Chris Cooper's Blog, page 130

Leading Through Change

By Per Mattsson, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

Have you ever presented your newest “super idea” or your new “fantastic project” and received zero response at a staff meeting?

I bet it felt like someone threw a wet blanket on your fire. Or maybe you felt like your staff members were unmotivated despite all the golden nuggets you dropped into their laps? 

This is very common, and I think every leader has felt this way at some point.

As leaders, we sometimes forget that we are always one or even several steps ahead in the process of change. When you present your idea, you’ve already spent lots of time thinking about it. You’ve considered all the pros and cons, how the change will affect you, how it will affect your staff, and how it will affect all parts of your business. Your staff members haven’t done any of that yet.

Everyone goes through different phases when they deal with change, and everyone needs a different amount of time to adapt. Some people need to discuss with others to clarify their thoughts and sort through pros and cons, some people need to think alone, and some people just say “let’s go!” when they hear about new ideas. 

Instead of getting frustrated with your staff for failing to celebrate your genius, make some changes in your leadership style to better prepare them and help them get on board.

We can learn a lot from great teachers. As a teacher and principal, I observed many amazing educators work really hard to help students who learned in different ways. Some kids need information in advance, some need visual aids like pictures and images, some need to study in advance, and so on.

Below, you’ll find some of the “classroom techniques” you can use to improve staff meetings and lead people through changes.

Before Meetings

Send out information beforehand. Great teachers often assign homework in advance so it can be discussed in the classroom. That way students can be more active during lessons because they’ve had the chance to think before they are asked to discuss. I always try to share all the information that can be shared in advance with staff. This approach saves time because I don’t have to present everything at the meeting, and it also helps people who need more time to think. I always make sure to say, “This will be discussed in our meeting, so please hold your comments and thoughts until then.” A note like this prevents discussions or debates in our Facebook group, which is often not the right forum. 

Try different ways of sharing information. I’ve started making lots of videos in which I explain things and share information with my staff. This can make it easier for some people to process information, and it’s often easier for me to explain concepts in a video instead of in text. 

During Meetings

Many times the “quickest thinker” or most spontaneous person will speak first, which can limit the amount and the quality of responses you get. Unfortunately, the people who speak first are often also the most negative. Once again, a few methods can be borrowed from great teachers.

After presenting an idea, a project or information, tell people that they must think alone for 60 seconds before anyone can speak. After doing that, you listen to each and every person and take notes on a whiteboard. This is a very good way to get everyone to share thoughts before anyone “takes over” and you fall into a debate.

If you have a large group, an even better idea is to let everyone think alone, then put them into smaller groups where they share their thoughts. After that, let every small group share with the large group. In Swedish, we even have a word for this technique, which is often used in the classrooms of great teachers. We call it “EPA,” which is short for “ensam-par-alla”—translated to “alone-pairs-everyone.” In English, you can use the acronym “APE” to remind you of this technique.

When and if something turns into a discussion or debate, remember that you don’t always have to be the one who responds. If someone in the group is negative or skeptical about something, you could just say something like this: “I hear what you’re saying, Lisa, and I feel your frustration. What do the rest of you guys think about it?” By doing this, you can show the person that another in the group might think differently, which can often be more powerful than sharing your thoughts or arguments. Sometimes, the people who like to complain or resist think everyone else feels the same way. When you show them that’s not the case, it can be a powerful eye opener.

Learn, Then Lead

Helping people change perspective is important, and you do that by learning to be a good listener and asking questions.

My advice above is essentially a collection of pedagogical tricks that can be used to give people time to think. That will help you get more feedback and responses, and it will improve the quality of those responses.

Leading people through change is really about changing your mindset and understanding that you are always ahead in the thought process. If you understand that, then you will start using different methods to help your staff through change, and you will understand that it takes time for them to follow and catch up to you.

The post Leading Through Change appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Working With a Spouse: The Secrets to Ending the Stress

Mike (00:02):

Welcome to Two-Brain Radio. Today on the show—

Crystal (00:04):

Have you seen the financial reports?

Mike (00:04):

For crying out loud, I’m trying to do a podcast here.

Crystal (00:11):

Yeah, but what I need is important too. Can you please get them for me?

Mike (00:14):

Look, you know what? If you run a business with your spouse, or if you’re thinking about it, this is the show for you.

Crystal (00:22):

I need you to get those for me right now.

Mike (00:24):

We will be back with that show right after this.

Chris (00:29):

Hi, this is Chris Cooper, and I founded Two-Brain Business to make gyms profitable. Over the last years, as we’ve compiled more and more data, more and more tools, gotten better and better at mentorship, we’ve really made a lot of gyms, hundreds around the world, thousands over the years, profitable, doing better. What hasn’t kept pace is the quality of coaching in a lot of gyms worldwide. There are great programs out there that will introduce you to a method like bootcamp, kettlebells, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, CrossFit, running, whatever that is. And so we can make coaches who know the subject matter, but that doesn’t make them a great coach. To be a great coach, you have to be able to change somebody’s habits. You have to be able to change their behavior and to do that requires deep understanding of their motivations to do that means amazing adherence by the client. And it means amazing retention because as gym owners, we know it’s harder and harder and more expensive than ever to get a new client. Retention is more important than ever. Referrals are more important than ever. Peer to peer marketing, word of mouth is more important than it’s ever been. How do you get those things? Through client results. So I founded Two-Brain Coaching with Josh Martin to get coaches the skills they actually need to make a career in fitness instead of just familiarity with a methodology. Twobraincoaching.com has courses to help you start a career with personal training, to scale up with group training, both in person and online, and to diversify with nutrition, coaching, and mindset coaching. We have the best programs in the industry that will prepare you and your coaches to deliver any method that you love now or you might love 10 years from now. Twobraincoaching is really a project of love for me. And if you visit twobraincoaching.com, you’ll get a ton of free resources, just like we produce every day on twobrainbusiness.com.

Mike (02:28):

Welcome to another edition of Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. I work with my spouse and maybe you work with yours, or maybe you’re planning to. Either way, you’re going to want to take some advice from certified Two-Brain fitness business mentor, Kenny Markwardt. He runs Sandpoint Strength and Conditioning with his spouse, Jen, and he’s here to help spouses thrive as they work together. So Kenny, welcome to Two-Brain Radio. Are you ready to save marriages today?

Kenny (02:51):

Yes, it’s a big ask, but I’m in. It’ll be fun.

Mike (02:55):

You know, you get paid as a mentor, but as a marriage counselor, you might have to up your rate to solve some of the problems that arise. Let’s trade some war stories before we talk solutions. So people know that we share their experiences. Both of us are a couplepreneurs. If you want to call it that. Without tearing open any wounds whatsoever, can you tell me about a specific major issue you had while running a business with your wife?

Kenny (03:20):

You know, the last thing my wife said to me this morning was, don’t say anything bad about me. So I said, I’ll change your name. It’s not going to be a big deal. Nobody will know who I’m talking about.

Mike (03:32):

Someone named Jen M.

Kenny (03:35):

Somebody I know. Well, I mean, really, I think that this whole year has almost been a bit of a war story. Like it’s been kind of the, you know, running a business with your spouse has so many risks as far as financially and putting a strain on the relationship and just being so closely intertwined, you know, the last year has maximized all of that in a really glaring way, you know, to have one income coming in or the main income that we have coming in to both be tied to that, and not have somebody working in a more stable job to be at home all the time or more so than usual, to be, have your kids at home more so than usual. I mean, that’s been a tough thing in and of itself. So yeah, I’m sure that resonates with you a little bit, huh?

Mike (04:24):

Oh, it sure does. And you I’ll give you a specific story. I’m not just going to hang you out to dry and say, Kenny, tell me about your wife. And I cleared this one with my wife, so we’re OK. But we’ve run a business together in various capacities since 2009. And that was just a basic boot camp kind of thing. And then we got into the CrossFit gym and physical location, all that stuff. And then recently we moved online. She’s taken over more of that end of it, but we work together. We’re at this, you know, we’re basically playing battleship with laptops opposite each other all day, every day. And we had definitely some disagreements about stuff. And the worst part about it is when you have a work disagreement and then you have to like, you close the laptops and it’s time for dinner, you know, when you’re staring across the table and you’re still angry about something, you know, with work.

Mike (05:07):

One of the times we had an argument, it was probably one of the last calls that Chris Cooper did as a mentor himself, before he got all of you guys to take over stuff, or he did it as a personal favor to me, because I work for him and I can’t remember which one it was, but I got him on a call with my wife and my wife and I had a disagreement about a key issue at the gym. And I got Chris, OK. Chris will help us. And I kinda thought that Chris would side with me. But that’s beside the point. I didn’t set her up. But we got on, we discussed the whole thing and Chris listened and then he gave his opinion and his opinion happened to coincide with me. So I’m just rubbing my hands together.

Mike (05:42):

I’m like, yes, the expert believes that I’m right. And my wife got very quiet and she got very cold and I could see that she was just boiling. She was furious. And you know, the best part about it was that she was mad at Chris, which fantastic. And that was partially part of my plan because if this went badly, you know, and Chris understands as we’ve talked about it. I wanted her mad at Chris, not me because I still had to sit there in the same house and she didn’t have to talk to Chris for another month, you know, so it worked out OK. And eventually we came to an agreement, but you know, as soon as that call ended, it was like high tension. I literally like went to the basement and I stayed there for a number of hours until we came up and kind of talked and it was still pretty rough.

Mike (06:25):

And the ultimate lesson here is that a mentor can help you get through these things. And sometimes become a buffer between couples because we don’t always agree on everything. And I really felt bad because ultimately my wife and I want the same thing, we want the business to succeed, but stuff is inevitable. Disagreements are inevitable and you’ve written some really great blogs about this, couplepreneurship, which people should definitely read. We’ll put them in the show notes. But now we’ve traded some war stories, let’s talk about just some of the common challenges, like what comes up besides what I’ve just described when couples work together. So what are some of the common challenges that come up when couples work together?

Kenny (07:00):

So one of the bigger ones is the roles and tasks. And just making sure that one person has the passion for the one thing that they’re going to be doing and that these are very clearly defined. So, you know, one of the mistakes that I’ll see is that somebody who wants to just come on board and help out, or that they’re going to, you know, this is their business together. So just make sense for them to work for the business. But either the mistake that I see is that one person doesn’t have that passion or that they don’t really have that clearly defined as far as what they’re going to do. So in our case, we’re super fortunate because I’m very fitness oriented and I’m very operations oriented. And in Jen is very nutrition oriented and she’s very sales and marketing oriented and I happen to not be so good at those things. So we make a very good team and that we counterbalance each other in those things. And as far as what the challenges are, I think it’s just making sure that those things are very clear.

Mike (07:59):

It really mirrors mentorship though, as a whole, like not just with couples, right? Like we talk, one of the steps in Two-Brain mentorship is to write down roles and tasks for every role in your business. And most gym owners don’t do that because at the beginning they’re doing everything. But if you ever want to get rid of a job, you have to put roles and tasks in place so that you can assign it to someone and hold them accountable. And if you don’t, you’re gonna be angry the whole time, but with spouses, I think it’s common to not do that because there’s like, Oh, we’re running a business together. And I’m very much like you, I think, where I need a list, I love working through lists and I like nothing better than ticking off boxes, crossing things off, and then taking the finished list, crumpling it up and burning it because I’m done.

Mike (08:35):

I love that feeling. What I hate is stuff popping up and say, Oh, did you take care of this? And like, it wasn’t on the list. And I get mad about it, you know? So I think what’s really important. And again, this isn’t just because I’m, you know, I’m OCD, but it’s important in a business, no matter who you are, I think to lay out roles and tasks, because if you don’t tell someone is your specific job, it probably won’t get done. Right. If it’s no one’s job and anyone can do it, no one will do it. Right.

Kenny (09:01):

Right. It helps to establish that you really, as sterile as it sounds, is you really need to treat each other like employees in that arena, you know, when you put on the hat of a nutrition coach or you put on the hat of operations manager, it helps clarify some of those discussions and arguments, it helps that separation from work and from home. And it helps clarify what the expectations are and whether they’re being known or not. And it sounds kind of sterile. I think we have this fascination or fantasy that we’re going to just run this thing together and it’s going to be this beautiful thing. But at the end of the day, you really are hired by the business to do certain jobs.

Mike (09:43):

Yeah. We’re going to talk about some of the things that people can do to take action. So, but before we get there, I’ll just ask you this. An I’ll lead with my own thing. What are some of the amazing things that happen when couples partner in business and I’ll identify one thing you said is that there is a synergy where she’s good at stuff that you’re not and vice versa. So you’re greater than the sum of your parts. For me, one of the benefits is I get to spend more time with my family. Like my wife is at home, I’m at home. We don’t have kids, we have dogs. And like we, the family spends a ton of time together. That’s a really good thing where sometimes there’s some flexibility where it’s like in the middle of the day, we’re going to go for a walk in the woods and we don’t have to book time off or to wait for the other person to get home. Like, that’s a huge, huge benefit. What are some other stuff that you notice that really makes working together with a partner just a great thing?

Kenny (10:28):

I think a lot of it is some of that risk reward, like it is, it’s a giant risk. You’re putting your financial stability and your relationship stability on the line. But when that works out and my wife’s going to giggle at this reference, but there’s a movie that any time it comes on, I’ll watch it. And that movie is Mr and Mrs. Smith. And the reason that I love it is, and if you’re not familiar with it, the premise is basically, two spies end up working together, two attractive, badasses for lack of a better word, that end up taking on the world together and knowing what the other person’s doing. And they’re kind of covering each other and saving each other’s life. And when that synergy is there and you’ve taken that giant risk to take on the world together, I think there’s nothing better. It’s like, so you don’t have children. We do have one, we have one six-year-old, he’s a magnificent kid, and working together to raise him and seeing some of those things transpire and happen after some of the challenges and hardships. It’s just that there’s nothing that can compare to that reward.

Mike (11:33):

And there really is like, you know, family stuff aside, there’s just this building something together is like this amazing thing. Like you talk about, OK, we’ve got this unbelievable business that we both put our blood, sweat and tears into. We risked and we won, that feeling of accomplishment is incredible. And I’ve talked to other, you know, couplepreneurs who have that same feeling. And it really is amazing. But again, it’s not all wine and roses. There are some thorns to speak of, let’s help some people solve some problems. So first off listeners are thinking about starting a business with a spouse, or even bringing a spouse into a business. What are some of the things they can do right at the start to prevent falling into some holes right off the bat.

Kenny (12:14):

So first it’s establishing those roles and tasks and passions.

Mike (12:17):

Would you write them down?

Kenny (12:18):

Oh, absolutely. That’s exactly what I would do is just look at all of the roles. Just like we ask you to do within Two-Brain, look at all of those roles within your business and put a name next to them. And if you can assign that name to one or the other of you, then that’s perfect and that’s a good place to get started and make sure that they’re passionate about what they’re going to be doing. And it’s not just, Oh, well, like I said before, kind of I’m going to come and help out around the business. This is something that they really want to be doing. It would be ideal.

Mike (12:47):

So roles and tasks, number one, that’s going to solve a lot of problems because it’s not going to be, did you do? It’s going to be check off the list and we’re both done.

Kenny (12:55):

Right. Second is make a plan, make a financial plan. So if somebody is working for—it’s essentially the same as we ask you to deal with when you hire out a bigger role within your gym is to start pretending that you are paying that person early. So figure out what that number needs to be for you guys to be successful in your home lives and start paying that into a savings account and start putting that money aside and seeing what that does to your operating expenses. And then after a couple of months, if that hasn’t created your operating expenses, then you can probably move forward that hire and you’ll have that money put aside in savings for if it doesn’t work out right away, it’ll give you some buffer. And the best side of that is probably the upside is that, you know, if you’re just putting that money away, then it’s not accounting for the reward or the revenue generation that that person will be able to provide. So it’s hedging your bets a little bit, but it’s also providing you a cushion for when they do come on board.

Mike (14:05):

Anyone who’s listening who has a partner, married or not, will understand that financial issues are a huge stressor in a relationship. And I don’t know the statistic here, but I know it’s high because I’ve seen some articles about it. Percentages of fights and marriages or partnerships caused by finance quite high. Right? So if you start taking some of these steps right off the bat, because as you said, working with a partner and going all in is risky, and you have to figure that out because if all of a sudden, both of you are tied to the same thing and the ship is sinking, you’re going to fight like cats and dogs for lack of a better term.

Kenny (14:40):

Right? Absolutely. I think it’s also really important to create some boundaries about your work-life balance.

Mike (14:47):

Yeah. Because you get obsessive about stuff, right? Like your business can be all-consuming. And if everything that you do with your partner feels like a business interaction, you almost wonder where your husband wife or spouse went. Right. So tell me a little bit more about this one.

Kenny (15:01):

Yeah. A hundred percent. I think so the one of the upsides is like, the daydreaming about and conquering the world together. But when there’s no boundaries between that and things are bad, it’s really a pretty, pretty bad situation. You know, if you’ve been stressing about something all day at work and trying to solve problems all day at work, in a normal relationship or non-couple relationship, you get some space from that when you come home. So you get to air those grievances, or those problems through your spouse with a bit of a different perspective, and then you get to kind of vent to them. But if you bring that home and that same person or that person’s been working on that all day with you at work, and I just bring that home to them then there’s no space. And there’s really, I think that that’s really important for sanity and for the success of the relationship is to give some space between work again. So I think a good rule is to just to come home and not talk about work. And that’s a hard one to follow sometimes, but if you come home and just say, look, I don’t want to talk about work anymore. The other person needs to respect that.

Chris (16:10):

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Mike (16:34):

Yeah. I like that one a lot. And you know, my wife and I used to have something called sacred Saturday and what that was was we’d get up. We would do whatever we wanted that day. And we wouldn’t talk about work because we spent the other six days, you know, dialed in deep to work. Unfortunately, COVID kind of put a little bit of a hold on that, but we’re working to get back there, but it’s exactly as you said, where, you know, as an example, I tend to work on Eastern time, where a lot of the Two-Brain crew is on that East coast clock. So I get up early and crush work early. My wife has a lot of central and West coast clients. And so she works at different hours and sometimes that bleed over, you know, at the end of the day I’m done.

Mike (17:07):

She’s not. And then when she’s done, I hit her with a bunch of work stuff and she’s just like, not in the mood for it. And then it creates a sour feeling. Whereas all of a sudden it’s seven o’clock in the evening and you’re kind of having a work fight, you know? So those boundaries, I think, are super important because we’re so passionate about this stuff. And it’s so easy, I think you said this in your blog where it’s like, you might be going for a, you know, a romantic couples walk and all this. And you’re like, I had a great idea for the gym and your partner is just like, shut up, you know, can’t we just listen to the birds for a bit?

Kenny (17:33):

Yeah. A hundred percent or I think, we actually are the same in that, you know, I get real excited about things later at night and she tends to work more in the morning. And so, you know, if I’m sitting there in bed, it’s 9:00 PM and she’s winding down getting ready to go to sleep. I get excited about an idea. It’s not very fair for me to say, Hey, what do you think about this as she’s winding down? Because it’s again like trying to put it back in the perspective of that you are both the voice of the business. Imagine doing that to somebody on your staff, if all of a sudden I nudge them at 9:00 PM, Hey, what do you think about this? Like, it’s just not fair. And so to provide some of those or establish some boundaries around that is I think really, really, really important.

Mike (18:13):

So what else, anything else for people that are thinking about starting a business, any other marriage-saving tips?

Kenny (18:19):

I think you got to work at the relationship. I think that one gets kicked off of the side so easily. We’re all so goal-oriented and so driven for the future, both financially and for the success of our business that a lot of the times we just assume our relationship’s going to be there and it’s not—I think that we need to treat our relationship like any other one of our passions in life. Like, you know, I’m looking at my bookshelf right now and I’ve got hundreds of books on my interests, you know, whether it’s fitness or nutrition or any of my other hobbies. And, you know, I think most people are the same but they don’t have a ton on relationships. And I think you really need to make that a priority and maintain that because you’re going to be around each other all the time. And you start to make that assumption that your relationship is going to be, you know, just because you’re with each other all the time that it’s going to continue to grow. And that flame will stay hot. And it’s just not the case. And in fact, I think it gets worse, for a lot of the reasons we already talked about.

Mike (19:17):

That’s such great advice, Kenny, honestly, just listening. Like I look at my calendar right now and I’ve got like podcast, edit this, do this, talk about this, business meeting, whatever, but I don’t have on there anywhere in the last ever, you know, make special time to make partner feel good. That’s not on there. And that’s a mistake. And like, I’m going to take your advice tonight. I’m going to pour a glass of wine for the wife and we’re going to build a fire and I’m going to actually put that on my calendar on your advice. But I don’t think people realize that because you’re right. It doesn’t sound like a business activity. Make your partner feel special or create time and space for your relationship to blossom, it feels very airy and mystical, but honestly like it’s going to make you better business partners. Do you think?

Kenny (19:57):

100%. Yeah, you’re exactly right though. It’s like, well, why would I set a date night? I’ve been with this person for the last 10 hours at work. Why would I spend more time with them? But again, to create that separation and say, well, like we talked about work or we were in the gym all day today, let’s go and have dinner and let’s not talk about work. Let’s talk about other things. And then again, when people talk about the term date your partner, I think that’s really important to continue to do.

Mike (20:22):

I think that’s just so wise and if people are having stresses in their relationships right now as business partners, just taking an evening off would be so, so great. Just to kind of reconnect as a couple. And you know, Chris has talked about this in terms of mentorship, when someone’s flying solo, sometimes the business owner just needs to stop working and go for a hike or just unplug for a little bit. This is kind of the same thing, except you’re doing it with a partner. We’ve bled over a little bit into like people who have existing partnerships and so forth. So I’ll ask you specifically if someone’s currently in a situation with a partner and it’s just not going well, and you know, the business has maybe bleeding over into the personal life, the relationship becoming strained, what can they do there? Maybe it’s the same things you just talked about, but what can they do to release some of that tension and maybe start moving in a better direction.

Kenny (21:11):

So I think it’s setting the boundaries we already talked about, but then I think it’s on top of that, it’s having weekly meetings, both as business partners and as personal partners or for the relationship and setting and maintaining some goals and priorities for both of those and keeping that separation. So what I’ll talk about more now is the personal goals, because we’ve talked a lot about the business stuff, but setting those personal goals, to set the intention that you want to improve or work on your relationship and to continue to move that needle and set travel goals and set exciting things that you want to be doing for your partnership outside of the business. And then if you have that business one as well, then you’ll create that separation there. And you can talk about a lot of the things that we’ve really identified here, and you can separate those two things out.

Mike (22:00):

And that’s really interesting. It’s kind of setting those personal and couple goals is really where you get to see the rewards of your business. And one of the people has popped up regularly on the show in the last weeks, the Two-Brain award winners, Andrew and Mary Boimila from Tradewinds. They won the lifestyle award and they use their business to make their life better. And a lot of us don’t do that or don’t realize that we should because we get so wrapped up in making the business successful. And then when it’s successful, it has to be more successful. And then all of a sudden you realize that 10 years went by and you haven’t had any fun. So I think that’s just such another great piece of advice is to set some goals and say, you know, the business is going to, I want to get to this revenue, this profit margin and so forth, and this length of engagement, but as a couple, I want to take two weeks off without talking about the business and go on a vacation or whatever that might be.

Kenny (22:46):

Yeah. That’s our story actually. So two years ago now, actually it must be three years. Time flies during COVID. It sounds weird. We set a goal with our mentor at the time that we wanted to go to Mexico for a month. And so we marched backwards from that goal and we ended up going to Mexico for a month last year. And that was one of those personal goals, we set it out and we built the business around what we wanted to do together as a couple.

Mike (23:14):

When you were on that month excursion, what did it feel like? And did it just supercharge your relationship? Was it like a B12 shot for the Markwardt couple?

Kenny (23:24):

Yes, it really was. It was one of those, it was kind of reaping those rewards—when you set that goal and you reap those rewards, it was one of those things where we realized like, OK, well now what do we want to do? And you just understand what’s possible. And you can understand that when you set that goal and you put your minds to it and you work together and you become that Mr. and Mrs. Smith team, then you can continue to march down and you just put another goal out there and you run towards that goal as fast as you can together.

Mike (23:53):

That’s a good one. That’s really good. Do you have another goal set right now?

Kenny (23:56):

I’d like to say yes. But so we came back from that trip in March, right into lockdown. Like we couldn’t have timed it any better, but then we came back and jumped right into the lockdown. So we have a lot of short-term goals, but I think that for most gym owners like us, that this year really shook things down a little bit, as far as setting things out, way out the future. We don’t have any big on the calendar at this point.

Mike (24:28):

It’s tough to plan for travel and other things when the world is in chaos and so forth. I’ll ask you this related to what we were just talking about with, you know, people who are in business with partners. Do you have a problem solving strategy? Like when you guys, when a fight happens cause they always do. Inevitably. It’s just something that will happen. There’ll be disagreements. Do you have like a conflict resolution strategy or is it even something that might be written down in your staff playbook or something like that?

Kenny (24:50):

We take a lot of space actually. So the temptation is to want to hammer it out right there. And this really encompasses all the things that we talked about because you know, you could work on this night and day all day, every day, but realistically, most of us need to take some space and walk away from it for a little bit to bring some perspective and to remind you of the fact that you guys are working together and that you have to come at it from co-employees together. Does that make sense? As far as, you know, it’d be easy to let all of your conflicts boil up in the moment when this dispute comes up, as far as, you know, your whole life disputes and all the things that that can potentially bleed together. If you take the space and come at it from each of your respective roles, as employees in the business, it really makes it a much healthier thing to do. And then we use our mentor, like we’ll bring our mentor into it as a neutral third party to say, Hey, look, here’s what we’re kind of going through. And we need a third impartial party to take a look at it with us.

Mike (26:03):

That’s a great one. And going back to my original story with Chris, we eventually, after we calmed down and it didn’t actually happen for about a year after that, because we finally, you know, the specific problem resolved itself. We’re like, ah, Chris was right all along. And I’m not saying that I was right. It turned out I was in this particular case, but I’m not gloating about that. But what I’m saying is a mentor did show us a path and it turned out to be the right path. And it was right of us to use that. And you know, what you’re saying is really, it’s interesting because I’m a guy I want to solve everything right now. And I don’t like problems to sit, but sometimes they need to. And what you said there is like, sometimes an argument is like running downhill where it’s like, you take a step and then all of a sudden it gets easier to take more steps and more steps and

Mike (26:43):

You didn’t do the dishes and you didn’t take out the garbage. And like all of a sudden you’re running out of control downhill and everything gets bad. You know? So sometimes taking that step back is really important. I struggle with this because when I see a mess, I want to clean it up in that instant, but letting it sit sometimes, and then coming back to it with a clear head is better because there are times when I’ve been wrong, definitely wrong in business stuff. And I should have just said to my wife, let’s think about this. And then I would have come back and said with a clear head, your idea is clearly good. I’m reacting emotionally. I need to step back from this and so forth. But often I don’t do that. And then it spirals into something we don’t really want to have in our house or our business.

Mike (27:21):

So we went over things that you can do beforehand, before getting into business with a partner, to just get rid of, prevent some speed bumps and potholes and all those other things that can come up. We also talked about some ways that you can get out of situations and improve your relationship and your business at the same time. What’s something that someone can do right now, this is someone who’s listening. And, you know, let’s say this is a person who is working with a partner, struggling with work-life balance and maybe things aren’t as rosy as they could be. What’s something that that person can do today to start making both the business and the relationship better?

Kenny (27:54):

So have your partner listen to this podcast, read the blogs that will be linked in the notes and then sit down and have those meetings. Schedule those meetings, schedule the personal meeting and schedule a business meeting and rehash some of the things that are in here and make sure all of your roles are ironed out and then set some goals together and see how you can hold each other accountable and how you can keep moving forward. That should kind of keep you moving down the line of where you guys want to go.

Mike (28:21):

Yeah. The one that I’m taking from this honestly, is those setting personal goals and setting aside some time to just do something special kind of a date night. So I’m actually going to do that tonight on your advice. So, if my wife is happy as a result of this, I’ll definitely give you a message and let you know that you’ve solved some problems. When is your next date night scheduled? I’m gonna put you on the spot. When is your next date scheduled with Jen?

Kenny (28:46):

Tonight. I’m not just making that up.

Mike (28:46):

Listeners, I didn’t set Kenny up. This is actually real.

Kenny (28:56):

Yeah, it’s been on the calendar for a week and, I’ll be totally honest with you too. Like, that’s one of the things that I fall into these traps and that’s why I can speak to them so honestly is that, you know, one of the first things to go is our date night. And as soon as we feel like, you know, one or the other will come to the other and say, listen, I feel like we’re not on the same page right now. And we’ll look at our goals list and we’ll realize that our date nights haven’t been happening. And that’s almost always the case. And as many times as we’ve had that happen, we still haven’t learned. And so we get to look at that list, say, OK, well, here’s what we need to do. We schedule a date night. And then, you know, magically, everything seems better.

Mike (29:37):

You’re a certified fitness business mentor, but you might also be a relationship counselor by default. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re on Two-Brain Radio and helping couples out.

Kenny (29:45):

Thanks, Mike.

Mike (29:47):

That was Kenny Markwardt on Two-Brain Radio. We track everything at Two-Brain, and we just published Chris Cooper’s State of the Industry guide. This 84-page book is packed with data from over 6,000 gym owners. You can use it to make smart decisions, avoid mistakes, generate more revenue, and see where you stack up in the gym world. It’s 100% free and you can get it TwoBrainbusiness.com/research. That link is in the show notes, click it right now. I’m Mike Warkentin and I’ll see you next time on Two-Brain Radio.

 

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Couple-Preneurship: What to Do With the Kids

By Kenny Markwardt, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

A pair of freewheeling, self-employed entrepreneurs will have a dream family life, right? 

They have a flexible schedule, they can walk the kids to school together, and they’ll be able to spend a ton of time together as a family. What could be better?

Unfortunately, the reality is that while “couple-preneurs” can be flexible, they also have lots of work to do—No Sweat Intros, client meetings, staff meetings, classes to coach, fires to put out, personal workouts, etc. Add all the child-care responsibilities—practices, play dates, homework, doctor’s appointments—and business owners who feel like they’re “always working” might wonder how it’s even possible to do it all without a full-time staff to manage the family.  

Some might even start to question if it’s possible to provide kids with all the resources and attention they deserve while operating a business with a spouse.  

I’m here to tell you that it is possible. It just requires diligent use of four key strategies that my wife and I have found effective.  

Strategy 1: Calendars

One strategy is to be relentless with your work and family calendars.

Jenn and I sit down every Sunday and look at the week ahead during our weekly personal meeting. We typically have all our work stuff scheduled in by then, so we just need to plug in the family and kid stuff and make sure we’re available to do everything on the list. We make sure someone is assigned for drop-offs, pick-ups and child care. 

As we enter these appointments into our calendars, inevitably a conflict or two arises. At that point, we usually reach out to one of our generous friends to see if they can help out. If they cannot, we move our appointments around.  

Strategy 2: Pomodoros

The second tool that we find particularly rewarding is the “pomodoro.”

A pomodoro is generally 25 minutes of focused, undistracted work followed by five minutes of rest. We use them in our personal and professional lives, but we’ve found them surprisingly effective for balancing our work and our relationship with our son.

I have some guilt about admitting this, but I find it very challenging to sit down and play with him when I feel like there are a million other things I could be doing to advance our business. Given any idle moment, my mind reels with my to-do and should-be lists. However, I know that he needs time with me, and I need time with him to feel fulfilled. I hate the guilt I feel when I reflect on my day and realize I didn’t spend any focused, quality time with him.  

By organizing this play time into sets of pomodoros, I can check all my boxes. I take at least 25 minutes to devote myself completely to him. We play Legos, shoot hoops—whatever. No phones, no email, no distractions at all. I get a five-minute break to check in (if I feel like I need it), and then I take another set of 25 minutes with absolutely no distractions. 

Repeat as often as you need. I find that if I devote at least one pomodoro (and often more) to my son every single day, I can look back and be proud of what I did as a dad. 

Strategy 3: Ride-Alongs

The third strategy we utilize is recognizing that our son is completely capable of tagging along with us for most of the day. 

Some of our tasks look different with him along for the ride, but that’s just the way life is as couple-prenuers. Workouts, gym projects, errands and more are all totally feasible with a kid in tow. 

Sure, what used to be 90 minutes of regimented CrossFit work is often a leisurely 45-minute bike ride, gym-improvement projects take twice as long, and sometimes errands get diverted due to tantrums or accidents, but everything gets done eventually.  

Strategy 4: Technology

The last tool we utilize is the one we like least but have come to accept as just part of the deal: our digital babysitter. Most people know this as a tablet or phone. 

Sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get things done without any distractions. The most reliable tool for holding your kid’s attention is often an age-appropriate game or show. Unfortunately, we all know that unbridled screen time is not the best thing for our kids, and we usually don’t feel good about that glazed-over look they get as they sit and stare into the abyss.  

We’ve come to treat screen time like any other special treats in life: Use in moderation and everything will probably be just fine. 

We try to limit our son’s screen time to an hour a day. This works well in conjunction with the pomodoro idea as well. By granting an hour on the screen, you get an hour of completely focused work time—and you don’t need to feel bad about. The kid will be grateful for the time on the device and you’ll be grateful for the time you get to work without distraction. Then you’ll be more present when you sit down to play with your child.

Succeed—As Parents and Entrepreneurs

We’ve been using this plan for seven years now, and it works quite well. Obviously, there’s a lot of give and take and compromise, but in the end, we’re quite proud of what we’ve been able to achieve professionally and as parents. 

By utilizing the tools I’ve outlined above, you can devote yourself to raising your kids, growing your business, maintaining your relationship with your spouse and creating the ultimate expression of the dream family life.

The post Couple-Preneurship: What to Do With the Kids appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Couple-Preneurship: What to Do When Things Go Wrong

By Kenny Markwardt, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

My wife and I were sitting on a balcony in Mexico, overlooking the ocean as pods of whales cruised past on their annual migration south. We had just enjoyed a nice breakfast and were settling in to spend a few hours remotely working on the gym. 

As I’m prone to do before I sit down to work, I spent 15-20 minutes scrolling through social media. I’m used to waking up to 20 or more updates from the personal and business posts I’m involved in. The number seemed to have dwindled lately. Up until then, I hadn’t given it much thought, but now I was curious.  

I went to our gym page and started looking to see what had been posted by our social media manager lately. I had delegated that role a few months back and was trying to just let it go completely, so it wasn’t something I had been paying much attention.  

It was Feb. 17. The last post on the page was from early January.  

What the heck? How could this have happened? How could our social media manager have just completely walked away from the job?

I didn’t have to go too far to find out. In fact, the social media manager was sitting right next to me, enjoying the same beautiful view. Our social media manager was my wife, Jenn.

Conflict-Resolution Strategies

In all fairness, this story is just convenient for me to tell. I’m sure Jenn has plenty of her own tales in which I messed up one of my jobs at the gym. The point is that all couples will come into conflict in business, so I’ll give you some advice on what to do when things go wrong.  

In a normal situation, you can discipline your staff member, use verbal or written warnings, let the person go, etc.  

When it’s your spouse, it’s a very different story. So what should you do?

1. Calm Down

First, get some space and calm your mind. Go for a run or do a workout—separate yourself from the situation. During this separation, give yourself time to make sure you’re looking at things objectively. You have to treat this problem as an employee-to-employee situation. You cannot be mad about where your spouse fell short at work and then snowball that to include how you think he or she fell short at home. Those are separate issues and separate relationships.  

“You always overspend on the equipment budget every month just like you mess up our grocery budget at home! You just don’t understand money!” —that’s a quick way to destroy your marriage and your business relationship all at once.

2. Speak With Care

Second, watch your language. The terms you use in these conversations can have an enormous impact on the outcome. Use “I” messages instead of accusations and talk to each other in terms of the team that you’re both on. 

Things that work well:

“I’ve noticed … .”“I feel … .”“I think … .” “Our business … .”“We should … .”“Let’s try to … .”

Things that work less well:

“You did this … .”“My … .” “Your … .”

It might seem trivial, but small changes in vocabulary will help keep the conversation calm, objective and team oriented.  

3. Stay Objective

Third, preemptively defuse the situation and come at the conversation from a position of clarity. This circles back to the roles and tasks exercise I recommended earlier in this series. 

If someone in your business is assigned any job, they need to know exactly what to do, when it needs to be done and what the expectations are. If they don’t know these things, it’s not their fault—it’s yours. 

For example, the head coach is supposed to have programming done and rolled out to the other coaches by 10 a.m. Friday regardless of whether the head coach is your spouse or not. There is nothing subjective about it if it’s not being done according to the standard operating procedures. Focus on staying in the guidelines according to the job and the conversation will be a lot easier. 

“Dear, I’ve noticed that coaches aren’t getting programming until Sunday evening. They’re supposed to be getting it by Friday at 10 a.m., right?”

4. Be Honest

Fourth, be willing to have open and honest talks about the career paths you both are on. If you’re just starting out and you’re both wearing all the hats because you have to, that’s fine. You probably won’t like every job you have to do, nor will you be great at every job you have to do. That’s an unfortunate reality as you get started. 

However, as your business evolves, you both have the opportunity to quit any jobs you don’t like and delegate them to someone else. Be honest about the things you want to offload. Make your own lists of things you don’t want to do anymore and work together to come up with a plan to delegate.  

This also applies to the uncomfortable situation of firing one another. It can be really awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. If one of you is continually underperforming and you’ve had a series of clear conversations related to this underperformance, there is no harm in asking a question: “What do you think about delegating this role to someone else?” 

5. Bring in a Third Party

Fifth, consult with an impartial third party who understands you and your business. This is where a mentor or counselor can be incredibly valuable. 

This person should be able to take an objective look at the situation and give you advice. The person is removed from your relationship but close enough to your business to advise you appropriately on how to move forward constructively.  

Simplify and Succeed

Resolving conflict with your spouse within your business can be really, really challenging. Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. You can both be calm, mature leaders together. It just takes intention. 

By sticking to the recommendations above, you’ll be able to maintain both work and home relationships successfully. 

The post Couple-Preneurship: What to Do When Things Go Wrong appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Couple-Preneurship: How to Hire Your Spouse

By Kenny Markwardt, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

I like to envision my marriage like the movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” 

If you haven’t seen it, it’s a cheesy action movie starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: A pair of married badasses take on a common enemy, alternate wild stunts, cover each other’s backs and share confident winks as they repeatedly save each other.  

I work with a lot of gym owners who want to create a similar situation with their spouses—the “mutual business partner” situation, not the “chasing assassins” situation. They’re eager to go all in and take on the world, but they find themselves wondering how they’ll know when the right time is right. The two know they make a great team, but they also know that calculated risks are better than blind leaps. 

If you’re considering the path of full-time “couple-preneurship,” here are the steps I strongly recommend you take first.

Ask the Hard Questions

At the outset, you need to make sure the partnership is really something you both want. 

Joining forces in the trenches is not without its drawbacks. The upside can be incredible, but the downside can be equally bad. It’s worth talking through all the negatives and asking all the right questions before considering making the leap.  

Do you work well together? Under stress, do you join forces to solve the problem or do you become adversarial? Do you love spending every day together? Or do you get sick of each other and need your space? Your new reality: You’ll constantly be with each other—whether you like it or not. Your work and home lives can rapidly become one as you begin this adventure together.Do you both have a passion for your gym? If it’s just another job for one of you, you might want to reconsider. Entrepreneurship, and especially gym ownership, is hard. If one of you is just there because “it’s our business,” you’ll probably end up hanging it up when things get tough.Will your marriage and gym survive if the partnership doesn’t work out? What are the steps you’ll take before things get beyond repair?
Create Clear Roles

If you’ve addressed all the questions above and think the upside is well worth the risk, now what?

The foundation for any partnership—and especially couple-preneurship—is a clear set of roles and tasks that both of you agree on and are excited about. It can’t just be “co-owner” and “helper out-er.” You need to act like you’re hiring: Explain exactly what the job entails and what the performance expectations are. 

In a perfect world, you are both excited as heck about your individual roles and tasks, and they provide enough division that you can both be relatively autonomous at work. In our gym, my wife Jenn leads our sales and nutrition teams. I take the CEO and COO roles. In our case, our strengths complement each other, and we both generally stay in our lanes unless invited over for collaboration.

If you haven’t ironed out your complete roles and tasks list for your gym yet, do that now.  Put a name next to each role. Here’s a great place to get started: “Done for You Hiring Plan and Detailed Job Descriptions.”

If you can’t find a set of roles for each of you, don’t move forward. If you can, great!

Finance: Calculate and Plan

The next step is to figure out how to make a sound financial transition.

Together, you must calculate exactly how much money you need to make each month to survive. Add up all your bills, add in the cost of some extravagance and go from there. Some of your expenses will be fixed and others will give you the opportunity to get very lean. Do you really need all those TV channels?

All in all, you need to know exactly what the financial picture looks like. No matter how many times you watch “The Secret,” you won’t magically come up with more money from your gym to cover a big disparity between what it can pay you and what you need to make.

To test your plan, pretend to pay yourselves the amount of money you need now while one of you retains another career. You can facilitate this by moving the money it will cost to bring on your spouse into a savings account for at least three months in a row. If doing so completely craters your operating-expenses account, you’ve got some work to do. If it seems like you’re good, you can afford to hire your spouse, and you’ll have some money stashed away to make up the difference over the first few months—if necessary. 

It should be noted that each employee should bring in roughly 2.5 times his or her pay, so as your spouse comes on board, you should see a return on that investment. But I think it’s a safer bet to assume less for your family’s sake. Here’s another article with more specifics: “Can You Afford It?”

Consider Benefits

The last set of hurdles you’ll want to clear: making sure all the employee benefits your spouse currently has are considered. Health insurance, retirement savings plans and other benefits all add up and can provide that extra layer of security for your family. It’s nice when an employer supplies these things, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t provide them yourself—it’s just an added cost that should be considered. 

We have health insurance and retirement plans at our gym, so it can be done (and it makes for a nice set of benefits if you end up hiring other full timers). I recommend you talk to local brokers and find out what it would cost to supply the benefits you or your spouse enjoys now. You might have to shop around or make some sacrifices in regards to your plan, but something is better than nothing.  

Plan, Then Act

So there you have it. 

If you can make it through these exercises, you and your spouse are ready to take on the world together!

The post Couple-Preneurship: How to Hire Your Spouse appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Lockdown Leader: How U.K. Gym Added and Retained Members

Mike (00:03):

Terrible retention. Wait a minute. I’ve got that backward. Gareth Wayt has lots of members and great retention despite a pandemic. How do you do it? Wayt the Great tells all next.

Chris (00:15):

Chris Cooper here to talk about Level Method. When it comes to owning a gym, it can be really tough to show your members their progress and keep them engaged long term. Level Method provides experienced gym owners with a visual step-by-step fitness progression system that’s fun, engaging and easy to use. With Level Method, your clients can reach their fitness goals faster and safer than ever before and become raving fans of your gym. It’s a total game changer that creates powerful moments that you’ll never forget. I use it at Catalyst, it improved my conversion and my retention. Go to levelmethod.com to find out more.

Mike (00:48):

It’s Two-Brain Radio and I’m Mike Warkentin. Over the last month, I’ve been fascinated to see incredible data from Two-Brain gyms that are weathering harsh lockdowns around the world. Gareth Wayt runs Second City Fitness in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and his gym was in our top 10 for total members in January. Total members don’t mean a thing without retention and Gareth has that too. In the United Kingdom, they’ve been through varying degrees of lockdown over the last year. Gareth is in his third lockdown and we’re going to dig into some of the things that have kept Second City’s citizens squatting. Gareth. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Gareth (01:22):

Doing good. Thank you. Yeah. A nice sunny day here in the UK, which is a perk, compared to usual.

Mike (01:28):

I hear it’s a little bit rare, especially during COVID times. You guys have been under a bit of a dark cloud for the last year. But I understand that you follow the Two-Brain plan of assigning members to your staff and having them make daily contact, provide workouts and tips and so forth. Listers can get our second shutdown guide in the free tools section of TwoBrainbusiness.com if they want that info, the plan that you’ve been following, but you’ve done some really interesting stuff. And I want to know about that. So what’s the app, you’ve been using that and I’ve heard that you had some groups in WhatsApp and Teams in your gym. So what’s up with WhatsApp?

Gareth (02:01):

Yeah. Cool. So, we realized quite early on when lockdown started back in March, 2020, the gyms that were doing well in the Two-Brain’s brain group had been locked down a little bit longer than we had. So we were beneficial to see what those guys were doing. And we realized fairly early on the accountability was the main thing we were selling to our members and the thing that worked well to keep them interested and keep them active and keep them moving. So we kicked off something back in March called the quarantine games, which was where we assigned all of our members a coach.

Gareth (02:46):

Some of our guys would use WhatsApp and send messages. Some of us would send videos, but the main purpose was to customize the daily workout for them, make sure they could do a version of it with the equipment that they had. And generally just make sure we were checking in. We’ve all coached classes. We know what it’s like; half the time you coach them half the time you’re checking in on them, you know, how’s your kids doing? How’s your mom’s operation gone. The relationship is what we do. I mean, we sell fitness, but we build relationships. So we knew that this concept was important. So we started on a one-to-one format, like you said, but then we found actually that the members were missing that group interaction a little bit as well. So we created these WhatsApp groups. Now they were big, we were talking sort of 75 to 90 members in each WhatsApp group.

Gareth (03:39):

We made sure that we put two coaches in each group. So the coach didn’t need to be a hundred percent energy all the time. There was always someone else for them to feed off a little bit. And what we found is that those groups served really well to help keep the conversation going, keep us current with the members. We would be fielding questions about daily workouts, fitness about nutrition, right? The way through to did anyone see Boris’ announcement last night, Boris Johnson’s our prime minister here in the UK. So they really helped keep the group dynamic field of a CrossFit gym going during lockdown when we were all stuck at home individually.

Mike (04:22):

Now this is really cool. Because when this whole thing happened, you know, Two-Brain did the research. And what we found was that the individual contact between coach and member was what kept that member going. And some gyms pivoted to zoom classes. And what we found was that the burnout rate on that was fast, where it was a kind of a novel thing at first, but it didn’t work for that long. And it was just because all of a sudden, people are competing with Peloton, all these like high-end studio productions for free workouts and stuff. It’s very difficult for a gym to maintain those zoom workouts forever. Some have done it successfully, but it’s not the core offering. The core offering is that connection between the coach. But the lure of the zoom class was always seeing faces. And for the first little bit we ran some of those.

Mike (05:04):

We obviously follow the Two-Brain plan at our gym. And we connected with our members, assigned coaches, the whole thing, exactly what you did and that worked. And we ran a few zoom classes and it was more just to see each other smiling and like interact. And I love what you’ve done here, because that was the part that some people noticed was missing was the interaction. You can do it in a private Facebook group or in different places. But the What’sApp thing is really cool. Tell me, like what kind of conversations and what kind of stuff happened in there, interactions between members? Like how did that dynamic go?

Gareth (05:35):

It was really interesting to see. I mean, obviously, I’d love to sit here and tell you that absolutely every single member was in those groups and was replying regularly, but they weren’t, but we did get the vast majority of members. The conversations that would happen, we would be chatting about the workout that happened that day. Maybe people were comparing notes, did this, or I’m going to do it later. People would sometimes say, Oh, you know, I’ve only got a single dumbbell. What shall I do today? It enabled the coaches to be able to have feedback with them on a wider scale. Like we would do if we were coaching a class. We also use it as an opportunity to share nutrition tips. It also worked as a way to keep the information from the gym flowing to the members in a slightly more personal way.

Gareth (06:23):

So we obviously would always post updates on Facebook, Instagram, and email, but something about those slightly smaller groups meant that the members felt that they were getting a direct line of access to all of us all the time. It actually, after about three, four weeks morphed into this format where the members were all helping each other out. So the actual interaction from the coaches and the team kind of dwindled a little bit because the guys are all helping each other out. And that was, for me, it was the best part to see when they were able to sort of keep building each other up and keep each other motivated, going through the workouts through lockdown and stuff like that. So it was really cool to see.

Mike (07:02):

You know, and that syncs up perfectly with something Chris has written about lately, Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper, written about triads, and that’s the concept of three different or two different links between your member and something else. So meaning your members’ linked to the coach of the gym, but another link to create three points is essential. And that third link here was to other members. And that’s such a cool thing where, you know, you’re basically using your entire membership as a retention driver at that point and take some of the pressure off the coaches. So it’s exactly what Chris is talking about. And you found a really cool way to do that with WhatsApp, beyond some of the technical workout stuff, was there a lot of like banter and just heckling and you know, all this stuff that you normally see in classes, did that show up in WhatsApp?

Gareth (07:45):

It did. Yeah. And that was always enjoyable. We had a quick chat as a team before we set these groups up about anything that we would not get involved in. Everyone loves a bit of banter but sometimes it can go a little bit too far and nobody wants to be on the wrong side of the banter. You know, someone says somebody else exactly right. Generally stay away from politics and vaccines, anything like that. So as a team, we did have a quick chat before we started these groups about anything that we would stay away from. But fortunately throughout the six, seven months that these groups were going, we didn’t have any issues with anything like that. And yeah, there would be various jokes going round. Everybody seemed to be able to start making their own memes. So memes flying around left, right and center in these groups.

Gareth (08:32):

One of the cool things that we saw would be somebody would throw a message out. Guys. I can’t make the zoom work out today because kids, work, whatever their commitments might be. Does anyone fancy jumping on a call and doing it at seven o’clock tonight with me? So it was really cool to start seeing people, going to use the phrase like their own mini groups and doing their own classes inside the gym, which effectively they were, you know, there was five or six people getting together to do things virtually. So that was really cool to see, which yeah, kind of goes onto what Coop’s saying about having those extra points of contact for people as they go through.

Mike (09:13):

You’re in the middle of lockdown three and apparently April, there’s going to be some changes to that. We hope of course, but are you going to continue with this WhatsApp or how will this situation evolve once you’re out of lockdown? Any plans to continue it?

Gareth (09:29):

I don’t think we’ll continue it once the gym reopens. It’s—a lot of things that happen in lockdown do experience some fatigue. And I do feel that these groups have worked perfectly over the last year, but I feel that once we get back to the gym and we’re checking in with people face to face, we won’t need it as much. We’ve got a fantastic culture at Second City on our social media, on our Facebook, we’ve always done bright spot Fridays, which was Kaleda’s very, very early ideas for us, which we love. Our mentor. Very fortunate to have her. So yeah, one of the very first things we did when we started working with Two-Brain back in 2019, early 2019, was start that bright spot Friday chat. And it’s important. It works perfectly on that Facebook group. So I think we’ll be leaning more heavily on that once we do get reopened. OK.

Mike (10:31):

So that’s WhatsApp is an interesting, if you’re listening, that’s an interesting idea. If in a lockdown, we don’t know if it’ll work or if you should continue it afterward, but we do know that you should be regularly connecting with your members in person and some sort of digital forum like bright spots Friday, and a private Facebook group is a wonderful idea. Now if I’m looking at a list of amazing stuff you did during lockdown, I’ve seen like coffee mornings, pub quizzes, extra SugarWOD tracks, quarantine cookbooks, quarantine games, all sorts of stuff like that. The question that I want to know is how did you manage all that? Because it seems like a ton of extra stuff during a very stressful period.

Gareth (11:04):

Yeah, that’s a good question. The easiest answer is I didn’t, my team helped me, divide and conquer, right? There’s six of us at Second City that are full-time and six of us at Second City that are part-time. So we’ve got a team of 12, so it’s a big team, and there’s lots of us. And my part-time guys, I’ve got everything from teachers to engineers. We’ve got physicists, so they’ve got things that they’re really good at. So we leant on them to help the rest of us in producing all of this content. So yeah, getting everybody involved and giving everyone their own little projects is how we managed to do so much and keep it all going. Very early on in the lockdown, we knew that keeping people accountable, like we spoke about with groups, but getting something Second City branded in front of them was key.

Gareth (11:59):

So if they were doing a zoom class, cool, but if they were using our cookbook in the evening, sweet, we’re still in front of them. We’re still in front of their faces. They’re still using our products. That we found massively helped us because it really increased our social media spread as well. So I think it was an old, maybe even been one of your old podcasts where they talk about direct and indirect marketing. So if I put a post up on our gym’s Instagram page, sweet, it’s going to hit 3000 people. Well, if I get 20 of my members to put the same post up, suddenly that spread reaches much further. So a lot of these products we did, we sent to everyone, we sent them out for free. We encourage them sharing. So that when we did reopen all of a sudden, this indirect marketing that we’ve been doing for so long, it spread really far and was really helpful, but yeah, the team were fantastic and continue to be fantastic during the whole process. And it’s really helpful for us that they each took on their own little projects and ran with it, which is why we managed to do so much.

Mike (13:07):

Divide and conquer and rely on the strengths of your staff members. Now you mentioned something and I got to dig into this. Were you able to acquire members during lockdown and if not, what happened after lockdown, when it was lifted in those periods?

Gareth (13:20):

Yeah. Good question. We didn’t manage to get any members during the initial lockdown. And I’m going to hold my hands up and say that was completely my fault.

Mike (13:29):

That was March to Sept 2020?

Gareth (13:29):

Yes, correct. Yeah. So at the time, I was kind of wearing an operations manager hat as well as a CSM client success manager hat and sale. And I’ll be honest. It was just a little bit too much for me to manage, to sort of be looking for new members as well. I regret it a little bit. I think it could have been a time that we could have capsulized and found some new members. But we managed to get a lot done in lockdown. We switched our a website to Gym Lead Machine. They run our back of house software if you’ve not seen those guys check them out.

Mike (14:06):

Yeah, I use them as well.

Gareth (14:06):

Yeah. I noticed that. 204, isn’t it?

Mike (14:11):

That’s right, CrossFit 204, 204 Lifestyle, we use the exact same plan.

Gareth (14:16):

Exactly. l thought I recognized. We completely rebranded from Second City CrossFit to Second City Fitness. We completely reviewed our onboarding process. So we did a lot in lockdown, but one of the things we didn’t manage to do was get any new members. So coming out of lockdown, we decided that we needed to find a CSM. So client success manager. So we actually brought on a lovely member. So we inquired within by the name of Sophie. She came on board in September of 2020. So just as we were coming out of lockdown and October, 2020 was our best month ever at Second City in terms of new member sign up, ARM increasing. So it was definitely well worthwhile bringing Soph on. And she’s done sort of fantastic work. She is much better than I am. We had a lockdown in November where she managed to sign up members and she’s also signing up members right now, whilst we are still locked down as well. She’s much better than I am.

Mike (15:22):

That’s really interesting. So you had basically three tests and found that in the first lockdown, you didn’t sign anyone up. Then you hired someone whose specific goal was to manage your customer relationships and your client relationships and relationships with leads and in the next two lockdowns Sophie actually signed up members.

Gareth (15:44):

Correct. Yeah. Part of that process was some of the back of house work that we did in that first lockdown. So, like I say, we switched over to Gym Lead Machine. We worked really hard on content creation. Something we’ve worked quite hard on in 2019 was assigning roles to everyone. So everyone knows what their job was. Mike, who’s another one of the owners of Second City. He took on the social media role. He did a fantastic job all through last year of making sure that we’re current. On top of people’s feeds members, were reposting us so that when we did reopen and throughout the last two lockdowns, we’ve just been constantly in front of people. Having Gym Lead Machine there means that we get people off our socials onto our websites. Once they’re on our website, they’re through a call to action. And then they’re on Sophie’s radar. And not many people escape Sophie’s radar, she’s knocking out no sweat intros faster than anyone I’ve ever seen before. We spent some time slicking up our onboarding process. So the whole process is just smoother. And working like a much more oiled machine than it was previously.

Mike (16:57):

You know, that’s fascinating and like, I wish you hadn’t had to go through and are currently going through three lockdowns, but I love the fact that you were able to look at the first one, make some adjustments and then thrive in number two and three. That’s so cool. And you know, I got to dig into this question because this is a really important one. You know, you’ve mentioned some of those changes that you made from lockdown to lockdown. I understand you actually made changes to like big changes to pricing and membership during lockdown. Tell me what you did and why.

Gareth (17:27):

Yeah. Cool. So the changes actually date back a little bit to the start of January, 2020. We sat down as owners. There’s three of us, there’s myself, Mike, who I mentioned previously, and then Fergus Lally. We sat down and we looked our products and we though what’s the best product we can offer to help our members achieve their long-term goals. And what’s the best thing we can do to help our staff grow because the business has to serve three people. It has to serve the members, the staff, and then the owners. So we spent a long time looking at this and kind of thinking, do we need to come away from this generalized class format? Is it selling more PT? What’s the best thing going forward. So we switched to a hybrid model and now our hybrid model at Second City means that you have your classes.

Gareth (18:24):

So you have your, whatever that might be three, six, nine, 12, 16 classes a month, but then you also either have a PT session or a nutrition included in your membership. So the idea there was we wanted to try and get people towards their goals as quickly as possible and their long-term goals going forward, as well as growing the staff pool kind of thing. Growing the amount the staff could make. When lockdown happens, we knew that this was what we wanted to happen. And we knew that we wanted to convert all of our existing members to this hybrid model. We knew it was a slightly sensitive subject to be changing prices. And there was a lot of conversations around it, but we arrived at the decision that we want to help first. That’s our main priority.

Gareth (19:17):

And we were confident that this hybrid model was the way to help people better. So fortunately Fergus is a spreadsheet whiz. Fergus is our other owner, sitting in our CFO role. He worked on some projections for us, and we realized that to continue serving everyone as best as we could, we did need to do a small price increase, which wasn’t a lot, it was five pounds for the majority of our members, but the big thing was swapping them over to this hybrid model. So now they would have their classes and their skill session or nutrition bolted into their membership. And what we found is that extra skill session that they get once a month means that we’re able to work on anything that they can’t get to individually in classes. It helps them keep focused on their goals. It means that the staff can earn more all of a sudden, there’s now this pool of almost 200 clients to share around the staff. So yeah, it was a big change. And it was one that was definitely the right move to do. And I think we put it off and we just made the decision in lockdown that we wanted to reopen with this being the future. So that’s why we did it.

Mike (20:33):

It’s so interesting because when you lay it out as a coach and any coach that’s listening, you it’s so obvious that, you know, the motivation of a group class, plus the personalized instruction of a one-on-one session, plus nutrition coaching that just, you know, that that’s going to get results. A hundred percent, every time that client is going to succeed with those three things in place, because it’s just such a perfect prescription. And yet so many of us, and I’m very guilty of this, hesitated to make that move because we were scared. I was definitely scared of changing the deal, right, from our CrossFit group classes to putting in personal training or putting in, like I thought about it, like membership plus nutrition coaching, right? That’s a great idea that would have helped the members, but I was scared to do it. So how did you get over that fear? And did you lose members or what happened? Like what was the reception of this change?

Chris (21:26):

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Gareth (21:47):

Yeah, it’s cool. So we, anyone who’s listening who thinks, Oh, that’s a really good idea, but I’m just a bit too scared about rocking the boat. We were fortunate. We started this process in January. So anyone who signed up from January to March when that lockdown happened was already in that. So we had some data to work off. So we knew that there was opportunity to work. This then left us with this slight pickle of a bit of a messy back of house situation, where some members were on this hybrid membership. Some weren’t, some where on some prices from three years ago. So that was a little bit of a driving factor amongst bringing people all onto a level playing field as well. So we made the decision because we were, as you say, nervous, and I would expect everybody to be nervous about changing membership prices, whether you did it now during lockdown, or whenever. We made a decision, Mike, the other owner and myself, we actually phoned every single member personally. Now some of those calls were 10 minutes. Some of those calls were an hour, but we use that time on the phone to explain why we were doing it and why it would benefit them first and help first.

Gareth (23:00):

We challenged ourselves to downgrade some members because some people were from memberships where they would have 20 classes a month and they didn’t need it. We’d look at their attendance and they’re only coming 12 times. So we challenged ourselves to downgrade some members, as well as upgrading members, because you can’t sit there and wave a flag if helping people is taking the most money you can out of them. If that makes sense, sometimes you do have to go the other way to help people as well. So it was a bit of a nerve-wracking time, but as soon as we started making those phone calls and started speaking to our members, we knew we were doing the right thing because they understood where we were coming from and why we were doing it.

Mike (23:43):

And these are hundreds of phone calls, right?

Gareth (23:47):

Yes. 225 phone calls.

Mike (23:48):

10 minutes to an hour.

Gareth (23:50):

Yeah. So yeah, it took the better part of 10 days. We hit it hard because the last, because we had such a tight community, like we spoke about, if I start, you know, ringing people in the A’s and then suddenly the people in the W’s start hearing about it, they get nervous. So, we did it as hard and fast as we could, but we wanted to spend the time chatting to every single member. And it was a really good, honest reflection for us, seeing where the business are and where we wanted to go forward with it.

Mike (24:24):

That is a hero workout, you know, a 10 day blitz to like talk to every single member in a heart to heart manner. But I’m going to guess that those conversations were probably unbelievably insightful. And I bet you probably strengthened the connections. Like, am I right on that?

Gareth (24:39):

Massively. We’re very close to all of our members. And it’s a point of performance in our staff review when we coach classes that you may need, you’ve got to know these people’s names, but you’ve got to know more than that. When a member walks in it’s, how’s your kid doing football this week, or did you manage to get that new car or did you get that promotion at work? Because that’s what sets us aside. And that’s not just us. That”s any gym in this sort of format that’s working with these personal relationships with people to keep them accountable. You’ve got to be invested in them so they invest in you and their future with you.

Mike (25:20):

You mentioned the help first concept, excuse me, listeners, if you don’t know what that is, Chris Cooper’s written a great book on it called “Help First,” we’ll put it in the show notes for you. The basic idea is that you are telling members or potential members exactly what they need to accomplish their goals. You’re helping them, you’re not selling. And in this case for you, you had some members who would have benefited from more, and you told them that you had some members that would have benefited from less. And because you believe in that philosophy of helping them, you told them, dude, you don’t need 20 classes. You’re only coming to 12, we’re going to downgrade your membership because it’s going to help you. And they obviously that must have built so much trust with those members. Like, they’re actually, like, you’re not trying to just take my money. You’re actually listening to my goals and you know what I need like that must have just been earth shattering moment for some of those clients.

Gareth (26:08):

Yeah, definitely. I think it was definitely, probably the ones that have been with us for a long time weren’t super shocked by it because it was something we’ve always done. Those who were a little bit newer to us, definitely, they were kind of commented, wow, I’ve never experienced this before. And, yeah, just growing that bond with the members was fantastic. And it was definitely, yeah, it was hard work. It was really hard work to make all those phone calls, but it was definitely worthwhile. And if anybody’s in a similar boat where they’re thinking about changing membership prices or anything like that, I definitely think the value is there in doing it, if you can, because you will learn a lot, you’ll learn a lot about your members. You’ll learn a lot about your business and your products and how they view it as well.

Mike (27:00):

And I’ll take you one further and just say that, you know, even if people aren’t thinking about making any changes, how powerful would it be to just pick up the phone and call your members? You know, it’s so incredible. Like you, you get these, you know, if you’re an owner, potentially you maybe don’t get all the conversations because you have staff members during class and so forth, but this is where client success manager can help too. But just talking to your clients and finding out are you getting what you need? It gives you an opportunity either to upsell or to solve, you know, prevent bad things from continuing or happening. And that’s where those three month goal review sessions come in. So if you’re not doing those guys, I would advise you to start doing goal review sessions every three months. And if you’re not just doing a pick up a phone today and call a few members and chat. The last thing I want to ask you is a prime minister Boris Johnson has said that a return to normal is coming in a few months. I really hope that’s the case. Politicians are not always true to their word, but I sure hope that comes for you guys. So talk to me about your new normal post-COVID. Like what has your mentor helped you prepare for in the period when I hope that we’re all back to normal?

Gareth (28:05):

That’s a really interesting question. As I say, we changed our business model slightly in January of 2020 to this hybrid theory or hybrid model where people are having classes and PT as well. So I think that we actually changed what we were doing before lockdown started. So a return to normal for us is a little bit different than most because we’re going to be returning to a new normal, if that makes sense. We’ve tried to maximize what we can get out of this lockdown. So, like I mentioned, we’ve brought in Gym Lead Machine’s that run our back of house. We bought in a CSM, we’ve rebranded. We’ve seen the additional products, personal training, nutrition, physio, sort of courses, as opposed to just classes work really well. So I think when we do get to come out of this lockdown and our new normal will be very different to anything we did before, because I think it will be classes, but with these additional services, I think our business will run slicker than ever before, because we’ve had the time to invest in these procedures and onboarding processes.

Gareth (29:20):

I mean, if you go back to pre lockdown, sort of Mike and myself, we would have been on the floor 20, 25 hours a week, coaching classes, doing PT. Now we’ve managed to step back a little bit more, bring some of the coaches into more of those hours for us, so we can concentrate on growing the nutrition side of the business or growing the physiotherapy side of the business. We definitely feel that we’ve managed to grow to a place where we can provide everything for our members, rather than just that class format that they are after. We can do your nutrition, we can do your PT, we’ve got your physio down, we’re even exploring psychological testing with members and stuff, but that’s a whole tangent that could take up another half and hour.

Mike (30:07):

Mindset work and all that, right?

Gareth (30:08):

Yeah. I think you could bury your head in the sand and be really annoyed at people and be really annoyed at the governments would be really annoyed at the world that the situation’s happened, or you can take it in a stride and use it as an opportunity to improve on everything. And whilst there has been mistakes along the way, and by no means, as we saw in March, 2020 with this grand plan of everything, we’ve kind of worked and pivoted on the fly, I definitely feel that the business has come out better and stronger because of lockdown.

Mike (30:41):

From the outside where I’m standing here. You’re not the first gym owner that I’ve spoken to that’s made a shift like this to dramatically upgrade services. And that doesn’t mean that the services beforehand were weren’t good enough, but you’ve made some amazing changes to offer more to your clients and to help them get to their goals faster. And it’s just incredible to see some of the changes that Two-Brain Business owners are making in this period because a lot of them are doing the exact same thing where they’re not looking at it as this, Oh, this miserable, you know, time where we have to just try and survive. And there are some people that are fighting and that’s, you know, there’s some tough circumstances out there, but there are others who are really making some incredible strong moves and using this period of like, you know, where the ant farmer is being shaken up to use an animal analogy.

Mike (31:25):

You’re really making some strong changes based on a period of reflection to figure out how can we really do better and that’s going to benefit your business, but it’s also going to benefit your coaches. Like you said earlier, where you’re going to have careers for these people, and it’s going to benefit, of course your clients who accomplish their goals faster. And again, like the analogy easy one is if a client was just coming to group classes and want to lose 20 pounds, how could you speed that up obviously by adding nutrition coaching, right? So you’re making these changes now and clients are going to benefit from it. I know your retention is very good already. Do you expect these changes are going to drive that even further, that number up even further?

Gareth (32:03):

I believe so. The data backs up that sort of statement that we think, retention will be improved. I mean, I got Fergus to run some numbers for me ahead of this call. And we’ve seen over the last 12 months have increased in both our ARM, as well as our LEG, engagement. Also, our LTV has increased as well. Yeah. So that’s really important to see. I don’t see how, if you’re coming into group classes and then you’ve got one of my doing your PT session once a month, one of my guys checking in on your nutrition, I don’t see how it can’t do anything but help retention. It just serves as more points of contact for those people, making sure that we’re doing everything we can to help them achieve their goals, because if you’re not achieving your members’ goals, then they’re more likely to leave. They’re more likely to go and try something else, because that’s what I know over in America you’ve got like you mentioned earlier, Peloton, Orangetheory, all these competitors out there, if somebody is not achieving what they want to achieve, that they are going to look elsewhere and that’s where they might try it. But if you’re ticking all the boxes for them, then unless they’re moving away because of their location or work or something else, we definitely think that this approach will help with retention.

Mike (33:31):

And you hit on my biggest lesson from the COVID period was as soon as it came, we pivoted to the Two-Brain model and we contacted all our members daily. And I immediately knew as soon as that started, that we should’ve been doing it all along. COVID no COVID, whatever. It was just so clear that increasing the contact points and just building that relationship would have been so much better at any point in our 10-year history of our gym. And when we shut down our physical location, we moved to an online model where we are emphasizing personal training and nutrition. But the thing that we’re doing is contacting members daily and our retention and ARM are better now than they were when we had a gym over the last 10 years. So it’s just, it’s incredible what COVID taught a lot of people, including myself. I did not know that, you know, so thank you so much for sharing the lessons with us today.

Gareth (34:22):

No, thank you.

Mike (34:24):

Oh, no, this was great. It was a brilliant, brilliant episode with a lot of great stuff for gym owners in here. And I want to circle back with you in about a year and see where you’re at after all this. Thank you so much for being here today, Gareth.

Gareth (34:35):

Thank you. Thank you.

Mike (34:40):

That was Gareth Wayt. I’m Mike Warkentin and this is Two-Brain Radio. If you have not done so, you need to join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook. Two-Brain Business founder, Chris Cooper, regularly posts articles, instructional videos, and advice in there. It’s the only public group he’s in and you can get access to him there. That’s Gym Owners United on Facebook, join today.

 

The post Lockdown Leader: How U.K. Gym Added and Retained Members appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

“Couple-Preneurship”: How to Work With Your Spouse

By Kenny Markwardt, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

It’s been a long day, mostly because you and a co-worker aren’t really getting along. 

The two of you have a major disagreement. You’re frustrated. You can’t wait to get home and get some relief from the subject as well as the co-worker. You know that if you can just get some space, think it through and vent a little, you’ll be fine.  

You make your drive home, pull in the garage and walk in the front door. You look up to find that co-worker sitting on the couch, reading a story to your son. 

You consider running away. 

Then you take a deep breath and try to reconcile the fact that the person you were upset with all day is also the person you fell in love with and married 10 years ago—the same person you have shared so many victories with, and the same person you have been so proud to work next to as you build your shared dream. 

You’re one of the lucky ones who gets to co-own a business with a spouse. While this is normally awesome, it’s a bit of a problem when a tough day at work might create a tough evening at home.

So what do you do?

When Work Troubles Come Home

Well, you can’t just leave, but you also shouldn’t squander any more of your day on your work dispute. Everyone needs a break, and everyone needs healthy family time.  

My wife, Jenn, and I have lived this reality many times over the last decade.  

Ninety-nine percent of the time, we work incredibly well together. Part of the reason I married her is that we make great teammates. If I could only pick one person to help me navigate the challenges in life, it would be her. 

Unfortunately, there is that 1 percent of the time when we have significant work disagreements that have the potential to make it feel like the whole setup is a mistake.  

To prevent such feelings, we use strategies that have been effective in maintaining a successful work life and home life.

Strategy 1: Know Your Role

To avoid problems, you must make sure your roles and tasks are clearly laid out. You should both know exactly which hats the other wears, what the other is responsible for and where the other’s main talents lie. If you simply consider yourselves “owners,” you are set up for disaster.  

Like most couples, Jenn and I have complementary traits and complementary loves and hates. I have always been a coach, I have done every single job in our gym, and I have always loved numbers, so it makes sense for me to wear the hats of chief operations officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO). Jenn is far superior in sales and marketing. She also has a strong passion for nutrition coaching. So she carries the title of chief marketing officer (CMO) and head nutrition coach.   

This way, when we approach challenges, we both know what’s under the other’s umbrella. If it’s an operations issue, it’s my problem to solve. If it’s a sales and marketing issue, it’s her problem. Of course, each benefits from the other’s point of view and assistance when needed, but we both clearly know whose lap any issue falls in first.  

If you have not broken down roles and tasks with your partner, you need to do it immediately. This Two-Brain article will help you: “Done-for-You Hiring Plan and Detailed Job Descriptions for Gym Owners.”

I can tell you from experience that having discussions as COO and CMO is way cleaner and more productive than having discussions as Kenny and Jenn, co-owners.  

Strategy 2: Schedule Meetings

Just as we meet individually with our key staff members weekly, Jenn and I meet with each other weekly as C-level employees. These meetings are planned in advance, and we don’t let anything steamroll them. We have an ongoing Google doc we use, and we maintain a format that encourages progress, accountability and collaboration.  

As sterile as that might sound, it provides a great space for work to happen while reinforcing the boundaries that maintain the integrity of work and home life. Knowing that we have a designated time to work together means that we can spend the rest of the time maintaining that separation.

Strategy 3: Create and Maintain Boundaries

We try to establish as many boundaries as we can between work and home life. It’s tempting to daydream and plan your takeover of the world during dinner and on weekends, but it can be a recipe for disaster. 

In our experience, when things are good, they’re great! We feel like we can do anything together, and we relish the opportunity to take on the next challenge. We’re like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen running down the court, anticipating each other’s moves so far in advance that it feels more like an elaborate dance than running a business.

Unfortunately, when it’s not good, it’s really not good. It’s more like Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal’s off-court relationship circa 2000. Instead of allowing us peace of mind, the home can be disrupted when conflict follows us and pervades the space we both desperately need for sanity.

Our rule is to maintain some distance between work and home life, both in good times and bad. Work talk is fine during work hours. After that, we’re home. We talk about other stuff, we spend time with our son, and we try to leave everything from work behind us.

Inevitably, as excited entrepreneurs, we’re going to come up with ideas and solutions outside work hours. In fact, that’s part of the fun! So what do we do in that situation?

We just ask permission before starting the conversation. Instead of smashing through the boundary we’ve created with our new, brilliant idea, we just ask, “Hey, can I talk about work for a second?”

If one person is excited to chat but the other is winding down for the evening, the conversation is pushed to the next day. If everyone is on board, the impromptu meeting is held, but at any point either person can say, “You know what? I think I’m done for the day. Can we finish this tomorrow?”

It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s saved many an evening in the Markwardt home.

Double the Power

While running a business with your spouse can be risky, if done right, it can be one of the most rewarding things partners can do together.

If you can remember exactly why you “hired” each other and why you fell in love with each other, and if you strive to maintain a separation between work and home, you will be able to conquer anything together.

The post “Couple-Preneurship”: How to Work With Your Spouse appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

U.K. Two-Brain Gyms Unite for Spirit-Boosting Virtual Fundraiser

For U.K. gyms—in lockdown for a total of eight months this past year—the pandemic was taking a serious toll.

Lisa and David Palmer, co-owners of Gas Station Fitness & Nutrition, sensed their clients were run down. And they weren’t the only ones; their 4-year-old daughter was also feeling overwhelmed.

“She hasn’t been in school since the beginning of September,” Lisa said. “Her manner is changing … . She is reacting in ways she otherwise wouldn’t have reacted. It really brought home to us that these kids are really struggling in the current situation.”

So the Palmers decided to do something about it.

They made a plan for their gym to host a virtual throwdown on Feb. 26. All the money raised would go to support Place2Be, a charity dedicated to improving children’s mental health.

“Everyone is sick of Zoom,” Lisa said. “But the one thing that you can’t really do … is have six boxes compete against each other in one competition, just like they are on the same floor.”

With about 10 days to plan, the Palmers joined forces with five other Two-Brain Business gyms scattered throughout the United Kingdom: CrossFit Murrayfield, Ulysses Fitness, Intouch CrossFit, Your Tribe London and KCT CrossFit. The collaboration happened organically. 

“I know quite a few of them anyways through regional meet-ups,” David said. “The Two-Brain U.K. gyms are actually quite well connected. We know (each other’s) focus. We speak the same language. And the U.K. has been hit hard in terms of lockdowns, so we knew they were struggling a lot.”

Lisa added: “It was about helping out others who might need a little motivation and focus.”

With a special kids event, prizes and leaderboards, the event stirred up considerable excitement among the first-timers: new clients who had never done a competition before. In total, the event drew 75 participants over the course of a couple of hours. With a target of raising £200, they ended up collecting more than £1,800—about US$2,500.

“That means some 250 children will have the opportunity to speak with a qualified counsellor,” Lisa said. “It hit home for us, as it does so many parents at the moment … just to help out some of those kids who need it.”

Overall, the event was a win for everyone who was struggling through a very tough period.

“When we did it, we were helping our members, helping other boxes and their members, and then we helped with the charity as well. It felt really good. We’ve been so immersed in our own community for so long, so when the opportunity arose to look outwardly a bit more and go to the wider community, it felt really refreshing.”

As for the next event, the Palmers want to do it bigger. 

“Maybe I should ask (Two-Brain Founder Chris Cooper),” David said, “and see if we can do a worldwide!”

The post U.K. Two-Brain Gyms Unite for Spirit-Boosting Virtual Fundraiser appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Personal Trainer Business Cards: Everything Coaches Need to Know

The best personal trainer business cards do exactly one thing: Help the people holding them contact you.

Below, we’ll go over the finer points of personal trainer business cards. And we’ll offer some tips to help you create a great card.

Here’s our over-arching piece of advice:

When it comes to personal trainer business cards, clarity is more important than art.

Yes, business card design trends are always changing. In 2021, design experts are promoting QR codes, digital business cards, translucent card stock, interactive cards and cards with cutouts, photos, clever patterns and color schemes, special fonts, and more.

The one thing that never changes: A personal trainer business card exists to help your clients contact you easily.

Remember: You aren’t in a fitness business card contest. And your coaching business card doesn’t make the sale. You do.

Personal Trainer Business Cards: The Essentials

The experts at business card giant Vistaprint list seven elements as essential on a business card for a personal trainer or coach:

Name.Company name (if you have one).Logo.Title.Contact info (perhaps including social media).Website address.Tagline/call to action.

Most of it is very simple, but we’ll dive into a few items on the list to give coaches and trainers info specific to the fitness industry.

Contact Info: What to Include

How much contact info should go on a personal trainer business card? You need to know your market. It’s standard to include your phone number, address, website and email address. And some even include social media accounts as more and more consumers use Facebook and Instagram to contact businesses and service providers.

But real estate is at a premium on a standard business card, which measures 3.5 by 2 inches (8.9 x 5.1 cm). So you could drop a few elements if you know your market so well that doing so carries no risk.

For example, if you specialize in training clients over 70 in their homes and know that they prefer the phone and will never use a computer, you might drop social handles, email address and physical business address from the card.

Similarly, if you run an online training business and your desired clients are all on the web, you might consider omitting a phone number—especially if it always leads callers to a full voice mailbox. This omission will actually help you screen out clients you don’t want. But you will miss out on tech-savvy people who still want to call you.

A stripped-down, no-nonsense personal trainer business card directing holders to one contact point.

You can decide if omission of any element is bold or brash as you identify the characteristics and preferences of your perfect clients.

Overall, decisions to omit “essential” contact elements should be made with great care. If you aren’t sure, include them all. But don’t clutter your card.

What to Omit: Key Advice for Personal Trainers

Is it important to list credentials on a personal trainer business card? Not really. Few clients will know what the alphabet soup means.

Sam Smith – B.Sc., NSCA CSCS, ACSM CPT, NASM-CPT

That’s ugly.

Spell out the initialisms and you’re giving away even more turf to the National Strength and Conditioning Association, American College of Sports Medicine and National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Credentials are often most important to the people who hold them. The fitness world offers a host of certifications and designations, and most clients don’t have any way to differentiate them. It’s much more important that people know what you do, not exactly what qualifies you to do it. You should tell prospective clients you’re qualified and insured, and you should provide any info they need to feel confident in you. But you don’t need to use your card to do it.

Oops: shoddy design, spelling errors and far too many credentials that mean little to prospective clients.

Remember: Your business card is designed to help people contact you. If you know your market and honestly believe more people will contact you because they see “ISSA-CPT” or something similar, include the designation. If it’s likely people won’t know what the letters mean or won’t care, leave them off and include them in the “about” section of your website.

Need to do some research? Print out two sample cards and ask friends which one would give them more important info:

“Sam Smith, Certified Personal Trainer” or “Sam Smith, ACE-CPT”?

Taglines and Calls to Action

The Gym Lead Machine crew said someone must be able to figure out what you do within 10 seconds of landing on your website. That great advice applies to any promotional materials—including a card for a training business.

Simply put, you need to think of your personal trainer business card as your “physical website.” Anyone who sees it must know what you do immediately.

And the card must make the next step obvious to the holder. On a website, you need a call to action. On a business card, the call to action is implied: Contact me. With that in mind, you must make your contact info very clear. Your business card is not a puzzle in “The Da Vinci Code.” No one wants a mystery. Everyone wants clarity.

Businesses regularly drop the ball with taglines that are clear only to the people in the business. Example: “World-Class Digital Solutions.”

For what? Who cares?

Common tagline temptations: being too clever, using industry jargon, being vague.

Two examples of reverse sides of business cards. One is simple and direct. The other is wordy and hard to read.

Great taglines are blunt and direct:

Weight-loss specialist.Strength training for college athletes.Injury prevention for seniors.Look better naked in 1 month.

Calls to action are similarly direct:

Book a free consultation.Call to reserve your spot today.Visit website for free fitness guide.

For personal trainers, our advice is to use a very clear, very simple tagline that tells people what you do and how you solve problems for clients.

If you prefer a call to action, direct people to do the thing that brings you your best clients—”book a consultation,” “follow us on Instagram” and so on. If you choose this route, make sure your branding and title make it very clear what your business does.

You can place taglines and calls to action anywhere. We’d recommend you put them on the back side of the card with a large logo, but exact placement is up to you.

Design
Double-Sided? What Size?

Should your personal trainer business card be single sided or double sided?

Get a double-sided business card for your fitness business unless you plan to write something on the back, like an appointment time. But if that’s the case, we still recommend printing some lines or “Appointment time:” on the back so you aren’t just randomly scribbling “June 12, 2 p.m.”

You’re already paying for the card itself, so you might as well fill both sides, and a little extra ink won’t empty your wallet. According to Gimmio, 95 percent of business cards are double sided, and most sites with pre-made designs offer double-sided cards with only a modest price increase.

With two sides, you can spread elements out and avoid cramming everything on one side and making people squint.

Next, get a standard sized business card unless you have a really good reason to get a square card or odd-shaped card that won’t fit in a wallet, purse or portfolio. There’s a reason no one has a square credit card, so you need to balance your desire to stand out with the risk of presenting someone with a card that’s just plain annoying to handle.

As stated earlier, standard cards are 3.5 by 2 inches (8.9 x 5.1 cm).

Personal Trainer Business Cards: Other Design Elements

When it comes to colors, fonts and other elements, stick to your existing branding—if you have branding. If you don’t, it’s high time to address this element of your business before you print 5,000 cards. The finer points of branding are outside the scope of this article, so we’ll just supply three key pieces of advice:

1. Your logo, color scheme and font selections should be consistent across all your media. The overall package should be clear, attractive and professional. Choose wisely, then stick to the plan.

2. Your branding should be clear and concise, not obtuse and esoteric.

3. If you can’t figure out what to do quickly, hire a pro and get back to training clients. Don’t waste time trying to figure out print bleeds in Adobe InDesign.

With that in mind, your card should reflect the overall look of your business—your sign (if you have a physical location), your training sheets, your branded app (click here for our review of the best ones), and so on. Consistency says “professional.”

A QR code and call to action. Scan this with a mobile device and you’ll be taken to an appointment booking page.
2021 Design Trends—and What They Mean for Coaches

99designs.com published this article and listed eight top business-card trends for 2021.

Among the trends: almost-identical business cards that use different color schemes, geometric designs, clever cutouts and so on. We would advise personal trainers to ignore these trends. You are not creating art. You are selling a service. Stay focused.

With that in mind, two current trends from the list are worthy of consideration:

1. Big text—simplicity is key. Imagine one side of your card simply says “Get Stronger in 2 Weeks,” “Weight-Loss Expert” or “Free Nutrition Consultations” in large letters that take up most of the real estate. You’d hand that card to a person and he or she would know what you do without a doubt. That’s a win.

2. QR codes—A QR code can be scanned with a mobile device to obtain information. Not all consumers understand what the “square bar code” does, but those who do find them very handy. Imagine the back of your card said “Book a Free Consultation” and had a QR code that took the scanner directly to your booking page. Take a picture of the code above with your phone and see what happens.

Or you could link to a website page with testimonials and social proof. Maybe you want to use a QR code to make it easy for people to add your contact info to their mobile devices. Or perhaps you want to send people to your social platforms. These codes bridge the gap between the physical and the digital, and, when used wisely, they can help tech-savvy clients connect with you fast.

We strongly recommend you meet with prospective clients through a free consultation, and a QR code that directs them to your booking page could pay for your entire print run if it leads to a single sale.

The down side: The codes aren’t particularly pretty. But that doesn’t matter if they do some heavy lifting for you and your training business.

Only spend more if you can prove a costly card helps you acquire more clients.
Cost of Cards for Personal Trainers

The cost of business cards for personal trainers varies from a few cents to well over a dollar per card. You have infinite options.

Two general rules:

The fancier you make them, the more expensive they are.The more you print, the lower the price per unit.

Printers offer a host of options, including foil accents and finishes, and many will design cards for you for a fee.

Just to give you an idea of the price range, here are six options from Vistaprint:

500 standard cards (premium thickness, matte paper stock, standard corners): $26.99, or 5.3 cents per card. Add a full-color second side for an extra $15 or so (depending on design), bringing the price to about 8.4 cents per card. Add a foil accent to the double-sided card and the price goes to about 12 cents each.500 standard cards (premium plus thickness, glossy paper stock, rounded corners): $50, or 10 cents per card. Add a full-color second side for an extra $15 or so (depending on design), bringing the price to about 13 cents per card.100 premium cards (no finish, standard corners): $15, or 15 cents per card. A second side runs about $8 per 100, or 23 cents per card.100 premium cards (embossed gloss finish, rounded corners): $37.50, or 37.5 cents per card. A second side runs about $8 per 100, or 45.5 cents per card.50 double-sided flexible plastic cards: $67, or $1.34 each. A second side will cost about $6 for 50, bringing the price to about $1.46 per card.50 double-sided rigid plastic cards: $79.50, or $1.59 each. A second side will cost about $6 for 50, bringing the price to about $1.71 per card.
How Much Should a Personal Trainer Spend on a Business Card?

Your personal trainer business card is a tool, not a work of art. It needs to be functional and professional, not clever or beautiful. We recommend you go with economical options, which still look great in most cases.

Considering most of the world is digital now, there’s little point in spending a ton of money on cards likely to be thrown out immediately or eventually.

And you can get 500 very nice cards with some premium options for about $65—so you don’t have to spend a lot to get something that looks pro.

In actuality, the greater concern is really the time you spend on your cards. If you charge clients $70 per hour and spend three hours designing “the perfect card,” the price is actually $260 if you order 500 at $50—with $210 representing the cost of your time.

Don’t overthink it.

Do You Need Ultra-Cool Plastic Business Cards?

We recommend you stay away from expensive plastic cards.

Paying $1.60 for a single card is a little extreme—and are you going to acquire more clients with the flashy cards? It’s doubtful. If you can definitively say costly cards will convert more clients, get them. But you probably can’t and really just want a super-cool card.

Despite our recommendation to go with relatively inexpensive cards, you might choose to spend extra for two reasons:

1. You are targeting very high end clients and offering super-expensive services. In this case, a fancy card might be part of your branding—but you just can’t guarantee it won’t end up in the trash can. We still wouldn’t advise you to break the bank in this scenario.

2. You are heading to a trade show or other forum where prospective clients are collecting stacks of cards from personal trainers. In this case, you might want to stand out from the crowd. Maybe you go with a slightly larger card that literally sticks out of the pile. Or you use a premium finish. If you go this route, we strongly recommend you use your “premium cards” at these events only and get a cheaper stack you can use every day. And we wouldn’t hand premium cards out to anyone and everyone. We’d reserve them for the people who seem most genuinely interested, not tire kickers who like “free stuff.”

Your interaction with clients will make an even greater impression than the best business card.
Business Card Etiquette for Personal Trainers

You’re a professional, so act like one when it comes to business cards.

1. Have business cards handy and make sure they aren’t bent, torn or dirty. When someone asks for a card, you should be able to produce a mint condition card in seconds. If you need to say “hold on” while you dig through pockets for a tattered card, it isn’t going to be well received.

2. Present the card with the text facing the receiver, and don’t cover any of it up. You want the person to see the details immediately.

3. Smile and look the person in the eyes. That’s good advice for any interaction.

4. Ask for a card in return if the person is likely to have one. When you are given a card, receive it in the manner in which it was presented. For example, if it’s presented with two hands, receive it with two hands. Thank the person and show your interest by making a comment about the card or the business: “I grew up in that area” or “that’s a beautiful logo.” Carefully put the card in a “place of honor”—the person who gave it to you is likely proud of it. So don’t fold it and stuff it in your jacket.

Business Cards and Personal Trainers: Our Top Advice

The closing advice here applies no matter what your card looks like. It supersedes every single design choice, and it will earn you more fitness and nutrition clients than the most beautiful business card.

1. If you exchange cards with a prospective client, don’t wait for the call. Reach out first and keep the conversation going.

“I enjoyed meeting you earlier today and talking golf! Here’s an article I wrote on core strength for golfers. Let me know what you think of it.”

2. If you don’t get a card from a prospective client, try to obtain contact info to continue the dialogue.

“Here’s my card. Do you have an email address? I’d love to add you to my mailing list and send you my top 10 nutrition tips.”

3. No matter what your card looks like, don’t rely on it to do the work for you.

If you are having a face-to-face conversation, you, as a charming fitness professional, are in your element. Your character is far more powerful than your logo and font choices.

Be your kind, engaging, helpful self. Convince the person to contact you with your words, actions, professionalism and level of care. Then supply the card that makes contact easy. Don’t casually hand out cards and expect them to work wonders.

Potential clients aren’t looking for the coolest personal trainer business cards. They’re looking for the personal trainer who will help them accomplish their goals fastest.

The post Personal Trainer Business Cards: Everything Coaches Need to Know appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Literally Make Money in Staff Meetings (This Actually Works!)

Mike (00:02):

Staff meeting adjourned. Let’s take action. Anyone? Is anyone going to do anything at all? Anyone? If this happens to you at your gym, keep listening to find out how to get your staff members fired up to take action. And here’s a tip. Dan Visentin is going to tell you how to make money in your next staff meeting.

Chris (00:25):

Hey guys, it’s Chris Cooper. Your members are buying supplements somewhere, so they should buy them from the person who cares about them the most: You. And you should work with my friends at Driven Nutrition. Jason Rule and the Driven team put customers first, every time they’ve got a ton of products with high margins and they’ll even train you so your retail program adds revenue to your business. Kirk Hendrickson from Iron Jungle CrossFit says Driven Nutrition has some of the best support I have seen from any company we’ve partnered with. To make more money with supplements and retail sales, visit drivennutrition.net. Now back to the show.

Mike (00:58):

It’s Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin here with Dan Visentin of 416 Fitness Club, which is located in the very locked down city of Toronto, Canada. Dan is also a certified Two-Brain fitness business mentor. Welcome Dan, can you teach us how to use staff meetings to actually create some motion?

Dan (01:16):

Well, that’s what I’m here to do, Mike. I hope I can help.

Mike (01:19):

That’s good. I’ll tell you a quick story about my staff meetings back in the day. You know, I’d have this huge list of things that we’d sit down as a staff group and all of a sudden it would just turn into a complaining fest, right? Like I’d probably start with one thing that was bugging me. And then it was like some other member or a client would pop up. Oh, I hate it when he does that. And who’s not changing the toilet paper and all these things just created this giant snowball of just disaster and nothing happened. And 90 minutes later, no one was doing anything. No one was taking notes. We were just complaining. So tell me, you’ve been at this for a long time as a gym owner. Describe how staff meetings went for you when you first started and did they motivate staff members to do anything? Because I sure didn’t succeed at that.

Dan (02:00):

I mean, I think early on staff meetings for me were mostly about, you know, service quality, probably programming. Maybe I’ll get some confidence and do a little bit of coaches’ education, but at the end of the day, they really mostly looked like a lot of disinterested kind of staff members with, you know, not much structure in what we were talking about. And, you know, the result of that ended up being people walking away, you know, being no more smarter than when they arrived, if you want to put it that way.

Mike (02:33):

Yeah. I specifically remember one where I was just watching this one dude, and he’s just staring off into space, like, and then after a little while he started staring at his lap and just like literally comatose for, I think, like 40 minutes. And he wasn’t sleeping. That was the incredible part, unless he was sleeping with his eyes open, but he was still like moving and sort of stuff was happening, but it was unbelievable. And like, I’m sure when we said, OK, we’re done. I’m sure. Like he came back to reality, but nothing had been absorbed and no action was taken of any kind. So let me ask you, what are the key elements now that you’ve learned all this stuff? What are the key elements of a staff meeting that actually creates that?

Dan (03:09):

So I think first and foremost, it’s preparation. You know, beforehand identify some needs, you know, what are some of the things that need to be improved in your business, that your staff can have a significant impact on. Then with that, you know, having an agenda is also going to be critical, and educating your staff. So sending that agenda out to your staff before the staff meeting so they can come prepared if they need to. If there’s things that you want them to bring to the meeting, everyone shows up with a little bit of preparation before you start.

Mike (03:45):

That’s a really good one, cause I never did that. Like I started getting agendas in place, but I never sent them out. So that’s a really good one that would actually have prepared my staff to be educated on the thing we want to talk about. That’s a great point.

Dan (03:55):

Yeah. And I mean, it doesn’t need to be, you know, a formal kind of document. You know, sometimes we do that in my gym, but most of the time it’s just a Slack message to all the staff with everything that we’re going to be going over in the staff meeting. And again, if there’s anything that we need them to bring, then they’ll be well aware of it beforehand and everyone will be prepared.

Mike (04:17):

Be prepared to talk about changing the toilet paper roll.

Dan (04:24):

Yeah, exactly. So like that moves to like the other parts of the meeting, which are key objectives. So what do you want to get out of the meeting? I know typically for me, there’s some things that are standard within each meeting. We’ll talk about program updates. We’ll talk maybe a little bit of coaches’ education. A lot of the times, you know, we’ll look at our systems and any process updates that we’ve made or are thinking of making. And then we all always talk about any issues that our staff may be having. Whether that be with them, with members, with each other, with me. But all in all, you know, one of the most important things that I’ve found with staff meetings is keeping positivity within the meeting. You know, it’s not necessarily a time to be negative. It’s not necessarily a time to be reprimanding staff members. You’re looking for involvement. So if you start sort of reprimanding for not changing the toilet paper roll in the bathroom, then I find that you lose people pretty quickly.

Mike (05:41):

And Chris has written about this in a lot of blogs where I think a mistake a lot of gym owners do, they do everything themselves. And then when they start getting some staff members, they start offloading jobs, they don’t put systems and procedures in place, inevitably things don’t go according to plan because no one can do it as good as me. Right. Quote unquote. And then after that, you don’t have a staff meeting until you’re angry. And then when you get there, you start just swinging punches and you do more damage, I think than you probably make any progress. Like nothing happens because people just feel like you’re just laying and then, and then, and then, and they’re just feel castigated and that doesn’t really motivate anyone. Have you seen that kind of thing happen either with yourself or with mentees?

Dan (06:18):

Absolutely, both. I mean, so here’s the thing about staff meetings, especially with the micro gyms, you know, we all have, or most of us will have a lot of part-time staff and you know, a lot of the time our staff won’t even see each other just based on scheduling, right. You come in and coach this class, they come in and coach that class. So it’s really the only time when all of your staff members are in one place. So, you know, a lot of people are like, OK, we got to get through as much as we can and, you know, make sure we’re fixing all of this and make sure, you know, these system issues aren’t happening and you know, everything that’s my fault as an owner I’m now going to, you know, kind of blame on you and make sure that it doesn’t happen again, that sort of thing. But in reality, it’s probably not the best time, like I was saying, to reprimand. Those should be more things you do on a one-on-one basis.

Mike (07:11):

So let me ask you a couple of nuts and bolts questions about this. How often would you schedule a staff meeting or how often do you do it? And I’m asking like, would you recommend mentees do something different than you do because you’re a very long-term owner, but what would you recommend for staff meetings?

Dan (07:24):

So I think at minimum, an all-staff meeting should happen once a month. We do it at my gym every other week. And this is going to be very dependent upon your staffing structure. You know, sometimes I find with mentees that have a lot of part-time staff, it’s really hard to schedule all of your staff together in one place more than once a month. But that’s OK. You know, I find that you need to be able to create a solid communication rhythm with your staff. Part of that rhythm is going to include staff meetings, but you know, other parts of it are going to be, you know, whether it’s on Slack or Facebook messaging, however you communicate, whether it’s in person when you’re passing by them in the gym or whether it’s through formal either one-on-one meetings or full staff meetings.

Mike (08:18):

That makes sense. And that reflects my experience. We used to do staff meetings Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM before our first class. And I don’t know if we ever had a complete turnout, right. You know, it was tough. And we had the same thing we had part-time people. And like, I’m not blaming anyone, certainly because it’s tough to ask, you know, a new dad to get out of bed at 8:00 AM on Sunday, or even more like 7:00 AM to drive, to get to the gym for 8:00 AM for a staff meeting and so forth. So that’s definitely something that I struggled with a little bit. The other thing I’ll ask you is how long would you make a staff meeting?

Dan (08:49):

So I find the sweet spot is about an hour. Typically I’ll try to get it done even faster than that, but I think anything over an hour is when you start losing people, losing their focus. So we stick to about an hour.

Mike (09:03):

So there’s a saying in advertising one spot, one thought, and what that means is one radio commercial, or spot as they’re called in the industry, you can only say one thing. So when I used to work with businesses and they would try and write commercials, they would want to say, and we’ll have a discount of 10% and we have this new car on sale and we have this and no one remembers any of that stuff. The best thing you can do is just one thing. And you just say it over and over again, and you’ll see it on good commercials, call this number right now. And they see it five times, right? One spot, one thought. How many thoughts, quote, unquote, should you have in a staff meeting? How much stuff can you actually cover functionally in an hour?

Dan (09:36):

That’s a very good question. I think a lot of what you’re going over won’t necessarily be things that, you know, your coaches need to, you know, remember off by heart or memorize or anything like that. You know, a staff meeting should be made up of a bunch of different things. You know, we start all of our staff meetings with bright spots. So we talk about bright spots with our members, talk about bright spots with our coaches. And then from there we usually move into any systems or process updates, and that’s where, you know, they’re going to need to have their focus directed towards us so that they remember things. But other than that, those are really only the only things where I would say, you know, either me or my general manager is up there kind of dictating the meeting. The rest of it is OK, let’s engage. Like let’s have everyone be a part of this meeting. And so what are some things that you can do in a meeting and bring to a meeting that is going to be engaging for your staff? And they’re going to take part in the meeting.

Mike (10:45):

So to summarize that, you’ve got staff meetings every two weeks to every month, something like that, depending on the nature of your business. They’re going to be about an hour long. You’re going to have an agenda in place and you’re going to send out some sort of preparatory message ahead of time. It might be the complete agenda, or it might just be a, you know, a simple Slack, like be prepared to discuss X. Then you do have a structure in place. And one of the structures is really important, that you noted is bright spots. And I think a lot of us, like I said, make that mistake of we’re starting with the stuff that makes us angry. It sets a tone for the meeting, but really by starting with bright spots, you get a chance to celebrate your staff, tell them what they’re doing right.

Mike (11:22):

Kind of get a good feeling going on and then address maybe if there’s an issue or something to address. But again, I think you hit on that too, where a lot of the issues that you want to address, there’s a huge mistake I think, to be made where you’re mad at one person and so you yell at everyone and everyone doesn’t understand that they all feel like why is he yelling at me about this? And it’s just the one person, and there’s an old saying praise publicly and, you know, chide privately. And that might be an interesting one. Tell me, do you agree with that? Would you try to, like, for lack of a better term, just target individual issues outside of a staff meeting, so you can keep the general stuff prominent in that hour-long session.

Dan (12:00):

I mean, the short answer to that is yes, I would. Generally, you know, I don’t like to bring too much negativity to staff meetings. But there’s also different ways to go about kind of talking about any issues. It might not be an isolated to one staff member in which case then maybe it is something that can be brought up within an entire staff meeting. Again, it’s going to depend on the issue and if I was to do that, it’s not about, Hey, never do this again. It’s kind of saying, OK, this is what we’re seeing, and then this is your solution for it.

Mike (12:39):

So let’s talk about a few mistakes. I’ve mentioned a few here and there. Most of the things that I’ve done, what are some of the things that cause staff meetings to be very unproductive, either stuff that you’ve done yourself or things that you’ve heard from your mentees that are like, wow, that was a huge mistake.

Dan (12:53):

Yeah. I think like the ones that come to mind are, like easy lack of preparation. So if you’re not preparing for the staff meeting and you just kind of go in there, you’re most likely to talk about things that are going wrong, that’s what’s going to come to mind. Right. One of the other things is, is like a monologue. Your staff don’t want to come to a meeting just to kind of hear you talk. It’s not going to be a very effective meeting in my opinion. Again, having interaction with them and, you know, getting their opinions on things I think is going to be a more effective way to have staff meetings. And like I said before, if this is one of the only times that they’re in one room together, then utilize that, use them. Then another mistake that I think a lot of gym owners make, or maybe just businesses as I’ve talked about several times is kind of the whole reprimanding idea and just kind of getting angry at your staff for things they’re not doing well.

Dan (13:52):

And then the last thing I would say is probably inconsistency in the way that you run your meetings. So if your meeting is different every time that people come, then the expectations are going to be all over the place for your staff. And that’s probably not going to lead to an effective staff meeting. OK.

Mike (14:10):

Yeah. So those are good things. I’ve definitely made a number of those mistakes. I’ve laid out a number of them, but we used to get bogged down in so much stuff. And one of the things that I really struggled with was at the end of a meeting, you go through a bunch of stuff and I was bad for like, you know, and then, and then, and then. We’d get to the end of the meeting and everyone would kind of get up and leave and nothing ever happened. So I’ll ask you another sort of nuts and bolts question. Do you send out meeting minutes or do you like go over action items or how do you get people to start doing stuff based on what’s discussed?

Dan (14:47):

So the follow-up is important. And the meeting minutes won’t be on everything that we talk about, it’ll mostly just be on any action that we want the staff to take. And then usually that’ll fall on my general manager for more of the follow-up of any action items that need to be done. And I think the key there is, if you are going to, you know, talk to your staff about taking action, you give them things to do, it’s important that you have deadlines for those things. And then they leave the meeting with that deadline. And then you have a system in place where if it’s you, it’s you, or if it’s your general manager, they’re the ones following up on that deadline with your staff member.

Mike (15:28):

Yeah. Cause I certainly, like I went overboard where I was doing like the Robert’s rules of order, where it’s like, coaches present, regrets, coach one, you know, stuff like that, where it’s just like silly. Right. And I sent this stuff out and nothing really happened, but it would probably be just be way more effective at the end of it, to just say, coach one, you know, a Slack message or email or whatever your system is, by January 15th, you need to get an inventory resupply system in place. If you need any help, talk to general manager report back when you’re done or whatever it is, like, something like that would have created action. Whereas all the stuff that I put in place really didn’t, it just created paperwork.

Dan (16:04):

Right. Well, accountability is important. Right? And I think leaving a staff meeting, if your staff realize that they’re being held accountable to what you’ve talked about and what you’re having them do, then there’s going to be more higher likelihood of it actually being done.

Mike (16:20):

Before we get into even more details on making people take action, I’ll ask you, how do you start educating people? And this is with Two-Brain systems and so forth. How do you start educating mentees on how to run a staff meeting when they’ve never done it before? What resources have we got for them?

Dan (16:34):

Chris has written a lot about it. And I think reading books on, like “The Five Levels of Leadership” is a very good book. With regards to how to kind of lead your staff. I think there’s also some stuff if you’ve ever read the book “Traction,” he’s very big, Gino Wickman’s very big on structure in staff meetings and he shows that every staff meeting basically consists of the same structure going through it. And so that again brings consistency to your staff, but usually when I’m talking to mentees about staff meetings, it really goes into a bigger picture of communication and how they’re communicating to their staff. Cause I don’t feel that a staff meeting, like as an isolated sort of communication piece is enough to really have your staff do exactly what you need them to be doing and ensure that they understand exactly what’s happening within the business. There needs to be more than just one staff meeting. So going back to your point of when, you know, you used to just brain dump on your staff when they would come to your meetings, that may have been because they weren’t hearing from you enough outside of that. And so we want to utilize staff meetings as a piece of our whole communication strategy.

Mike (18:01):

On the Two-Brain roadmap, we’ve got all different, everything is broken down by section. And under the operation side, we have operations and audiences, the two big sides of your business, on the operations side, you’ve got improve operations. And so within that section, there are a whole host of things there. It’s everything from, you know, staff roles, responsibilities, policies, and procedures, but it’s also got communication, right. So have you seen people really improve as they work through that improved operations section of a roadmap and start getting the stuff in place that like these communication strategies, these staff meetings, all the stuff that they need to do to get the business moving?

Dan (18:33):

I mean, it provides a step-by-step approach to communicating and operations with your staff. And so anytime that I’ve had a staff member that that’s seen issues with the whole idea of a communication rhythm with staff and even hosting staff meetings, that would be the first place that I get them to look, and follow. And generally you see light bulbs come on because like I’ve mentioned, structure is one of the missing pieces. And just what to talk about. At the end of the day, you don’t want to overthink it. And I think a lot of the modules in the operations section of the roadmap kind of are more to the point. You know, it’s not telling you, you know, to try to solve PI in every staff meeting. It’s more, OK. You know, what are our biggest issues? And, you know, how do we engage staff members to take action on those things?

Mike (19:40):

Yeah. Listeners, if you’re confused as to what to do with your staff and staff meetings, give us a call. You can book a call with one of our staff members and we’ll talk to you. The point of this whole thing is that on our roadmap, we do have step-by-step instructions that are going to help you establish clear communication patterns, policies, procedures, and roles with your staff. We can teach you how to do it. So if you are struggling right now, we can help give us a call. Let’s talk specifically now about taking action. We talked a little bit about assignments or follow-up and deadlines and things like that. What are some other stuff? And one of the things that you said earlier I really want to kind of dig into is having like an engaging staff meeting where it’s not just a monologue. Is that element of a staff meeting something that you find helps create action after the fact?

Dan (20:26):

Yeah, so we actually choose to take action within our staff meetings. And one of the reasons for this as I was mentioning, you know, it’s one of the only times that you get all of your staff in one place at one time. But one of the other reasons that I’ve found as a gym owner, and you know, I’m going into my 10th year being a gym owner, as I came off the floor from coaching, and I, you know, I haven’t been a coach for about three years now. At my gym, what I realized was that the relationships with members now shifted to my coaches and that I no longer held the key to the relationships with members because some of them I didn’t even know.

Mike (21:08):

Who’s that guy over there?

Dan (21:08):

Exactly, and you know, it’s not a bragging point. It’s just the reality of the situation is because I’m not involved in operations as much. And so what became to be the truth was OK, well, because my staff are kind of now the front lines, you know, they’re holding all the relationships with my members. So if my staff are going to be my front lines, well, number one, they need to be seen as experts. And they also know all of the problems, issues, stresses, desires and goals of our members, because, you know, they’re with them every day and they’re building the relationships with them. And I don’t. So when you’re trying to make decisions for your business, as they relate to, you know, new programs that you’re going to offer, or which directions to go, decisions that you need to make that are strategic for your business, you want to hear these things from your members. Well, people that know your members best are going to be your staff at this point. So I wanted to use staff meetings to kind of pick the brains of my staff members as it relates to our members so that we can make good decisions and build them up as experts in the industry.

Mike (22:32):

So that’s almost like you know, fact gathering, whereas most gym owners will sit in a staff meeting and they’re doling out the information. You’re actually kind of flipping the script a little bit, and you’re getting the information from your staff members so that you can make better decisions as an owner. That’s incredible.

Dan (22:48):

Yeah, that’s right. And so there’s a few things that we do in staff meetings in order to kind of, you know, take action as it relates to you know, whether it be social media member outreach, or even member identification for things like personal training, specialty programs and nutrition. Because like I said, my member, sorry, my staff know my members the best, and they have the relationships with them. So a lot of those things are going to be better executed by my staff than me.

Mike (23:23):

And in the blog series that you’ve written, which we’ll link to in the show notes, you’ve talked about taking action on building average revenue per member, per month, producing content and engaging old members. Those are three huge things that will like, building average revenue per member. That’s what you were talking about with, you know, personal training opportunities or specialty group opportunities, things like that. Engaging with members, outreach. Getting people back because your staff has a relationship. Hey, you know, Cindy, could you message Tom and see how he’s doing on his own. He might come back. These things directly affect your bottom line. Do they not?

Dan (23:56):

Absolutely. I mean, they’re huge drivers. And so, you know, if your staff meetings or you utilize your staff means to solve big problems, well, you know, these are big problems. These are big issues.

Chris (24:09):

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Mike (24:52):

I imagine that like, if you set this up properly, just on those two elements, like average revenue per member per month, the short forms is ARM and engageable members in that hour, you could make significant money. If you reengage two old members, sell two personal training packages, you’re looking at like $2,000 or something like that.

Dan (25:13):

That’s right. And that’s why I kind of titled the blog posts, you know, taking action, cause that’s serious action. Right? If you’re able to kind of sit in a staff meeting and earn additional revenue with all of your staff sitting in one place, then I think, you know, you’re utilizing your staff meetings to the best of their ability.

Mike (25:33):

I used to just add up the cost of the staff meetings, but if they’re actually an investment and make money, that’s incredible. I want to ask you about producing content in a second, because that is a huge problem for gym owners, but first let’s make them some money, you know, tell me about like, what, how could you specifically take action in that staff meeting to build ARM and engage old members? Like just for people who have no idea about this, because again, staff meetings are often just complaining. Talk to me about how you would make someone take action, actually make money at a staff meeting.

Dan (26:02):

So the process is actually pretty simple. So basically what we do is we engage our staff during the meeting and we say, you know, we’re struggling. So I’ve identified beforehand that our personal training revenue is really taking a hit, so we need to increase our personal training program. So what I’ll do is I’ll ask my coaches, Hey guys, out of everyone that you’re working with right now in classes, who can you identify as people who would be perfect for personal training right now?

Dan (26:35):

And what I’ll do is I’ll stand at the whiteboard and we’ll make a list of about 15 to 20 people. This is really engaging because now your coaches are invested in it. They’re telling you that, you know, this person, Susie, that I’ve been working with could really benefit from personal training. OK? So now we have a list about 15 to 20 members on our board. And if you have a CSM or if you have a GM or if you want to utilize the coaches, well, now, now it’s time to engage those people. But that list wouldn’t exist unless you engage your staff members to ask them, Hey guys, who in our community right now could really use our help with personal training. And, you know, if your sales process is, you know, on point, from there having a list of leads like that is just going to turn into more personal training, more revenue for you.

Mike (27:33):

And so you could do the same thing with engaging old members. You could, you know, I’m sure it’d be something like, OK, let’s make a list of 10 to 15 departed members we haven’t seen in a while and talk about maybe what some other goals were and, you know, can we contact them, ask if they’re accomplishing these goals on their own, or could you personally reach out, like, give me a quick summary of how that would work with engaging old members. That sounds amazing, too.

Dan (27:54):

Yeah. So that one’s even more fun because what we do is I don’t necessarily ask about old goals. What we’ll ask about is, you know, who did you have the best relationship with that’s no longer a member. And then what we do is we basically create a script and utilize video text messages. And so what we’ll do is we’ll get the staff, you know, you give them two to three members today or old members that they feel they’ve had really good relationships with. And you send them all off in a corner for about 20, 30 minutes. And you ask them to send a video text message to those members saying, you know, Hey, I miss you or, Hey, you know, how’s your training going? And the whole idea here is not necessarily to get into a sales consultation. It’s really just to start a conversation with old members. And we all know how that goes. If you can start a conversation with old members, then you’re going to be more likely to kind of re-engage them bring them back and help them with their fitness journey.

Mike (28:57):

Have you actually made sales during staff meetings?

Dan (28:59):

So I wouldn’t say the sale has been made. I’ve had, you know, verbal confirmations from old members that our staff has engaged with during a staff meeting. And, you know, the coach will reach out and then the old member will say, Hey, you know, I’ve been looking to get back. You know, when can I come in and talk to Carolyn who’s our GM.

Mike (29:26):

So that must be like almost like the steroid injection of staff meetings right there. When you’re sitting there and you’re actually like, you’ve done this stuff going off to your corners, we’re onto the next item. And it’s like, Oh, I just got a text and it’s, you know, X member saying, Hey, I’d like to come for a no sweat.

Dan (29:43):

Exactly. And that’s the power of this. I mean, like I said, your coaches are in a unique position because they sit there at the front lines and they build these relationships with your members. So, you know, we just have to utilize them in this way. And I think a staff meeting’s a great opportunity to do that.

Mike (29:59):

You know, and no one thinks of that. At least I didn’t. And you know, if I had an air horn, I gotta get one, I gotta get a Two-Brain Radio air horn where I just blast it into the mic when something happens that like should alert gym owners to important stuff. This is really something where you could take what’s often a dead hour, right? It’s just complaining, you’re drinking coffee kind of half asleep, whatever you take that hour. And now you’re supercharging it into something that’s going to generate revenue. And you’re using your coaches to take action in that hour and almost visibly creating revenue. And I’m sure if someone does this out there, he or she will make a sale during a staff meeting at some point where it’s just like, Oh, this guy just booked four personal training sessions. And the funny part is I used to get so irritated during staff meetings when I could see coaches checking their phones and, you know, they were on Instagram or whatever it was. Right. And now you’re actually—what are you doing? He’s like, well, I’m actually just booking a 10 package, personal training session. Do you mind if I just do that right now? And you’re like, dude, you could leave the meeting to finish that sale off. Right.

Dan (31:00):

Exactly. And the other part of it is, you know, it’s going to breed some motivation. I mean, if you look at other industries like stock trading floors or, you know, sales floors where, you know, everyone has that kind of brash sort of like exciting environment. And when sales are made, people are ringing bells and stuff like that, but everyone’s motivated in that environment. And I’m not saying that you’re going to turn your gym into a trading floor, but you know, your staff are individually reaching out to members and, you know, some are having success. It’s going to kind of spark other coaches to go the extra mile and take some action to do the same.

Mike (31:43):

And for a lot of these staff members, if you’ve set up your gym properly, re-engaging an old member or making a personal training sale or something that could have a direct financial effect, not just on the business, but on that staff member. Right? So it’s like, Holy cow, I just made $440 because I’m making 44% of a thousand dollar sale I just made during a staff meeting.That’s pretty good hourly rate.

Dan (32:03):

Absolutely. And you know, I mean, some of the easiest outreach that you do in these types of exercises is to your coaches’ old personal training clients. They once were working with someone potentially for a long period of time and you know, maybe they’ve lost touch and they haven’t engaged them. Well, this is a perfect opportunity for them to do that.

Mike (32:24):

So the Two-Brain Radio air horn goes off here. And guys, at your staff meeting try one of these two techniques, and you might end up making some money, do that on your next staff meeting. If you guys want some tips, again, you can book calls with our mentors to figure this out. I’m going to ask you about another problem. This one maybe doesn’t create revenue exactly. But this is a huge problem. And especially from a media perspective, I often talk to gym owners. They struggle to create content and they struggle even more than that to get their staff members to create content. So let’s solve a huge problem for gym owners right now. And in this blog you wrote, let’s just talk about how can gym owners use their next staff meeting to actually get staff members to create content? This is like blood from a stone in some cases, solve it for us.

Dan (33:07):

Well, it actually falls under a similar framework. So I usually set aside, you know, 20 to 30 minutes at the end of a staff meeting. And, you know, I think going back, why is it important that your staff are making content? Well, if you’ve gotten to a position where they’re on the front lines and they’re building all the relationships and they’re really your service providers of your business, well, you need to build them up as experts in the industry or at least your community. And so they need to be at the forefront of your content. Their faces need to be in your content. So when they’re all together in one room, I find that it’s a perfect opportunity to create some content. So what we do actually is before the staff meeting, we’ll put out a note in the agenda to make sure that coaches wear their coaches shirt to the staff meeting, if we’re going to be filming them.

Mike (33:59):

Not just a bathrobe, like I’m wearing right now.

Dan (34:04):

Well, you know, it depends on the vibe of your gym. If you want your coaches wearing bathrobes, then by all means. And then what we do is we actually have them brainstorm. We do a whole brainstorming session on either common movement faults or, you know, nutrition topics or struggles that they hear from our members. So I think in the article, I referenced common faults that our coaches are seeing with our at-home program because we’re in lockdown. So, you know, this is huge because you know, a lot of these members are just working out, not in our zoom classes. They’re just working out on their own. They could be doing movements completely wrong, and there could be lots of faults. And so we made a list of common movement faults. And then from there, what we do is we then assign a movement or topic to each coach.

Dan (34:56):

And the beauty part of this is you can kind of format, or you can give them the structure and how you want the content to be kind of created. So in this example, we told them how we wanted the breakdown of their explanation of the topic to be kind of discussed within the content that we’re creating. And then we give them about five to 10 minutes to go prepare it. So in our movement fixes example, we tasked them to come up with like, I think it was one fault. And then to explain the fault, to show the fault in the video, explain how to fix it and then show how to fix it. So a lot of the times, you know, you tell coaches to go and create content, then, you know, they’re just kind of stuck.

Dan (35:45):

They’re like, well, how, what, and OK, I guess I’ll try. But at the end of the day, if you’re able to give them a little bit more structure, then it’ll be a much easier task for them to do it. And not only that, it’ll all look and feel very similar. So it’s going to stay on brand if you will. And so from there, we then just fill in the content. So, you know, we give them five to 10 minutes to go and do what we asked and then they come back and we film it.

Mike (36:19):

And that’s what I was going to ask is exactly what you just said. One of the problems people get is often like, Oh, I’m in the gym by myself. I don’t have anyone to hold the camera. I don’t know how to film this. It’s out of focus, you know, the whole thing. So in this scenario, you can then use people who are maybe more competent with the camera, or at least even to hold the thing right, as opposed to the other stuff and just get some stuff, get the thing rolling. And again, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but this is a huge upgrade where you’ve actually got some of your more competent people making the media happen while coaches are going. And it’s, as you know, it’s very difficult to like film yourself and set these things up and be the person behind, you know, there’s a reason why on anchorman, you know, Ron Burgundy had camera people on the other side of the camera, like, it’s a tough job. So this solves a huge media problem.

Dan (37:02):

It does. And you know, I kind of liken it to personal training for coaches to create content. And that’s because I want to do everything for them except the actual workout, which is the content creation. So I want to set up the camera. I want to have the lights on them. I want to have what we’re talking about and how they’re supposed to talk about it. And then when they come in, they’re the star of the show, all they have to do is kind of, you know, act in front of the camera, spread their knowledge. And then, you know, we do all of the edits and we, you know, we walk away with five or six high quality videos from 20 to 30 minutes of work.

Mike (37:44):

And I imagine that if you got creative, like let’s say maybe you’re not doing videos. You could certainly create a whole bunch of photos. Like if you want to just line your staff members up and create a bunch of photos, like coaching photos, one coach is coaching, the other coaches being the quote unquote client, and you’re correcting movement faults where you could write about them on an Instagram post or something like that. You could, you could create just so much content from one staff meeting. Like, do you have an idea? Like how many videos or photos have you created from something like this? And if you don’t know the answer, that’s totally cool. But what do you, what have you created in terms of media output?

Dan (38:18):

I mean, all of my coaches, any of the media that includes my coaches will be done within staff meetings. Well, I just find it becomes too much of a struggle and an uphill battle to try to get coaches to do this on their own, and you know, like doing it in a staff meeting, as I said, you have them all in one place, you get, there’s this vibe of, OK, let’s do this. We’re in here to kind of take action. And you also get some better content ideas out of it because you have a group of people kind of brainstorming issues that our members are having. And, you know, those are the things that you want to be talking about most in your content.

Mike (38:59):

So again, I guess I should ring the Two-Brain air horn again here, like I said, I’ve talked to so many gym owners who have said, I don’t know how to get my staff to create content, or I just have nothing to post. I haven’t posted to Instagram in weeks, months, years in some cases. This is such a great way to solve a gigantic problem. And it has this trickle-down effect where now you’ve created experts. These are the faces of your business, if you have staff members, they start to become well-known. They start to establish expertise. They start to build rapport with online audiences, whether it’s, you know, people they know as a retention tool or prospective members who are watching. All of this then has a trickle-down effect because then these people can sell personal training, nutrition services, specialty groups, and they can also sell more to members where like, I didn’t know that, you know, Kim was an Olympic lifting expert. Wow. I miss snatches out front all the time. Maybe I could book a personal training session. So there is a dollar value that’s eventually attached to that media downstream.

Dan (40:00):

Absolutely. And not only that, I mean, you’re saving yourself a lot of time. So if you’re able to create six videos in a 30 minute window of your staff meeting, well, you know, if you look outside of that, how long would it take you to create six videos on your own? And now you can utilize that time to work on your business and you know, make the business a little bit more money.

Mike (40:25):

And I’ll give you a media tip. If you create those six videos, you want to put those on Instagram. You want to put them on Facebook. You want to put them on YouTube and you know, you have other options as well. You can certainly text some of those videos to a member who maybe needs to know that entire tip and say, Hey, do you want to book a session? So if you just put them on three platforms, that’s 18 pieces of media, right? Because not everyone is on every platform and sees everything. That’s huge. So all of a sudden, if you’re looking at a 30-day month, that’s 18 days taken care of from one staff meeting. So guys, if you’re listening, I would probably check that out. Dan, if people wanted to work with you, what would be the best path as a potential mentee for them to take?

Dan (41:07):

I would email me, shoot me a note at dan.visentin@twobrainbusiness.com. You can follow my gym too. If you want, 416 Fitness Club on Instagram.

Mike (41:21):

That’s a great one because you’ll see some of the output that Dan’s gym is putting out because this stuff isn’t just pie in the sky, you know, airy, mystical stuff. This is actually stuff that is in practice. So when they look at your Instagram and they see a video with a coach talking about whatever, you know, squatting shallow or whatever it is that was filmed at a staff meeting.

Dan (41:40):

Yes. 100% that was filmed at a staff meeting. That is our place to create content for coaches.

Mike (41:50):

Dan, thank you so much for being here today and sharing all this stuff. There’s literally thousands of dollars waiting for you to make in your next staff meeting because of the tips that are in the show. Dan, thanks for sharing them.

Dan (41:59):

My pleasure, Mike, I hope it was helpful for everyone.

Mike (42:03):

Very helpful. That was Dan Visentin on Two-Brain Radio. I encourage you right now to make an agenda for your next staff meeting and make some money in that staff meeting. Take the tips Dan gave you and take action. We track everything at Two-Brain and we just published Chris Cooper’s State of the Industry guide. This 84-page book is packed with data from over 6,000 gym owners. You can use it to make smart decisions, avoid mistakes, generate more revenue, and see where you stack up in the gym world. It’s 100% free and you can get it at twobrainbusiness.com/research. That link is in the show notes. Click it right now. I’m Mike Warkentin and I’ll see you next time on Two-Brain Radio.

 

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