess what happened in short order: Instead of bringing people together, it started to pull the gym apart.

I thought open gym would help people make up missed workouts. A few did that. But others started to arrive with “special workouts” either purchased elsewhere or found on the web. Instead of serving my ideal clients, I had only created a way for people to max out deadlifts too often, train for competitions and do squat programs that made them too sore to come to group classes.

Worse, I didn’t charge more for open gym—even when I added more slots. I just included it with our unlimited membership and paid a coach to be there. So open gym devalued my group-coaching program while I essentially gave personal training away for free.

Open gym cost me lots of money both in wages and lost revenue. It also drove up my stress levels when cliques appeared, people stopped coming to classes and … you know the rest.

I Didn’t Have to Make This Mistake

I’m telling this tale because I still see coaching businesses making big mistakes like this. Open gym is just one example. Other good ones: setting prices by looking at competitors, hiring staff without creating roles and responsibilities, spending money on expensive equipment that’s never used, avoiding kicking out bad clients, focusing on advertising before retention, and so on.

You’re definitely going to make some mistakes as a gym owner. It’s inevitable, but you can avoid a huge number of them by working with a mentor.

I wish someone had tapped me on the shoulder 10 years ago and pointed me in the right direction. In fact, had I hired a mentor to help me make just one decision—raising rates in 2013—I’d be $50,000 ahead even if you subtract the cost of 10 years of mentorship. If I’d had a mentor to tell me to be rid of open gym and focus on my best clients, I might be retired right now.

So here’s your tap on the shoulder. If you’re making it up as you go right now, I want to save you time, misery and stress. Click here to find out more about mentorship.

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Stop Hoarding Money in Your Business (and Do This Instead)

Mike (00:02):

Buckle in, it’s a sprint episode of Two-Brain Radio. In less than eight minutes, Chris Cooper is going to tell you why hoarding money in your business is a mistake. He’ll also tell you what to do with that cash to improve your life. Here’s Coop.

Chris (00:14):

More on that topic in just a second. Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by AGuard, providing elite insurance for fitness and sport. AGuard offers coverage for functional fitness facilities, mixed martial arts gyms and even events and competitions. You can also get access to healthcare insurance, discounted AEDs and discounted background checks. AGuard’s coverage options are designed to keep you safe. To find out more, visit affiliateguard.info.

Chris (00:38):

Hey guys, it’s Chris Cooper here. And today we’re going to talk about how much money you should leave in your business’s bank account. There’s a lot of myths out there, and really nobody has ever stood up and said, this is exactly the amount. Today, we’re going to talk about what that amount should be, why that amount is specific to gym owners and what you should do with the money instead. So the first thing is that most people assume they should keep two to three months’ worth of expenses in their business checking account.

Chris (01:11):

And I used to think this way too. And then I attended this great seminar years ago. I can’t even remember who the speaker was. They were calling it a health and wealth seminar, and it was basically money management for fitness pros. And the lesson was that you don’t need to have two months’ worth of expenses in your checking account. There’s a couple of reasons why that’s wasteful. First off. If the money is sitting there, you’re way more likely to spend it. So you need to get it away from your fingers, or at least like put it someplace where it’s not easy to access. The second thing is that while the money is sitting in your checking account or whatever, it’s not generating any kind of return. So while you might have a loan that’s charging you between five and 18% interest, your money is sitting there completely inactive, getting you a 0% return. Putting it somewhere else where it could get you a small return will counteract some of that loan debt, or maybe you just pay off your expenses.

Chris (02:09):

So let’s start with the reason why most people want to keep two to three months worth of expenses in their checking account. First of all, it’s a safety blanket. It’s a parachute. It’s like, OK, that is there. And if things go really, really wrong, if there’s a catastrophe all of a sudden, I will have money to throw into the gap and kind of bridge over the shortfall. The problem is that that’s way too much money. And the reason is that your business will never just go to zero overnight, even with COVID, when a lot of gyms had to shut their physical location, we all saw that it was easy to pivot to online. And even the gyms that didn’t do well online long term, in the initial first couple of months, they were able to pivot. The other thing too, is that gyms that were in lockdown areas where the lockdown lasted longer,

Chris (03:00):

They actually were able to hold clients longer online. Places like Florida, it was tougher to keep clients engaged online, but the gyms got reopened again in two to three months. Canada, where gyms got closed for like 12 out of the last 14 months, the retention rate for online was actually higher. So the lesson here is that as a gym owner, your revenue will never go to zero. Your business might go into a decline, but you’ll never lose the whole thing at once. So you don’t need two months expenses just sitting in your checking account.

Chris (03:31):

Chris Cooper here to talk about Beyond the Whiteboard, the world’s premier workout tracking platform. Beyond the Whiteboard empowers gym owners with tools designed to retain and motivate members. We all know clients need to accomplish their goals if they’re going to stick around long term, and Beyond the Whiteboard will help your members chart their progress. They can earn badges view, leaderboards, track their macros, assess their fitness levels, and a lot more. Your job is to get great results for your members. Beyond the Whiteboard’s job is to make sure your members see those results and celebrate them. For a free 30-day trial, visit BTwb.com today.

Chris (04:06):

What you do need is two months’ expenses maybe set aside, and two months is the absolute limit. Do not sit on more than two months. What you need is really like one month’s worth of expenses, and you need to have the cash or access to credit, to cover one month’s expenses, maybe two. Cash? Yes. If you’ve got the cash, OK, you know, you can throw money in the hole to bridge your way across, but if you’ve also got access to credit, like you’ve got an overdraft or a line of credit, or even credit cards, you can survive for a couple months while you fix your business.

Chris (04:45):

Now I know you’re supposed to bootstrap and I know you’re never supposed to go in debt. That’s hogwash. What you should do is just have that security blanket without hoarding cash, putting it out of the market, putting it somewhere where it’s not making you any money. What should you do with it? It’s up to you. But there are a lot of different cashflow accounts where you can invest that money, get some kind of return, even if it’s like 1% and have access to it within 72 hours. If you think about it, things will never go so wrong so fast that you need to pull out two months’ worth of expenses within 72 hours, right? Like you’re not going to go bankrupt at midnight tonight, and then suddenly fix the problem by throwing money at it tomorrow morning. So if you’ve got your cash in a money market account or something like that, where you can withdraw within 72 hours, then it’s the same thing as keeping it in your checking account.

Chris (05:40):

But you’ve got the added bonus that there is a small barrier to getting it, which means you won’t spend it. If you’ve got 30 grand sitting in your checking account, you’re likely to spend it on needless little things. It’s very, very hard to have discipline when you’ve got a big plate of cookies sitting in front of you. So this month we started tracking how much money people are holding in their checking accounts in Two-Brain. And the reason was that we were seeing these gyms that were super profitable and that profit didn’t correlate to owner’s pay or net owner benefit. The gym owners just weren’t giving themselves a raise as the gym was doing better. So where was that money going? Well, mostly they were spending it, but a lot of them were saying like, no, we’re just holding this money. We need a safety blanket.

Chris (06:23):

We need a parachute. We’re trying to cover six months expenses in my gym. And these are just personal security issues. They’re not like logical accounting tactics. They’re not financial plans. It’s just your personal insecurity. So what fixed the problem for me, and by the way, my monthly payroll is well over $300,000. Monthly. What fixed the problem for me was the understanding that I didn’t need access to cash. I needed access to cash or credit. Number two, that my business wouldn’t completely go to zero overnight, that there might be a slow trickle down, but I would see it coming and I would fix the problem before it got out of hand. And number three, that if I put my money into a money market account or somewhere else, I could withdraw it within 72 hours. And I would never need it faster than that.

Chris (07:13):

So if you’re hoarding money, if you’ve got more than two months’ expenses saved up in your checking account, invest that somewhere, pay yourself, get it out of there. Second. Address why you’re doing that. If you believe that it’s a financial strategy, you need to talk to a financial strategist. Obviously, you know, you could benefit from some coaching there. If though it’s a security thing, then you need to examine why you feel this insecure about your business. Do you not understand your value? Do you not believe in the value that you’re delivering? Do you feel susceptible to competition? But that’s a different matter, right? And hoarding money will not fix that problem. Hoarding money is a sign that there’s something going wrong and it could be an entrepreneurial confidence problem. It could be a misunderstanding of your finances. But when you identify that problem, you identify a massive opportunity to improve your net worth, your leadership, your entrepreneurial confidence, and ultimately your success. Hope it helps.

Chris (08:12):

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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