Chris Cooper's Blog, page 136

How Many Clients Do You Need?

With five clients, you have a side income.

With 15 clients, you can have a job.

With 50 clients, you have a business.

With 150 clients, you can have a great life.

The key to every step? You must have the right clients.

The “More-Clients” Mistake

When I started a CrossFit gym, the only business advice I could find came from the affiliate message boards. At the time, many affiliate owners were trying to copy a martial-arts business model:

Get 300 clients. Pack them into classes. Pay one coach to lead them and have another volunteer “assistant” coach correcting technique. Get a big space to scale up faster. Lock coaches into their roles by giving them a tiny share of the business.

This works for karate classes because they’re mostly choreographed and students don’t require much space. But it’s never worked for CrossFit gyms. CrossFit requires a lot of coaching. CrossFit is more like personal training than choreography.

Why 150 members?

First and foremost: 150 is more than enough.

Second, you can only maintain about 150 relationships yourself. Around 150 clients, you have to add another layer of staff to your business, which adds complexity and shrinks your margins.

Robin Dunbar’s research on interpersonal relationships explains why 150 is a great target, and our data supports it. The most profitable gyms aren’t the gyms with the most members all the time. Most of the time, they were profitable with 50 clients, then they scaled to 150 while maintaining their profitability. While “Dunbar’s number” isn’t always exactly 150 in the microgym business, it’s a great starting point when you’re pricing your service, scheduling your day and trying to market to the right people.

For example, if you start with the goal of 150 clients, you can work backward from your ideal income to calculate your rates. For step-by-step instructions on how to do that, read this article.

Then you can think about how many classes you’ll need. According to an Arbox/Deloitte study published in 2020, the average adherence rate in microgyms is 0.6. That means around 60 percent of your clients will show up on a normal day.

Then you can hire based on need:

At five clients, you don’t need help.
At 15, you get a software platform.
At 50, you get a part-time coach to take your early or late classes, and you get a cleaner. This is the start of Farmer Phase.
At 100, you hire an administrative helper and take your coach full-time or add a second part-time coach.
At 150, you hire a general manager and a client success manager or media person. This is the start of Tinker Phase.

Click to learn about the four phases of entrepreneurship.

Then you consider: Do you want to scale by adding more clients to your location, adding a second location or doing something different but related?

Meanwhile, you’re maintaining your profit margin, adding space and equipment only as needed, and reaching your targets in three years instead of 10 (or 11, in my case!).

Now compare this to what most gyms try to do:

Base rates on what everyone else is charging or what the owner thinks “the market will bear.”
Base space choices and equipment purchases on a “dream gym setup.”
Open the owner’s schedule to eight classes every day, even if they’re poorly attended.
Base hiring on duplicating the owner instead of replacing him or her in less expensive roles first.
Pay for marketing lessons.
Churn through staff every year and clients every three months.

Sorry, but it’s true. I know because that was me.

In 2020, we completed a four-year journey to collect and analyze data. We now have the biggest data set in the fitness business. We reported that data in our 84-page 2020 State of the Industry Report. You can download it for free and draw your own conclusions: Click here to get it.

The emerging model of success doesn’t look like 300 clients “gettin’ after it” and posting on Instagram. To build a successful career, start with 150 and work backward.

The post How Many Clients Do You Need? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Common Characteristics of the World’s Top Gym Owners

Mike (00:02):

The red beard of wisdom is here for Two-Brain Radio. Mentor Josh Price works with some of the top gym owners in the world. And he’ll tell you the secrets of their success right after this.

Chris (00:11):

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

Mike (01:40):

This is Two-Brain Radio and I’m Mike Warkentin. We’re here to make gym owners wealthy. So don’t miss an episode. Hit subscribe right now. We just honored seven amazing clients with Two-Brain awards, and you can find an interview with each one in the show notes. Certified Two-Brain fitness business mentor, Josh Price coaches or coached four of those clients, and he’s here to talk about the characteristics that help these gym owners succeed. Josh Price, certified Two-Brain fitness business mentor. Welcome to the show.

Josh (02:06):

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Mike (02:07):

I’m glad to have you. I haven’t had you on here a while, and I’m really excited to talk to you because you’ve been the mentor to some of the very best in the gym business. Dour of the seven, like we said in the intro. So what do some of these gym owners have in common? These are our award winners, some of the leading lights in Two-Brain, what are some of their common characteristics that other people could learn about?

Josh (02:27):

Yeah, so I would say like probably the thread between all of them is they really know who they are and they really know what their gym is. They have very, very clear vision, you know, Mary and Andy, you know, at Tradewinds, they want to make sure that every person that walks through that door feels very special. Mary told me 18 months ago probably that the one thing that mattered to her more than anything else that, the QBR, you know, as it is the queen bee role, in their gym is to deliver rockstar customer service, to make every single person feel like a rock star. And that’s what they set out to do in everything they do. Phil Kniep, you know, went through a massive breakup as they really defined who that client avatar is that they wanted and lost a lot of people in their gym, but yet they battled back, you know, with this this view of inclusivity and getting the right people in there. You know, Mike Collette, I think has always known who he is. I mean, that guy has been a rock star since I’ve taken him over, averaging even through the pandemic, you know, over 60,000, you know, a month and 30% profit margins, just absolutely insane. He knows what that gym is. And Jared and Peter, you know, kinda the same thing. They know who they are, they know how they want to function and everything. And they’re just bringing that team forward. So that’s first and foremost. The second thing, which is probably just as important because you have to have this, is leadership. Every single one of these guys can get in front of their team and tell them exactly what they expect and where they’re going.

Mike (04:19):

So, as I said, in the intro, there are links to interviews with each of these people. They’ll be in the show notes for you. Just a quick reminder, Mike Collette won the left brain gym of the year for metrics. And Josh just mentioned one of the amazing metrics that he has. Phil Kniep was comeback of the year, had a tough go and came back very strong. Andrew and Mary Boimila, owner lifestyle. These guys, they live a great life because their gym provides for them. And I love what you said about that rockstar customer service. Like that’s a great mission statement. That’s just so short and so direct. Jared Byczko and Peter Brasovan, coach education and opportunity. So they do a great job of providing opportunities for their coaches to thrive. And those coaches do a great job of generating revenue for them with our four ninths model, of course, which ensures that staff members are assets and not, you know, dead weight. So I want to ask you about a couple of things that you said there. You said vision and leadership. Those were the two things that really came out. And can you have one without the other, does that exist in the gym business?

Josh (05:20):

It actually does. It’s really funny that you ask that because I got asked yesterday, I was on with prospective tinkers, Ryan and Katie Shank at CrossFit Exemplify. I was doing kind of a clarity call, a discovery call with them. And they kind of made the statement that like Katie isn’t a leader. And I was like, you know, that’s not true. Like, there’s three things that you have to have to be a leader and that’s purpose, motivation and direction. So you don’t have to have the vision and everything, but the CEO absolutely does. Whoever is leading this forward has to, but anybody else that is within that organization has to know that vision, right? Like that becomes the purpose, you know, the purpose, motivation, and direction. So like, you can have leadership. I can lead in any situation that I’m in due to those things, even if I’m not the one with the vision. So, yeah, it’s a little different like Two-Brain, right? It’s Chris’s vision, but yet I can lead, even though it’s not my vision, even though like I get the vision fully and can lead others through it.

Mike (06:32):

Someone has to have that vision and someone has to provide leadership, but they don’t always have to be the same person. So that’s a really interesting thing. In our show notes, we’re going to get links to two important things. Kaleda Connell talked about vision statements earlier and help people, you know, figure out how to create one so that if you don’t have a vision statement, hit that link and you’ll find Kaleda’s episode, it’s amazing. And it’ll help you make some real progress getting a vision in place. And we have another one, Anastasia Bennett talked about leadership and the characteristics of great leaders. If you’re struggling with that, take a look at what she said, take a listen. And you’ll find some really, really interesting stuff that you can take action on to create those two things, because those will be really—that’s come up so many times over the last few interviews that I’ve done. Vision and leadership, especially during the pandemic right now, it seems so, so important. And these awards were given out after, you know, the March chaos, they were given out in June and so forth. And these guys all showed vision and leadership and managed to maintain a great gym business despite what was going on. So I don’t think you can understate the importance of vision and leadership here. Can you?

Josh (07:34):

No, not at all. I mean, you’re absolutely right. Like I said, there’s a little bit of difference, but everybody, whoever that CEO is, you know, Andy, Phil, Jared, Michael, and these gyms and all the other ones that I’ve dealt with, you know, Matt VanShoyck, you know, that’s another guy who won last year as our rising star. And has since become a Two-Brain mentor with two gyms, you know, he started. You know, amazing story with him. He started still working a full-time job in a oil refinery. And the very first thing he said to me was I want to quit in eight weeks. Can we do it? And I said, absolutely, we can do it. And here we are only man, two years, two and a half years later, he’s a Two-Brain mentor, two gyms, they’re working on their third.

Josh (08:23):

You know, that vision is what is going to pull you through. That vision is the thing that is going to get everybody in lock step, right? And you have to be able to share that, you know, and, Cameron Herold was talking on vivid vision at the summit, but also, you know, in his book and everything he talks about when you get up in front of people and everything, and you’re sharing this vision, this clear, clear picture of what you’re going to accomplish, you know, it should be polarizing, you know, and you might have up to 15% of people say, Ooh, yeah, that’s not for me. But like, that’s what we want, and that’s what these guys have all been able to do. You know, Andy and Phil and Jared and Michael and Matt and all these other guys. So I can’t stress enough that the clarity of where you’re going, you know, that purpose and direction, as I said earlier, leadership is purpose, motivation, and direction to accomplish a mission.

Mike (09:15):

And you really hit on an interesting thing there that it’s so counterintuitive, but it’s so important is that that narrowing, right? You cannot, you know, when I started 10 years ago in the gym business, I wanted everyone, right. My playing field was everyone is perfect for my gym. I need everyone. I want everyone. And consequently, we made a lot of mistakes. And the idea now is focusing that vision on exactly who your best clients are and narrowing that niche, finding those people, identifying them, serving them to the best of your ability and generating this incredible relationship with these perfect clients for your business. It seems so counterintuitive though, because as starting out, you’re like, I need everybody and you kind of do at that founder phase, but as you evolve to the stage that these leading lights are at, they can narrow that, and they know exactly who’s right and wrong for their gym. And Chris even wrote a blog about this, talking about referrals. When you identify someone, when you have the strength of vision and courage in your company, you can then refer people who aren’t right to a different gym that’s better for them and say, you’re not going to fit in here. However, I want you to get what you need. Here’s the referral to this other gym. And that relationship sometimes goes both ways. And Chris really wrote about that. So that vision is so important. I’m going to ask you a question here as a mentor, do you find that your mentees struggle with getting their vision in place when you’re working with them? Or is that something that most of them figure out right away?

Josh (10:34):

No, most people struggle with that. Most people, if they’re a CrossFit gym, they came into this thing with a vision and that vision was creating elite fitness. You know, they bought into that vision and everything, and they’re walking forward with that vision. You know, but somewhere along the line, maybe it starts to differ a little bit, some don’t, you know, some don’t. I’ve got some gyms that I work with today that that’s still the avatar of the client, you know, they’re like, you know, we’re not necessarily looking for a new person. You know, we’re looking for somebody who, you know, is a former college athlete or already has a level of fitness that maybe we’re not starting from the beginning, and there’s not foundational pieces that we have to put in place.

Josh (11:23):

But others, you know, realize like Mary, for instance, she’s, you know, she really realizes that she does like working with the newer person or somebody that really wants to get coached and wants to have, you know, other aspects touched in there with nutrition and mindset, you know. I would call that person, you know, they’re not just a fitness, a gym monger or whatever, but a person who’s really focused growth in all aspects of their life. And I think that’s a common thing we’re starting to see, you know, amongst my clients, probably others within Two-Brain is like this narrowing down of to clients that are really focused on growth on all aspects of their life, that want more out of this life. And I think that’s super cool.

Mike (12:15):

It’s really the idea of a coaching practice, not necessarily a gym, right. Right. That’s what Chris has talked about so many times now where it’s like, we’re not—we run gyms many of us, but really what we provide isn’t a gym, right? We don’t provide access to equipment or things like that. We provide coaching. And some of that coaching is physical. A lot of that coaching we’re finding is mental and even emotional as it relates to like nutrition, personal improvement and all these other things. And it’s really neat to see the evolution of it. And, you know, it would be really great one day if our coaching practices could be classified as essential businesses when fitness centers are closed with COVID and so forth. But that evolution of coaching is really cool. And have you seen these Two-Brain award winners really understand that evolution? Is that something that characterizes them?

Josh (12:55):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You see it more and more and more, you know, it’s kind of interesting how they take that on. You know, like I was talking about Mary and Andy, really hands-on and diving into it, where you have Jared and Peter, who won the staff award for looking for, OK, well, how can we build up staff key role players? You know, so instead of this one, not a one size fits all, but a deep dive start to finish program where a coach is taking you through everything it’s like for them, it’s like, OK, we have fitness coaches, we have nutrition coaches, we have a mindset coach. So in their model you kind of have this person who’s specializing, but you still see that same piece. At Phil’s gym, Lincoln Fitness, they actually assign, that’s kind of cool. They assign new clients to the group coaches and everything. So there’s somebody responsible for this member list and everything and their coaching. So right there, you see three different ways, you know, hands-on, from the gym owner and Mary and Andy to Jared and Peter having through pretty much specialists and then Phil through assigning it to coaches. So it’s kind of cool to see three different views of that same premise of how we’re coaching people through this.

Mike (14:21):

I’m really curious to see what your answer is here. Do you use different mentoring techniques with these top gym owners? Like these are some of the best gym owners in the entire world, their metrics show it and we recognize them for it. But you use different mentoring techniques with these top people, as opposed to owners who are maybe brand new or have yet to achieve success?

Josh (14:39):

Yes, absolutely. So brand-new owners and everything, we’re still really showing them the ropes through the roadmap, right? It’s very much me answering questions and then maybe overcoming objections or bridging gaps from maybe the way they do things now to the way they need to do them. Whereas these top guys, man, all the foundations are in place. You know, if you were looking at the roadmap and maybe not all of our listeners know about it, but these guys are like sixes, sevens in every single one of those areas. So that’s all done. So now, what I’m trying to do is just finish out their vision and bring them into, you know, our tinker program. So yes, it’s very different.

Mike (15:25):

And for listeners, like you said, who haven’t seen it, the Two-Brain roadmap is a series of, we call them highways and it’s everything from, you know, selling more, retaining clients, all these different categories of business. And there are step-by-step instructions, they’re all numbered. They go from one all the way up to way beyond 10 and mentors will diagnose the problems, tell you what you need to do. You hit that square, you accomplish the tasks in there, you get some rewards and so forth. But the real reward is that you build your business. As you move up the ladder here, and like you said, get sixes and sevens in all these categories, and there are many of them, you build an incredible business foundation. That allows you to ascend into the tens and 12 range. And that’s where we’re in the tinker stage of entrepreneurship, which is our third phase.

Mike (16:06):

That’s where you have cashflow assets, you’re building a legacy, you’re planning for wealth accumulation, and you’re finding all these awesome things that you can do with your time and freedom. So our mentors lead you through that. And it’s really cool because we’ve got these guys at the tinker stage. I think all of these guys are at tinker stage or at least close to it. And they’re doing incredible things with businesses. Like I know Peter and Jared, for example, I believe they started a yoga revenue stream that now is in like the $200,000 mark or something like that where it’s like it equals the revenue of some gyms total. Right. It’s just incredible what they’ve done and now they can expand, provide careers and so forth. But then at the other end of it, you have these at the very beginning of the roadmap, you have basic stuff. Can you give me an example of like a step one in one milestone? What is an example for our listeners of just one of the basic, basic, basic tasks that they would do as a new mentee?

Josh (16:58):

Right. Yeah. So I mean, the very first steps are going to be, you know, writing your staff playbook. But even before that, you know, it’s just like, what is the SOP for how to run a class? What does the SOP on how to clean your gym? You know, very, very basic stuff.

Mike (17:14):

But that basic foundation is, the whole pyramid analogy, right? We don’t have to go into that too far, but if you get those basics in place, that’s going to allow you to reach a whole lot higher. So it’s fascinating to see, you know, I love seeing the development of Two-Brain clients as they come in and then watching them for a year and then seeing where they go, because some of them like the ascension for some of these guys is incredibly fast, isn’t it?

Josh (17:35):

Brian and Katie, who I talked to yesterday, they’re not quite ready. They’ve got, you know, one to two steps left. They’ve only been in Two-Brain for eight months and they’re already having the tinker discovery call with me.

Mike (17:47):

That is incredible. So, I mean, maybe we’ll see them in our award winners next year. So talk to me about this. When we’re talking about some new, new mentees, what’s a sign that a new mentee is clearly on track to do great thing?. Like we just talked about these two people that like, they’re obviously, at eight months, they’ve done great things. They might even be an award winner next year. What are other signs when you work with a new client that show that they’re on track for big things.

Josh (18:15):

It’s the action that they take, you know, like, I’ve had clients that are just like, OK, you just tell me what to do. I’m going to do it. And they do. And then you even have ones that kind of argue with you a little bit but they still take action at the end of the day. That is the one thing. It’s just that you might have to overcome objection, you might have to coach them. You know, that’s our job as mentors to coach them. But when you convince them, when you get them to agree and they see that it’s the next step, by the next call that you’re on, they’ve done every single thing that you’ve told them to do. That is the key, it seems, to graduating from our founder to our farmer stage.

Mike (19:04):

So it’s action.

Josh (19:06):

Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yep.

Chris (19:09):

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Mike (19:50):

So what are the reasons like we’ve got—we’ve got all this stuff laid out, and this is data-backed stuff. So this isn’t just like, you know, Chris Cooper sitting there and saying, I think all gyms should do this. It’s actually backed by data. It’s tested. We know this stuff works. What are some of the reasons or some of the objections you hear? Why would gym owners not take action on stuff that is proven to work?

Josh (20:07):

Fear. Fear is probably the biggest one that I encounter most often. You know, it’s I’ve already tried that, you know, and then you’re like, well, have you really? Tell me. Tell me about how you tried that. Oh, I did this and this and this and this. Oh, so you skipped this step. Oh yeah, I did do that. OK. Well, let’s go back and let’s try it, you know, before, or, you know, I’ve, I’ve listened to Chris and I’ve read all of his books and everything, and I’ve already tried everything that he said, and this one thing. Recently there was actually an example with no sweat intros, that the no sweat intro just doesn’t work for a gym like mine.

Josh (20:49):

Right. So then it’s like, OK, well, let’s dive into that. Why? How were you doing it? What did that look? Right? And then almost always you find out that they didn’t really do a no sweat intro. Hey, let’s role play one so I can see how you’re doing it. You jump into a role-play and they sit there and talk about themselves and their gym and their equipment and their lifting pads and everything like, Oh, that’s the problem right here. Here, let’s work on this. So it’s generally kind of not really understanding the technique or not understanding, you know, the thing that we’re asking. But once you bridge that gap, you figure it out, compliance goes up or whatever, they take action.

Mike (21:32):

I was certainly guilty of that. You know, when we were working with a mentor and my wife was still does, obviously, but our business has changed to online, but we had a physical gym and we were talking about raising rates because we, you know, we did the math and it’s all clearly laid out. And we just realized that the prices that we had set back in 2010 did not support the current business. We hadn’t raised them ever. And they were just, they were set pie in the sky. We made them up, right? No formulas, nothing. But man, it’s scary to push that button and send that email to raise the rates. Luckily we had the whole Two-Brain playbook. We did it by the book, everything went so well that we had members emailing us and congratulating us and saying, thank you for doing this. We want your gym to survive. You know, it was incredible. I was scared. And you know, my wife had to push that button cause I was scared. You know? So what are some of the ways that you help scared people or people who are maybe a little stubborn, you know, I’ve tried it all. How do you get them to take action? And how do you coach them around those objections?

Josh (22:26):

Yeah. So the first thing is acknowledging that the objection is real. I think that’s so important for any mentor and everything. This person is not saying something to throw you off or, you know, make you argumentive or anything else. There’s no reason to get defensive about whatever they say. So the first thing is just acknowledge that this objection is real. This person is having an emotion or a belief around this, whatever it is. So let’s acknowledge that and then let’s unpack it. So one of the things that I say to the rest of the mentors and to my clients all the time when you’re handling objections is like, this is a belief. So what is a belief? A belief is a perceived truth wrapped in a powerful emotion. So let’s figure out what that powerful emotion is first. A lot of times, like I said, it can be fear, it can be anger, it can be hurt from something else. Sometimes it can even be coming from joy or happiness or something like that. But the kernel inside of it isn’t real. So first it’s like, let’s strip away that emotion, right? Let’s get the fear out of there. And let’s just examine whatever is said underneath. I can’t raise rates, you know, I can’t do an NSI that way. I can’t ask questions the way that you’re asking me to, I can’t tell my staff what to do. There’s a big one.

Mike (23:51):

That’s tough sometimes. Yeah.

Josh (23:54):

But once we pull that away, we can start examining it. And we can say, no, this requires leadership with your staff. No, you do need to raise rates because it’s very clear, numbers never lie. And when we look at your metrics and we look at that, we can see very clear that you actually do have to raise rates. Your business will not last, you know, the way that it is. You can ask questions like this in your no sweat intro because you’re looking for a very particular client, you have a target. You’re not looking for everybody.

Mike (24:26):

Yeah. You mentioned a really interesting thing where the thing that for me, my fear was that I would lose all my members if I raised my rates and I was doing a number of things. Like I was projecting my financial situation onto them. I was doing all, you know, just not objectively looking at things. And the cool thing for me was obviously having a mentor helped me unpack that, but then show me the actual, you know, the numbers and you have that formula where it’s like, OK, how many members can you afford to lose if you raise your rates and still be at the exact same spot? And I was like, Whoa, you know, if I lose whatever, it was 10 or 15 members. And I raised my rates, I’ll still have the same revenue, but everyone who comes in is going to be at a better rate that’s going to actually support my business.

Mike (25:10):

And then of course we did the steps with a mentor to identify who we thought would leave and who wouldn’t and so forth. And when it got to the end of the day, it just made perfect sense to take that step. And my fear was gone because I had the numbers to back it up. So it’s like we worked through that emotional stage, but we also worked through the data and the systems that Two-Brain had in place. And I felt so much better about it. So it’s kind of like that two-pronged approach. Have you found that with your mentees?

Josh (25:33):

Oh, absolutely. I think one of the cool things about the raise rates and everything is, you know, not only knowing the numbers and everything, but now we have that step in there. Sell 20 people, sell 20 people that come through the door, you know, just to prove it to yourself, to give you courage and everything, you know, and then pull the trigger. Cause then that overcomes the I’m not worth it.

Mike (25:52):

Yeah. You know, when we made our first sale at the new rate, it was just mind blowing and life changing, honestly, because you’re like, wow, someone sees value in this. And we went through that exact same thing when we shut down our physical location and moved online and we changed our rates again to recognize the new service we were providing and we made that sale and wow, OK. People see value in this. And then that gives you that confidence. And that only gives you more momentum. Right. And I’m sure you’ve seen that time and again, with your clients.

Josh (26:21):

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, Mike, I mean, I personally sell, you know, 1500, $3,000 starter packs, you know, all the time. I sell, you know, $15,000 programs for Two-Brain. Like if you have the key, if you have the thing that people want next, like you can charge your value. People will see the value and they will buy from you.

Mike (26:45):

So let’s—this is going to be the last show of 2020. It’s going to land on December 31st. So it’s our last one. Let’s talk about some simple, but powerful things gym owners can do right away. I mean, we’re in a period of kind of New Year’s resolutions and so forth and whether or not they work or, you know, is debatable and so forth. But the idea is right now, especially with lockdowns happening all over the world and a lot of stress, let’s talk about some of the things that gym owners can do right now to start taking action, whether they’re Two-Brain clients or not. If you were trying to get a gym owner right now, you know, on the edge of 2021 to start taking positive action, what would you say to that person?

Josh (27:20):

Yeah. So, whether they’re a Two-Brain client or not, what I would say is you need to have a plan going into 2021. I know that plans got blown up in 2020, you know, people that did it and everything, it doesn’t matter. Right. It doesn’t matter. You know, I would say the vision is the destination. The mission is the map and your values are the compass. Well you’ve got to set the mission. You’ve got to set the map in place and that’s the annual plan for 2021. You have to do that so that it’s giving you the way that you’re going to go. You know, this is how we get to the destination that we’re trying to get to. So, you know, that’s going to be, what type of revenue are we trying to bring in?

Josh (28:05):

How are we bringing that in? Through class, through nutrition, through personal training? How does this align, you know, with my coaches’ goals, that is an extremely important piece that everybody misses out on. It’s you set your goals. And then you go talk to every single one of your staff members and you find out what their goals are. I’ve been able to help my coaches buy new cars, remodel their houses, go on extravagant vacations, you know, marching Adrian’s Wall was one of them one year. Like we’ve been able to do so many powerful things because I have my goals, they have their goals, let’s get them into alignment. And that’s all in that annual plan.

Mike (28:48):

Now I know you’re a former military guy and thank you for your service of course. But I’m going to ask you a question. There’s a phrase that I’ve heard, you tell me if this is accurate, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Josh (28:58):

Yeah, absolutely. It always goes up windows and that’s why we have tactics, right?

Mike (29:03):

Yeah. So I’m going to look into my Two-Brain crystal ball officially here and say the 2021 is probably going to throw some curves at people who set these plans. So how do they adapt to that stuff and prepare?

Josh (29:12):

So that’s why we have tactics. So in the military, there’s a way that, you know, we perform, you know, battle drills. Battle drill one alpha,you know, I can’t even remember what the stuff’s called anymore. Squad assault, you know, or team assault. But those same tactics are what gets you through those times. So what are the tactics that we use? Well, there’s sales tactics. How do you sell from the floor? Right. I know that with the new Two-Brain programming, I don’t know if we’re talking about that too much now, but Brooks is actually including like, Hey, here’s an opportunity to sell from the floor, right? That’s huge. That’s a huge tactic because even if you get punched in the mouth, you can still sell from the floor. Goal setting, right?

Josh (29:55):

That’s a tactic that you can still use. Reaching out to clients is still a tactic. So, it’s like when the plans go out the window and everything else, we can still fall back on our training. We can still fall back on the tactics that we have to employ to make it through it. I mean, that’s exactly what we saw with so many gyms when we got shut down the first time. Two-Brain swooped in, gave everybody a bunch of tactics for online, which most of us had never done before, but they were vetted sources from Grinnell and others. And all of a sudden we were able to put those to use and really put our gyms into a situation where we could succeed in an area that we had never been in before.

Mike (30:34):

If you’re listening and you don’t have that second shutdown guide that Josh just mentioned, you can get that. We’ll put that link in the show notes. It’s full of tactics if you are getting shut down, or if you just want to explore online options without any government restrictions in place. The cool part that you’ve mentioned there is these tactics. And really like the roadmap is essentially, I think there’s like four or 500, 600 squares of tactics, right? So as a mentor, when you—let’s say someone’s got a plan in place, it gets blown up in 2021 because of whatever COVID pandemic related restrictions, you can then diagnose the problem and say, OK, what’s going on? What is your major problem? And let’s say that problem is I need to get some new clients in here, and we’re only allowed to sell online services. You can then use that roadmap, help people figure out how to sell more, help them develop online programs because all of those tactics are embedded on that roadmap. Correct?

Josh (31:25):

Yup. Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of cool because you can always fall back. Like, that’s the beauty of that roadmap and everything. It’s like, OK. Something just hit us in the mouth that we weren’t prepared for and everything. Well, it’s like, well, let’s go back to the roadmap and let’s look, OK, well, one, two and three are already set up and in place. So we know that we’re already past that. And then maybe four or five is the tactic at that point for how to sell. Right. So you’re just like, OK, let’s fall back to the lowest common denominator. Well, that’s five right now, you know, in this area and you know exactly what to do, then the mentor is there, you know, to help you form formulize that next plan, that next strategy and move forward. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I’m probably being a little vague because, you know, there’s all the information on the roadmap.

Josh (32:10):

It’s so massive and everything, but like for online training, you know, the first thing is like, know what you’re selling, know what you’re charging. And then it’s like go out to five former clients. Well, you know exactly what to do because that’s your warmest leads, right? That’s your hottest leads are these former clients that may have stepped away because of a shutdown. So now you’re like, OK, let’s go to them and offer this thing. Right. Let’s get them back on the boat. So it tells you exactly what to do. And then the next step might be affinity market those clients, right. Reach out to their closest people.

Mike (32:45):

So to take action, the first thing I think if I’m summarizing you correctly, is that people need to have a vision, right. They need to set their vision for 2021 and really decide which way they’re going. Is that accurate?

Josh (32:57):

Yeah. Yeah. Whether they’re a Two-Brain client or not, if they’re not, the first step of action is sign up for mentorship.

Mike (33:04):

That’s would be the one. Yeah. And then you’ve got your vision. Is there a second step that we can give them right now that they would want to do after that vision?

Josh (33:12):

So the thing that I would do next, because this is in a planning stage is write down pretty much every tactic, you know, for sales, write down every tactic for marketing that you know. Goal setting would be a tactic for one of those. Do those so that they’re at the front of your mind, so that when the plan goes to crap, you can immediately, shift from, you know, your known point and start carrying out these tactics to save you in a bad situation.

Mike (33:41):

And really, there’s a huge link. Like we talked about between the two, because if you have your vision set down, that’s really going to affect the tactics that are available to you, right? Like if your vision is to serve elite competitors, which, you know, it’s not my vision, but if someone has that vision, your marketing and your sales tactics, and all the things you’re going to do are gonna be very different from mine. If my vision is to serve 30 to 40 year old people who want to lose weight.

Josh (34:03):

Yeah. Massively. So we even had this conversation on the Two-Brain Facebook group, the internal one, the growth group, the other day, where one of the guys was asking should he do, it was like some type of founders club or some type of discount type thing. And my answer back to him was, well, that’s a tactic and all tactics work, but what really matters is what is the client avatar that you’re trying to get? So he wrote me back the client avatar, and then I was like, OK, if you use the tactic that you just asked about, will you be able to get the client avatar that you want? And he’s like, probably not. I’m probably going to get bargain hunters. I’m probably going to get whatever. So it was like, no, the answer is no, you can’t use that tactic.

Mike (34:47):

So there it is, vision first, know what you want to accomplish and then get your tactics in place so that basically your arsenals in front of you, and when things go weird, you can pick the thing that you need, but you have to have that vision first, or it’s not going to work. Josh. This has been great. I’m really happy we had the red beard of wisdom on the show. I’m curious to see at the end of next year, if you’ll have more award winners, you think you can do that for us?

Josh (35:13):

I’m a very overconfident person. And after I got four of seven this year, I was like, well, what do I need to do to get seven of seven?

Mike (35:21):

I thought you’d say something like that. We’ll talk next year after the Two-Brain awards and see where you’re at. And we’ll get you back on here one way or the other. Thank you so much for your time and wisdom. I really appreciate it. That was Josh Price. And this is Two-Brain Radio. If you want to take action to grow your gym, go to twobrainbusiness.com and click Free Tools at the top. You will find a host of guides and resources you can use to take action today. That’s twobrainbusiness.com, free tools. Head there right now, and I’ll see you next time on Two-Brain Radio.

 

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Your Personal Scorecard

How are you doing?

We measure long-term success through financial metrics, entrepreneurial progress and changes to the quality of your lifestyle.

To measure the quality of your lifestyle, we break it down into the “Six F’s”:

Family
Faith
Future
Finances
Freedom
Fitness

This exercise was created for Two-Brain entrepreneurs by Bonnie Skinner of Skinner Psychotherapy.

You can listen to her talk about the Personal Check-In exercise here: Two-Brain Radio. Two-Brain entrepreneurs in our Tinker Phase do the PCI exercise each quarter and track their results on the Two-Brain Roadmap.

To download the Personal Check-In exercise, click here.

Eyes on the Horizon

Entrepreneurship is tough. While most employees try to achieve work-life balance, that’s an impossible task for an entrepreneur because we don’t have fixed schedules. Especially in the Founder and Farmer phases of entrepreneurship, the owner accepts the imbalance of time in hopes of achieving a huge imbalance in the other direction later. That’s what “leverage” means: changing the balance of time and money in your life.

Some try to leverage their time and business in a different way. Dan Martell recommends a strategy called “Work-Life Integration,” but that doesn’t really work for me. Instead, I have to take regular stock of the six F’s in my life and rate them as objectively as possible. Then I have to decide what to prioritize from there.

Here’s what’s interesting: Your happiness in life isn’t determined by your score on the PCI. It’s not even determined by your average. Your happiness is determined by your progress.

If you’re improving, you’ll be happier.

In this series, I took you on a journey of self-reflection and measurement. The point wasn’t to invite comparison or ranking. I’m not trying to make you feel good (or bad) about yourself. My purpose is to give you a starting point for 2021.

From this starting point, try to improve. Acquire skills. Test and measure. Seek help. Think about your failures and celebrate your wins.

Always, always just keep moving forward.

Happy New Year!

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Your Entrepreneurial Growth Scorecard

Win, lose or draw—what was 2020 to you?

The most important thing is that you’re still an entrepreneur.

Your mission as an entrepreneur is to create enough value for your clients that you create wealth (the freedom of finances and time) for yourself.

Let’s take a look at your progress, using the Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief Test. Click here to take it.

Entrepreneurs move through four distinct phases on their journeys:

Founder Phase—You’re doing everything yourself, bootstrapping and paying yourself as an employee in your business. Founders usually have 0-50 clients.

Farmer Phase—You’re hiring people and managing them, scaling up your business by adding systems, and growing to 150 clients and a 15 percent profit margin.

Tinker Phase—You’re duplicating your success and working toward wealth (the freedom of finances and time).

Thief Phase—You’re creating a legacy for your family and community.

Knowing which phase of entrepreneurship you’re in can help you decide where to focus in 2021, what kind of mentor to get and what advice you can skip (for now). I wrote a book about it called “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief,” and our mentorship platform follows this progression.

2020 taught us many lessons. In the long run, it made us better—because we’re playing a long game here. 2020 forced us to find and fix mistakes and double down on our strengths. The key is constant forward motion.

How do you compare to last year? What action did you take in 2020 that will save you money and pain forever? What new revenue streams or programs did you put into orbit that will pay dividends over and over?

This is how you should really judge your year: not by the mountain but by how you’ve learned to climb.

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Your Financial Report Card

How well is your business doing? Let’s look at the numbers.

First, calculate the primary financial metrics in your business by following our definitions here. Then compare your result against Two-Brain gyms around the world below.

What’s most important is that you see improvement, not that you “beat” anyone. Entrepreneurship is a long game. These aren’t the only measures of success. But I don’t have to tell you the value of a leaderboard, right?

Profit

Let’s start with the most important metric for your business: Profit.

How does your score stand up?

A—33 percent profit margin (the top gym in Two-Brain was at a 58 percent profit margin last month).
B—20 percent profit margin.
C —10 percent profit margin.
D—0-10 percent profit margin.

The Two-Brain average in 2020 was 15 percent. The rest of the industry averaged below 0 percent. (Download our “State of the Industry Guide” here.)

Net Owner Benefit

The most important metric for the owner? Net owner benefit.

Add up your pay and your profit distributions first. Then think about the other big expenses you would have to cover if you sold or closed your business. Then add the little “extras”: those times your gym pays for your coffee or buys you lunch. Add them all up. That’s your net owner benefit or the total reward you get from your business. Divide that number by 12 to determine your monthly net owner benefit.

Read more here: “By the Numbers: What Gym Owners Earn.”

How does your score stand up each month?

A—US$7,000+ (the top gym in Two-Brain was over $13,000 in net owner benefit last month).
B—$4,000-$7,000.
C—$2,000-$4,000.
D—$0-$2,000.

Functional Retirement

The most important metric for measuring your progress? Functional retirement.

Functional retirement is a huge milestone for an entrepreneur. It’s the point at which you have the freedom of finances and time.

In the Two-Brain Growth program, we say that functional retirement is achieved when an owner is paid 150 percent of personal monthly expenses and is required to work less than 10 hours per week.

Add up your monthly personal expenses. Then compare that number to what your gym pays you (your net owner benefit, described above).

Next, add up all the time you spend working in your business. Include the time spent scrolling through Facebook groups for gym owners, programming, answering texts from clients—all of it. How does that compare?

How does your score stand up?

A—150 percent pay compared to expenses, 10 hours per week of work.
B—150 percent pay compared to expenses or 10 hours per week of work.
C—100 percent pay compared to expenses and 10-30 hours per week of work.
D—Don’t worry about a rating of D. Most people reading this aren’t close to functional retirement yet. But as time passes, this report becomes more and more important.

Cash Flow

Now let’s dig a bit deeper.

The most important metrics for your cash flow? Average revenue per member per month (ARM), length of engagement (LEG) and lifetime value of a client (LTV).

ARM

ARM: Calculate it by dividing your total revenue by all members at your gym, including your coaches or “freebies.”

Read more about ARM here.

How does your score stand up?

A—$280+ (the top gym in Two-Brain was $582.02 last month).
B—$220-280.
C—$185-220.
D—$125-185.

LEG

LEG: the average length of time a client stays with your business (in months).

Read more about LEG here.

How does your score stand up?

A—35+ months (the top gym in Two-Brain is currently at 58 months).
B—13-35 months.
C—8-13 months.
D—3-8 months.

LTV

LTV: the lifetime value of a client. Calculate it by multiplying your ARM x LEG.

How does your score stand up?

A—$7,500+ (the top gym in Two-Brain had an LTV of $12,412.70 last month).
B—$5,000-$7,500.
C—$3,000-$5,000.
D—$1,000-$3,000.

Effective Hourly Rate

Finally, the “Kingmaker” or “Queenmaker” metric: the value of your time as an entrepreneur.

Effective Hourly Rate (EHR): Add up all the hours you work in the business and all the hours you work on the business. If you’re at the gym, count those hours, even if you’re working out. If you’re doing programming at home, count those hours. If your laptop is open or if you’re combing through Facebook groups for gym owners, count those hours. Add them all.

Then divide that number into your net owner benefit to calculate your EHR. Net owner benefit divided by owner hours equals EHR.

How does your score stand up?

A—$125+ (the top gym in Two-Brain had an EHR of $1,025.60 last month).
B—$70-$125 (basically, you’re earning more as a gym owner than you would as a personal trainer).
C—$35-$70 (you’re earning as much as or more than your staff).
D—$10-$35 (you’re earning as much as or more than you would at another job).

Take Action in 2021

What’s most important? It’s not how you compare against “the average.” It’s how you compare against yourself a year ago.

2020 was the biggest test that any gym owner has ever seen. Survival is a huge win. If you scored mostly C’s and D’s on this test, don’t worry: Just use those ratings as a baseline for next year and use the level above your current state as your target!

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The Entrepreneurial Scorecard

How are you at owning a business?

2020 was The Big Business Reveal. A worldwide pandemic and the resulting shutdowns were the ultimate tests of our businesses. Your weaknesses became obvious. But so, too, should your strengths have been on display.

Did the crisis shut you down?

Did you lose money?

Did you break even?

Did you pivot?

Did you grow? Some did.

Whether you did really well in 2020 or just struggled through—even if you closed down—you’re probably a better entrepreneur than you were in January. You have new scars and probably some new muscles to flex.

How do you measure success as an entrepreneur? It’s more than just the money. In this series, I’m going to tell you how to measure your progress this year.

In the next post, I’ll give you a Financial Scorecard.

After that, I’ll share our Entrepreneurial Growth test.

And finally, I’ll give you our Personal Check-In exercise, created by psychotherapist Bonnie Skinner to help Two-Brain entrepreneurs assess work-life balance.

We measure entrepreneurial progress on the Two-Brain Roadmap—because even setbacks in your business can be wins if they make you a better entrepreneur in the long run. That means taking the stuff that didn’t work, reflecting on it, learning from it (the crucial step) and growing into a better business owner.

No matter what happened, 2020 probably made you a better entrepreneur. Even if it shut your business down, you learned some great lessons for next time. Because entrepreneurship is your job now, the 2020 crisis was just another step in your career.

What’s the next step?

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Avoiding Burnout Through Delegation

By Anastasia Bennett, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

One of the key steps to looking after yourself is knowing when you should delegate.

So how do you know when you need to do it? When is it a good time? How can you afford to pay someone else to do the work?

Here’s an even more important question: Can you afford to burn out?

Delegate and Grow

Delegating is part of the growth of your business and your growth as a leader.

At some point, you will be overwhelmed by your workload, and your performance will start to suffer—maybe your health will decline, too. When that happens, your team will start suffering, and eventually your customers will suffer.

By delegating tasks and freeing time for yourself, you’ll be able to think about your goals, the bigger picture and the direction of your business. You will have more opportunity to manage and lead your team.

Delegating recurring tasks allows you to reduce stress and increase focus. Also, by trusting your team to do the work, you can create a more loyal and engaged staff. Bonus! As your staff members feel more trusted and appreciated, they will develop further and their self-esteem will improve.

Many leaders know all this. So why don’t we delegate before burnout becomes a problem?

Because we think that no one can do our job as well as we can. But everyone is replaceable—including you!We think that it takes too long to delegate and teach, and we’re worried that we might have to “fix it up” in the end anyway.We don’t trust our staff to do the tasks.We actually like doing the tasks.We feel guilty. We think our staff members already do enough and won’t have time—or desire—to take on more work.

Your job as a leader is to manage your team, create goals and a vision, and make sure your ship is sailing smoothly in the right direction. If you are too busy doing all the work yourself, you won’t be able to keep your eye on the compass or track your team’s performance and progress.

Also, as a manager and leader, you must ensure you are helping your staff develop and find success. Delegating tasks helps you to do just that.

How to Delegate

First you need to figure out what you like and don’t like doing. Get rid of things you don’t like doing first. If you don’t enjoy something, the task will take longer to complete and you’ll waste valuable time.

Then identify how much your time is worth. (To learn how to calculate the value of your time, click here.) Let’s say your time is worth $50 per hour as you network, bring new customers to your business, manage your staff, etc.

But suppose you don’t follow up with leads because you hate doing it. How much would you pay someone to do that task for you? Above minimum wage? $17 per hour? If you hire someone for two hours per week, that’s $34 per week. Can you afford that if it the staff person brings in $100 a week in those two hours?

So would you rather make $50 per hour doing something you don’t like or $33 doing nothing? Of course, you won’t sit idle. You will be generating more income or maybe improving yourself by reading a book so you can grow your business.

Once you decide what you can delegate, create a list of tasks you would like the new person to do. Then create standard operating procedures (SOPs) for each task. Go through each duty step by step, and add some pictures if needed. The more effort you put into creating an SOP, the less time you will spend teaching someone how to do it.

Read more: “The Value Ladder”

Where to start:

Create a “delegating mindset” and commit to fully letting tasks go.Make sure you are not just offloading tasks but also teaching your staff and giving them clear expectations. What results do you want to achieve? What targets does your staff have for each task?Get some input on how staff members would like to track performance so they buy into the new role and feel more valuable.Provide all required training and guidance, ask staff to follow your SOPs, and ask them to change the SOPs if doing so will improve things.Monitor and mentor—especially early on in the process. Schedule a regular check-in or weekly catch-up with reporting and time for questions and suggestions. Have set dates for follow-ups so you both know what’s happening and when.Evaluate and provide feedback.

Remember to be there to mentor staff, not micromanage them.

Do you have a task already in mind that you are ready to delegate? Share it with me at anastasia@twobrainbusiness.com—I’d love to hear what it is!

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The Three Most Important Words in Business

By Brian Strump, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

What are the three most important words in business? Surprise! They are “profit” and “cash flow.” 

Profit is what’s left over after all expenses are deducted from revenue. It’s the number from which taxes are calculated. 

Cash flow is the money that comes into and goes out of a business. 

Both are important yet often misunderstood by entrepreneurs.

You can manipulate expenses to influence your profit. However, it’s much more difficult to manipulate your cash flow. You either have the money or you don’t, and when you don’t have the money, the business will feel the financial strain.

You just can’t pay your bills with hard assets or accounts receivable. Whether it’s operating expenses such as payroll or utility bills or other debt, you have to pay in cash. If you’re too quick to spend your free cash on products to sell or assets for growth, or if you’re too quick to allocate it as income for the owners, you might find yourself unable to pay your bills.

It’s important for a business to have a solid understanding of where cash is going every month to reduce wasteful spending. It’s also critical to look for ways to reduce expenses in general to help improve cash flow.  

The long-term health of your business depends on cash flow. The number one reason why businesses fail: They run out of cash. This occurs in businesses that struggle to create revenue, but it’s also a trap that can snare businesses with explosive revenue growth. Often a business that grows and expands too rapidly can find itself short on cash when it’s time to pay debts. Growth of your business is important—but not at the expense of security.

Some additional reasons why strong cash flow is important:

1. It provides the business with greater potential growth opportunities. You can expand your current business, start another business or bring on additional employees.

2. It provides a buffer against slow times. 

3. It protects business relationships with suppliers because you pay off debts in a timely manner.

Cash flow and profit are the two main reasons why I don’t like seeing gurus tout “seven-figure businesses” as the goal. Believe it or not, there are plenty of $1 million businesses that are actually losing money. And there are many six-figure businesses that have exemplary profit margins and cash flow.

Start paying more attention to your cash flow and profit instead of your client count or gross revenue. If you do, you’ll create a more stable business. 

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How to Be a Better Leader in 2021

Mike (00:02):

You’re not really a gym owner. You’re a leader who happens to own a gym. Today on Two-Brain Radio, we’ll tell you how to be a communicative captain.

Chris (00:09):

Before we continue, I’d like to mention that this episode of Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by Wodify. Wodify is an all in one solution for member management, appointment scheduling and tracking. Wodify’s insights tool includes the business health dashboard co-developed with Two-Brain to provide average revenue per member, length of engagement and more key metrics. Gym owners, to receive 20% off your first year of Wodify Core visit wodify.com/twobrain.

Mike (00:36):

This is Two-Brain Radio, and I’m your host Mike Warkentin. Today we’re talking leadership and communication with Anastasia Bennett of WOF Strength and Conditioning in New Zealand. She’s also a certified mentor. All right, Anastasia Bennett. Welcome to the show all the way from New Zealand. How are you today?

Anastasia (00:52):

Good. Thanks for having me here today.

Mike (00:55):

I appreciate you making the time for us, and I’m really excited to talk leadership with you because it’s such a tough thing for gym owners to master. So I’ll get right into it. I’ll ask you right away. What are the most important characteristics of a leader and why are they important in the fitness industry in particular?

Anastasia (01:10):

Yeah, that’s a common question that everyone asks, what are the, you know, what are the characteristics? And I think, I’ll just go from my experience of what I think is the top five.

Anastasia (01:26):

So I think the first one is ability to have a clarity. I think good leaders have very clear vision, right? So they know what their mission is. They know what their value is, and you know, how it’s important to their business. And also they use their values as a decision-making tool to get them closer to their vision. So I think good leaders also are great communicators and they’re able to explain their vision to their team and their team able to understand it because you know, like so many leaders have their vision, but they keep it to themselves.

Mike (02:03):

Chris has talked about that so many times on the blog and you’re exactly right where you need to have a vision and we help our mentees in Two-Brain find that vision. And then you have to communicate it over and over and over again. It’s not enough just to say it once, right. You have to keep explaining it. And if you don’t, people don’t remember it.

Anastasia (02:19):

Exactly. Exactly. And I always say, if you’re able to explain to your five-year-old, then you’re on the right track. It has to be so simple that your five-year-old will understand what it is.

Mike (02:31):

And the cool thing that is gym owners will know, and they’ll know when their vision is taking hold when they hear people around them in their gym actually repeating it back to them, without them having to tell them. Right. And that’s a really cool thing where you see gym owners have really done this amazing job and all of a sudden the vision permeates their entire business. Have you had any of your mentees check off that square on the roadmap yet?

Anastasia (02:53):

Yes. Yes. It’s really cool. And I always work with my mentees on the roadmap because I feel like it’s such an amazing tool. It’s like a game that, you know, you can look forward to and you can tick the boxes and you can achieve something, it’s like a ticking off the list, you know, your to-do list. So, and back to that clarity, we all know that, you know, there’s lots of the people that know where they want to be. But very few know how to get there and good leaders have a plan, they know how to get there. And they are able to explain that to their staff, you know, they’ll help them to get there. Yeah. The second one that I think is quite important is be able to build a relationship on trust. And we know, you know, the business that’s built on trust will be more profitable as well. And it’s create great culture. And it’s also business strategy because it can positively effect operating costs, staff retention, staff engagement, and of course, performance outcome.

Mike (03:59):

And trust isn’t something that you can just like snap your fingers and it appears, right. That’s a long-term thing. So when you talked about, you know, clear communication, it’s also that consistency where your staff and your clients know what you’re all about and they know what they’re getting all the time. So it’s not like, Oh, the coach is having a bad day or the owner’s having a bad day. They know that there’s a level of consistency to things. And that’s kind of how you build trust or are there other ways that you would suggest owners can build trust?

Anastasia (04:25):

No, definitely. Definitely. Trust is like a two-way street. So the more you trust your staff, the more they will trust you and they will trust the way that you run your business. So like, if you trust us it, sorry, if your staff doesn’t trust you, they will struggle with understanding your decisions. And they also will struggle with the team culture and other way around, if they trust you, then they’ll work harder decisions, they’re loyal they have your back. So everything works really well. And then this leads into the next one is, you know, consistency. Good leaders, they’re consistent and they’re committed to, you know, to their goals. So like they make their mind, they take the risk. They’re also not scared to get their hands dirty and lead by example. So, meaning that, you know, if I ask you to do something, you know, that I can and I will do it myself. So, you know, it’s like being a good role model as well to your staff. So that’s how you build the trust.

Mike (05:26):

And that’s interesting because there’s a tough aspect of that. Where, you know, as, as we level up as entrepreneurs, we know that we need the bathrooms cleaned, but we shouldn’t clean them ourselves because it’s not a good use of our time. And I struggle with that personally, where I wanted my gym, you know, my staff to know that, yeah, I would plunge that toilet and I would scrub that floor, but eventually I needed to offload that job. So it’s really creating that culture of leadership where you tell staff members why their job is important. And Chris has talked about this many times in the blog, your leaders need to tell their staff why they’re doing what they’re doing. So when Chris goes for a two-hour bike ride, it looks like he’s just playing, but he’s actually thinking and recharging so that he can be a better CEO. So this is just amazing intricacies to like that leadership aspect.

Anastasia (06:08):

Yeah, exactly. But yes, you have to offload those certain things. But if I walked into my gym and yes, I know a cleaner has been there yesterday, but suddenly a bathroom is missing toilet paper and I’ll do it, you know, and I just can see, or other staff can see that I’ve done it. And like, she’s doing it, I should be doing it. It’s like, I always say, I mainly say it about my kids, but monkey see monkey do. Right. You know, they see you doing it and then will start automatically doing it as well, because that’s part of the culture because that’s what you do, you know? Cause you lead by example, you are a role model. And you’re consistent. Yeah. The next one is I think good leaders have courage and ability to make decisions.

Anastasia (06:56):

So we know the leader needs massive mental horsepower to process information, but also need to have a right personality and confidence to trust in their own decisions and follow through. So if you said you’re going to do something and you like, for example, big topic, always, to increase prices, right? You decide you’re going to increase prices. You spoke to your team, you’re gonna increase prices. And then you announced you’re increasing prices and people complain. Good leaders will stick to their decision. Right. They’ll find a way to communicate and explain why instead of backing out and go, Oh, it’s too hard. People are not happy, whatever. So that’s, you know, the good leaders need to have the courage to take a risk.

Mike (07:45):

Yeah. And making decisions is it sounds so simple, but it’s so hard, especially as the pressure hits right. As a leader, like, you know, maybe it’s just you at the start, but then you have staff and family and they have staff, they have families, all of a sudden decisions that you make now affect 20, 30, 50 people. And the stress of that is enormous. And it’s incredible how much mental horsepower, like you said, it takes for a leader to do that. But if you do it properly, your staff and their families, and everyone becomes more invested because they know you’re working and doing everything you can to make their lives better.

Anastasia (08:19):

Exactly. Exactly. And that’s why it’s so important to over-communicate. You can communicate too much, you know, like you just have to over-communicate whatever you’ve tried to explain,

Mike (08:32):

I’ve made that mistake. I always think people should, they should know. Or I forget that I haven’t told them stuff and then I get upset. Right. And you’re exactly right. You need to over-communicate especially in a business, especially when there’s lots of stress happening. I mean, the COVID crisis is a perfect example. We’ve asked our mentees and gym owners to communicate with their clients and stuff like way, way more than they did before, because the pressure and the stakes are higher now and mistakes are amplified.

Anastasia (09:00):

Exactly. Exactly. And it’s a good example. I made a mistake myself yesterday. I thought I, you know, like you said, you think that people should know and they don’t know. I posted on a page about we had a guest coach and then I announced it to our coaches and said, Oh yeah, we’re going to have a guest coach here, whatever. And it just said his name. And my coach is like, Oh, who’s that? So, you know, like in my head, I’ve explained already to our members and I posted, but a few seconds later, I just sent half message to my team instead of over communicating exactly the same message. So I made a mistake and then I had to explain myself. I’m so sorry. You know, like I’ve explained to members, but I didn’t explain to you guys properly. And I half assed pretty much my communication. So yes, we all do make mistakes and it just, you learn those lessons as you go. And it’s a good reminders to yourself. That’s right. I need to over-communicate, i need to explain this not just once, not just twice, maybe three times

Mike (10:10):

Being a parent probably helps. Right. You learn that with your kids. I’m sure.

Anastasia (10:15):

I feel like I’m like a broken record all the time.

Mike (10:19):

All right. What’s our next characteristic?

Anastasia (10:22):

The next one is intention. An intention of motivating others. You know, we don’t want to manage people. We want to motivate them. And that’s where it comes down to knowing what their values are and knowing what your business values and try to align them. And if they’re drawing a line, you either try to find a way that it works for both or it might not be the right staff.

Mike (10:50):

Yeah. So that’s the concept of like, as a leader, you’re inspiring people to follow you in their own way, right. You’re giving them some leeway to do things within the boundaries of your business, but you’re not necessarily, I mean, at times you are, but you’re not necessarily behind them shoving them and pushing them because if you have to do it that much, they’re probably not the right people. And you’ve got the right people on the bus so to speak at that point, you can just lead and set a great example and they’ll follow you because they’re motivated and they see your vision, which you’ve communicated clearly, clearly and consistently, as you just said.

Anastasia (11:21):

Definitely. We should make sure that our staff is encouraged and trained in a manner that meets their needs and the business needs as well. So motivating them and empower them to up skill, to do better and, you know, be empowered to learn more as well. And I think it’s quite important to show them appreciation and give them some little rewards to influence them to achieve desired goal as well. Like when they empower good behavior or reinforce positive action when they do something. Right. And I think that’s quite a big part of motivation as well. Yeah.

Mike (12:05):

It can be as simple as just even just a quick text or email saying, Hey, I noticed you changed the paper towels at the end of your shift, thank you so much. Or it could be something like, Hey, I got you a $20 gift card to Starbucks and something like that. But I think leaders sometimes forget that just the smallest word from a respected leader carries so much weight with the staff.

Anastasia (12:25):

Exactly. Yes, definitely. Definitely. And again I had a good reminder yesterday. I was emailing our clients reminding about CrossFit teams intake what’s happening next year. And I CC’d the [unintelligible] we’ll be taking. And when the client replied yes to book and they had a few words and they, whatever I said, coach actually replied to them. And I was reading the replies like, wow, they’re such lovely replies. So I went out of my way and I messaged him, the coach. And I said, that was such a lovely replies to clients. And you know, it made him happy and I didn’t realize that it was quite a big impact until, you know, I saw a little heart, you know, like on the comments you get, like it is important to you. And I keep forgetting how important it is to say these little things that, to say that you’re doing an amazing job, you know, I love how you did this, but when we say that you do an amazing job, we want to bring it back, explain what they did well. So then it reinforces the positive actions.

Mike (13:33):

When a respected leader gives you a pat on the back, it makes you feel so good and makes you want to try harder. So I agree with you so much on that one. I’ve been having a good time listening. Is that number four, number five characteristic?

Anastasia (13:43):

That’s number five. Yes.

Mike (13:47):

Let me ask you this. Now we’ve got the characteristics in front of us. Are leaders born with these characteristics or can you train them or learn them?

Anastasia (13:55):

It’s quite tricky. Out of my own interest, I did some research on that and I was trying to, because in my head I always had, Oh, I know leaders are born, definitely, but actually research by some psychologist has proven that leaders are mostly made and yeah, and apparently there’s research. So it shows that there’s about one third that are born and two-thirds that are made. And it clearly indicates that certain characteristics help to be a good leader. You know, there are the characteristics that you are born with, but you also can learn all of these skills and to become a good leader.

Mike (14:40):

I would have thought it was the other way. I would’ve thought it would’ve been two thirds born and a third are learned. And it’s fascinating to me that it’s the opposite.

Anastasia (14:48):

And apparently, the ability to lead and motivate like a group of people mostly comes from experiences self-development and exceeds to right training.

Mike (14:58):

So that’s interesting. So then as a gym owner, if you’re talking about your staff, you can certainly mold and train leaders by being a good example. And by giving them the training that they need, and then they have to take some ownership themselves with some self-directed work.

Anastasia (15:14):

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (15:16):

So at your gym and your staff, have you had that experience where you’ve been able to take someone who was, maybe wasn’t quite a thriving leader to start and then develop that person into a great leader? Has that happened for you?

Anastasia (15:27):

I think most coaches do become leaders. If they want it, or they don’t want it, you know, like, it’s just part of their job. Yes, actually, I’m looking back when I first approached my head coach, he was just a member and he wasn’t a coach, and I said, you’re going to be a great coach. You know, you are what people want to see as a coach. And he was like, no, I don’t want to be a coach. So a few months later, we asked him to intern and then he got his level one, he become a coach. Then many months later, I was like, you’re going to be a great head coach. I can see this. And he was like, no, no, no, I don’t want to manage people. Like, I’m not good at this, whatever. I was like, I think you’re going to be a great head coach.

Anastasia (16:13):

It’s not about managing people. It’s about teaching them and motivating and empowering and stuff then. And so I helped him to become a head coach without saying that he was a head coach. And then a year later I said to him, look for the last year, you’ve be doing a head coach role. Would you like to get paid as a head coach now? And that’s pretty much how he became a head coach. And he’s been with me for seven years.

Mike (16:39):

That’s a huge mind trick.

Anastasia (16:39):

Yeah, because I guess I saw it in him before he saw it in himself. So he was not a born leader. He is more people, you know, he is a very extroverted people person, you know, let’s just say, clown. Always makes everyone happy around. But he learned the skills of leadership.

Mike (17:07):

Yeah. It’s interesting. Cause I’ve seen both at my gym, we have some coaches that we saw immediately, as soon as they walked in the door, that is just a person that people will follow that, you know, he or she just had that something. Like they were the kind of character that you would just follow because they’re inspiring. They’re consistent, they’re clear. They have a vision. All the things that you’ve talked about, we’ve had other staff members over the years that I think we did the same thing as you where we saw something in them, put them in a role as a coach. And at the start, they were a little bit nervous about it, but you could see as they developed confidence, they started to grow into that role. And that for me was a big realization. And it goes back to what you said before.

Mike (17:44):

Confidence is huge. And as people build that confidence, then they to grow into leadership roles and they start to have confidence to make decisions and do the things that you need them to do. And that confidence often comes from, let’s say, working with a mentor, like for example, you’re talking about you’re setting an example, they learn from you and then they start to get their own competence, especially when you’re reinforcing it, you’re correcting their errors, you know, kindly and constructively. You’re giving them feedback and you’re developing them and really bringing out the best traits in them. So you can really develop a leadership, you know, leadership qualities in a coach, at least that’s what I’ve seen. And it comes from my mind from confidence.

Anastasia (18:21):

Yeah. And I can see that even with my mentees or other mentees, they have become better leaders because they have this support from the mentor that helps them to be empowered and encourages them. And it just gives confidence. And I think when I got a mentor with Two-Brain, I became a better leader.

Chris (18:47):

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

Mike (19:08):

You make a great point there with, you know, and I remember like back in the early days, it was like, you know, 2010 or something like that. And I would sit in the stands at CrossFit events and I would talk to other gym owners and ask them all the questions, you know like, Oh, have you ever raised your rates? Or what do you do with a problem member? And you bounce these things off them, right. And you would learn and develop confidence and you’d find your way to being a better gym owner through that process. Now with an established mentorship curriculum, we’ve solved all those problems and Two-Brain has put all that stuff in the roadmap and our mentors know how to solve these problems. As a gym owner, it’s just so fascinating because we work with one of the Two-Brain mentors as well, to be able to just ask some questions, get some outside perspective and say, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this.

Mike (19:48):

What do you think? Well, that looks like a good idea. And all of a sudden you feel much better about it. And you can act as a confident leader because you’ve done your research as opposed to just winging it. And that’s really the benefit of having a mentor with you.

Anastasia (19:59):

Exactly. Exactly. I always say I have a mentor because they have no emotional connection to my business so they can see and tell me from the, you know, from outside how things look like or how they should be, rather than me being emotional about it. And you get stuck in that, you know, cycle, so yeah.

Mike (20:20):

So let’s talk a little bit about that with—we talked about communication already, but let’s dive into that one. How do great leaders communicate with their staff? Because it seems like, you know, if we’re talking about staff and leadership, the gym owner, we need that person to become better at inspiring the staff members, developing them, you know, all the things that you mentioned, what can we do to communicate better as gym owners with our staff?

Anastasia (20:45):

Yeah, it’s a good question. And I’m still learning myself. I ended up taking communication at uni last year just to help myself with that skill as well. So what I’ve learned is, number one is listen, you know, you need to learn how to be a good listener because that’s the heart of the communication, right? People that have good ability to listen, they can answer the question in a more meaningful way as well. And you know, like if you don’t take an effort in active listening, you really disservice yourself and the other person. So number one is listening.

Mike (21:27):

And that’s fascinating because everyone thinks communication is all about what you need to say. That’s only 50%. You need to listen first. And that’s a really great point to remember.

Anastasia (21:38):

Yeah, listen first. Also knowing your audience, who you’re talking to is quite important because the way you will talk to your child or your partner would be very different the way you will talk to your boss. And it also will be very different how you would talk to your stuff. So knowing your audience is super important and like to understand this perspective, you can always have the same sentence that you want to say and then say it how you would say it to your partner, and then try to say same way, how you would say to your staff, for example. Then it will help you to understand this perspective, like, Oh, OK. Yeah. I actually have to know my audience. I have to change my tone and how I deliver exactly the same message to three different audiences.

Mike (22:29):

You can probably break that down even further saying you have two different staff members and one benefits from like, you know, maybe more abrupt or more direct communication and another needs maybe slightly a softer delivery. So you have to kind of tailor your communication styles to each person on your staff and in your life. Probably.

Anastasia (22:47):

Exactly, exactly. A hundred percent. The other one is to minimize. So when you try to communicate something to someone, stick to the point. The more information you give out, the more you’re going to confuse.

Mike (23:02):

Oh, that’s a good one, that goes back to clarity. Yeah.

Anastasia (23:05):

Yeah. Yep. It provides clarity in many cases, a hundred percent.

Mike (23:09):

I’ve made that mistake many times when the thing that you need to say is tough to say. And so instead of saying that thing, you dance around it and you keep kind of circling around, circling around, circling around, and then the person is just irritated, confused. And then by the time you actually get to the point it doesn’t work. And, you know, Chris has written articles about this in the blog. And the thing that he said is just come right out with it and just say, it’s not working out. We have to fire you. And then after that, you know, you sort out the rest, but at least the hard part’s out of the way,

Anastasia (23:37):

Yes. A hundred percent. But also at the same time, it’s can be quite hard. And some people that think I’m too direct because I go straight to the point and it’s, I guess, one of the things and cultural things that you learn in Russia is that you have to be right to the point, very direct. And when I came to New Zealand, I struggled a little bit because, you know, culture in New Zealand, you kind of smooth things out a bit, you know, before you get to the point and I’ve got the reputation of being a little bit too direct.

Mike (24:12):

Well, but you know, it’s funny cause the Canadian culture is a lot like that too. Like we’re very, like new Zealand’s, pardon me, we’re very, you know, laid back and kind of don’t ruffle feathers and so forth, but sometimes we’re just ineffective communicators. And you know, it’s interesting, like I think back to one of the best communicators that I worked with back in the day when I was at CrossFit was Dave Castro. And one of the reasons for that was Dave was very direct and he would never, you know, hesitate and say, Oh, I don’t know about this. He would say, I like it. Or I don’t like it. That was really, it was really easy to work with. And some people, you know, you could take that as like, Oh, it’s abrupt or gruff, but I always found it refreshing because I never had to guess. I always knew exactly what I was getting into. And it was like, this is good. We’re done. Or this needs to change, do it now. And I’m like, OK, good. I like that.

Anastasia (24:59):

No surprises.

Mike (25:02):

When people have to guess or when they’re confused, like when you leave a conversation with a superior and you’re confused, that’s not a good feeling.

Anastasia (25:10):

Definitely not. No. And the next one again, over communicate, and it comes to, you know, communication with your staff or with your clients, like, for example, if you tried to enroll someone into something or trying to promote one of your challenges or workshops or courses, you know, sending out one email, for example, this just example is not going to be enough. You want to send an email, then you want to send another email two weeks later. Then you want to send a reminder week before it. And then a little short reminder one day before. So if it comes to your staff, over communicating, if you have something coming up like event or meeting or whatever, and you try to discuss, I mean, again, you talk about it, you send email reminder. Maybe you send some questions that you’re going to be talking about as well. So then they can come prepared and know what the conversation’s going to go about.

Mike (26:08):

It’s really funny from a media perspective, because this principle applies there as well. People assume that when you say something once everyone hears it or remembers it, and it’s not the case, right. It just isn’t. And so like, if you have an event and you announce it once maybe you get to 20% of the people, you know, you announce it fourr five or eight times, you probably get to like 70%, maybe something like that. And it’s the same thing with like communicating. And we talked about this in mentorship vision. Your vision for your gym is the most important thing of all. What I did was I just wrote it out. I put it on the wall in my gym and I assumed that everyone read it. No one read it, right. Except for me. And then I couldn’t understand why people didn’t know. And so communicating all the time and saying the same things over and over again, almost sounds redundant, but if you do it in creative ways, you’re going to get the effect that you want, as opposed to just saying it once, forgetting about it. And then wondering why no one understands.

Anastasia (26:58):

Exactly, exactly. I can’t remember. I was reading somewhere, was it 11 or 16 times? You need to get something in front of someone before they actually see it, especially if you put it out on social media.

Mike (27:11):

Yeah. And you know, that number is probably, I bet that number is going up, you know, as we get more and more information overload on Instagram and Facebook and all the other stuff, I bet it becomes more important now than ever to communicate better because people are so distracted. Back in the day before there were cell phones and the internet and all those other stuff, you could tell people something and nothing was going off in their pocket and buzzing and distracting them. But now getting notifications, not listening. So I agree with you. I think seeing things over and over again is important. And the really talented communicators find creative new ways to say the same thing over and over again. And Chris is really good at this on the blog. He talks about the same principles regularly, but he’s always got a new twist or a new story or something that makes it engaging or some sort of presentation that helps you remember and connect with it. So that’s the one I’ll tackle on there is communicate, communicate regularly and communicate creatively.

Anastasia (27:58):

Yeah. Yeah. And the last one of course is the body language. You know, if you are communicating in the front of someone, the body language is crucial. You always need to give them eye contact. You want to, you know, you want to make sure that, you’re sitting forward towards the person that you’re listening to them, that you’re engaged. You know, one thing for me personally, if I’m sitting in the room of someone and they’re crossing their arms and legs, I just can’t help myself and go, all right, I was going to start this conversation this night, or you’re going to relax because you know, those arms is like, it’s a block.

Mike (28:37):

I don’t like it. Like I had a real passionate dislike of coaches in our gym crossing their arms and standing, I couldn’t stand it. Or leaning against something. That was the other thing I hate it because those two things to me, in an active, physical-fitness environment where you’re trying to inspire people to be better. That to me says disengaged, lazy, tired, fatigued, all the things that shouldn’t be in a gym, in a leader in the gym. Do you agree?

Anastasia (29:01):

100%. It’s one of our internship process that we tell people, if you don’t know where to put your hands, put them behind your back.

Mike (29:08):

It’s almost military. Right?

Anastasia (29:10):

Well, I guess I did it for my husband who is a police dog handler. You know, that’s the same thing for them. If they didn’t know where to put your hands, put them behind your back? Like, you know, not like they’re trying to arrest you, but behind the back like you’re open to communication.

Mike (29:28):

But it’s like, you make a great point because a lot of people don’t think about the body language and especially in the age of like texting and virtual stuff. And especially right now in COVID where everyone’s online and you can’t always see each other, you can get away with a lot of stuff. Right. You know, when you’re in person though, or when you were communicating, you know, even I’ll even step back, even on the phone, if your voice sounds really bored and it’s very different than when you’re active, right. Everything that you do in terms of the way you use your voice and the way that you stand and the way that you engage people, even eye contact, that makes a huge difference. But I think a lot of people forget about that because they’re often tapping with their thumbs on a phone. Yeah. So let’s move on to the last thing here. Let’s talk about some of the things listeners can do today to improve leadership and communication skills. You worked with a mentor. You also are a mentor to many people, and you’re a coach in a gym. You’ve got tons of clients. Let’s give some listeners a few things that they can do today to start working on leadership skills.

Anastasia (30:26):

So the first thing I would be concentrating is trying to create a shared sense of purpose between yourself and your team. So trying to have clear communication of your vision and then take your people along on your journey. So that would be number one for me.

Mike (30:49):

So the thing that you’d have to do is you have to have a vision statement or a vision, and we help our mentees figure that out. We help them dial it in and teach them exactly like, why do you run this business? What are you trying to accomplish? So that would be the step that I would say is find out what your vision is. It doesn’t have to be the most grandiose thing, but create a vision statement and then share it with your staff. So that gets that, that shared purpose. Get them on board.

Anastasia (31:17):

Yeah. And that’s always the question I ask my mentees. I’m like, is your staff going for walks with you or are they actually going to destination?

Mike (31:25):

Oh, that’s a good one.

Anastasia (31:27):

And that makes them realize like, ah, I dunno, I think they’re going for a walk. You know, I was like, all right. So then your goal is to make sure that you have a clear vision and you can clearly communicate it back to them and explain where you actually going and how you’re going to get.

Mike (31:44):

Yeah, I love it. And I’m going to throw a resource at you listeners if you’re struggling with that process, we’re going to put a link in the show notes, it’s to a show, Two-Brain Radio episode called when no one sees your vision and it’s all your fault. And it’s with Two-Brain mentor Kaleda Connell. And she’ll talk about some of the ways that you can get around that problem. So check out that resource, if you don’t have a vision statement.

Anastasia (32:06):

The next one is just a practice of treating people fairly, giving the credit when it’s due, and take personal responsibility when things go wrong.

Mike (32:15):

So that one, if people want to put that in practice today. What that is is I would suggest, complimenting someone on, let’s say this, how complimenting four or five staff members today, just with a simple text on something.

Anastasia (32:28):

That’s perfect. That’s great. Yes. A hundred percent.

Mike (32:31):

Cause people forget. Right? So let me just take five, you know, to take like a minute to send five quick texts and just say, Hey, I thought your cue in the five o’clock class was great. Thank you. I saw you change the toilet paper. Thank you. You know, five texts and all of a sudden you’ve done some communication with your staff and you’ve built a relationship.

Anastasia (32:48):

Yes. Yep. And the other one, if you don’t communicate with your staff regularly, like if it’s only once a month catch up, I would recommend practicing sending email out weekly and it could be basic one. You know how the week when at the gym, what’s coming next week and what you need help with. And I would also ask a question. You want to ask some sort of question that relevant to what actually is happening at your business right now. So then you get communication back that you know, that they’re reading, you know, they understood what you were talking about and they’re communicating back. So there’s an engagement.

Mike (33:24):

That’s a great principle that shows up even in marketing, where when we send emails to clients, asking a question and asking them to respond is a great way to exactly do what you said, find out if they’re listening and reading. And the other thing is it gives them an opportunity to voice a concern or to tell you there’s a problem that you can solve before it becomes a big problem. So when we talk about, say like marketing things and retention, we’ll often send out emails to clients saying, you know, here’s some tips. You’ve been here for three months, have your goals changed? Hit reply. And let me know, you know, what your goals are for the next three months. If they reply and say, Oh, you know, I just haven’t accomplished anything. I’m struggling. That client is going to walk away. And then you can fix that by responding to that email. So opening a dialogue is such an important thing. So that’s the thing. So let’s tack that on. So if people are home today and they want to do this, send an email to your staff and ask a question at the end, get them to respond. And if you don’t hear, would you poke them again and say, Hey, did you get my email? Would you do that?

Anastasia (34:22):

Definitely. Definitely. I normally do that with clients as well. With gym clients, I set up, like I normally set up automated email and I set it up and like promoting something, whatever it is. And then a couple of days later, I send another email, Hey, have you seen my email that I sent you about this offer that I have for you? So it kind of reminds them to read it.

Mike (34:47):

It’s so important to get that dialogue, because again, that’s the whole thing is you want to start like communication can’t be one way. You can certainly like with automations and email, you can send emails and people still read them and don’t respond. But once they do respond, that’s a next step in the communication chain. And that’s super important to building relationships. Right. And especially with staff, like your closest staff people in your gym.

Anastasia (35:07):

Yes. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Because, you know, if you look after your staff, they’ll look after your clients. That’s the one thing that I’ve learned long time ago.

Mike (35:18):

And everyone’s happy, right? The business thrives, the clients are happy. Your staff has clients that pay their bills and the gym owner is happy because he or she is making a profit. So it’s a big win for everyone. And it all comes from the leader.

Anastasia (35:30):

Yes, it always comes from the top.

Mike (35:33):

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about this and give us those three things that people can try if they need to be better leaders. We’ll check back with you in a little while in the next year or so. And we’ll talk more leadership. Will you come back and do that?

Anastasia (35:45):

Of course I will, thank you, Mike, for having me.

Mike (35:47):

Thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. That was Ana Bennett on Two-Brain Radio. For a host of free resources from Two-Brain founder, Chris Cooper, head to twobrainbusiness.com and click free tools. You’ll get over a dozen free guides that will help you improve your gym today. I’m Mike Warkentin, your host. Please subscribe for more episodes of Two-Brain Radio.

 

The post How to Be a Better Leader in 2021 appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

COVID: The New “Hit by a Bus” Test

By Kenny Markwardt, Certified Two-Brain Fitness Business Mentor

It was a gorgeous, sunny Friday in mid-June when I got the call from my wife: “‘Tyler’ has COVID.”

“What?” I stammered. It was the last thing I expected. It was early in the reopening period after the first shutdown due to the pandemic, and until then I hadn’t known anyone who had caught the virus.  

“Tyler” is a member of our coaching staff, and I was soon to find out that he had been in the gym with 10 other people (including another coach) the day before he tested positive. (Editor’s note: Names and exact circumstances have been altered to protect the privacy of those in the story.)  

Are you prepared for that call, and do you know what to do immediately after you get off the phone?

Pre-2020, we called similar but fictional situations like this the Hit by a Bus Test in our work with mentees. If you’ve been following Two-Brain for any period of time, you’re probably familiar with the premise: “Could your business survive without you if something happened suddenly?”  

It’s slightly morbid to think about, but it’s important. You provide a tremendous service to your members, meaningful careers to your staff and an income for your family. If your absence threatens all those things and more, you have a big, big problem.  

All of us are working to make sure our businesses don’t collapse without us, but because the Hit by a Bus Test is hypothetical, it was sometimes hard to take things as seriously as we should have.

Well, folks, COVID-19 is the new Hit by a Bus Test, and it’s not so hypothetical anymore.

Plan Now!

The unfortunate reality: There is a good chance that, sometime in the next several months, you could contract COVID-19 or be in close contact with someone who has, forcing you to quarantine for 10-14 days. That means you cannot leave your home or have physical contact with anyone for roughly two weeks.  

How will your gym fare in that situation?

What is your plan?

For your sake and your members’ sake, your answer cannot be “we will just shut down until I get out of quarantine.”

So quickly answer the following:

Who is going to take your classes?
Who is going to take your foundations and/or personal training clients?
Who is going to do your No Sweat Intros?
Who is going to restock the retail products and the toilet paper?
Who is going to buy more toilet paper (assuming there is any left on the shelves) and supplies?
Who is going to take on any other duties you do regularly?

Then ask yourself a question about the people who will take on the duties: “Are they going to do things to the standard that my members and I expect?” 

Regardless of whether people are kind and understanding of your situation, the question warrants consideration. Your Seed Clients and founding members will give you some grace if things aren’t perfect, but the people who started in the last three months might not. After two weeks of open gym and clogged toilets, they might just head down the street.  

Resources

As you ponder your answers to the questions above, please remember that you aren’t going to have a lot of time to solve problems if sickness hits. You could get a call in the next 30 minutes that will make this drill a very real part of life.  

If you find yourself lacking answers or lacking confidence in your answers, take action.  

If you’re a Two-Brain Business client, head over to your Roadmap and spend as much time as you can working on your “Upgrade Team” highways. Tell your mentor you need help and accountability. Schedule your own “Hit by COVID” preparedness deadline two weeks from now, do the work and then inform your staff of your plans.  

If you’re not a Two-Brain client, start here with some of our free resources:

Chris Cooper on the importance of having good systems: “Systems Aren’t Sexy—but You Absolutely Need Them to Succeed”
“8 Steps to Excellent Operations for Gym Owners”
“Gym Business Systems: How to ‘Survive a Bus Crash'”
“Gym Business Systems: Optimization”

Even if you never actually have to put these plans into action, you might discover something even more important through the exercise: You might find out you don’t have to wear all the hats in the business. You might realize you can find qualified people to help you, you can level up in your business, and you can start to think bigger. At it takes is action.  

The knowledge that you can hand over responsibilities—in an emergency or by choice—is incredibly freeing and will be a powerful driver of business and personal success. Someday when we can all travel again, your two-week “Hit by COVID” plans can serve as a two-week “Hit the Beach in Mexico” plan instead!

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