Chris Cooper's Blog, page 27

From 12-Hour Days and Low Wages to Top-Earning Gym Owner!

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These 3 Things Gut Gym-Owner Earnings

What stops gym owners from earning more?

The reality is you probably need to stop doing something to improve your income. I know that sounds strange, but most people don’t reach a higher net owner benefit (NOB) for three reasons:

They have no focus.They have no plan.They are distracted.
Focusing on Profit

Like your deadlift, your NOB improves when you consciously pay attention to it and are very purposeful about increasing it.

Your deadlift might have improved a little bit just with general fitness when you started working out, but after your deadlift hits 300 or 400 lb., you have to be intentional about improving it.

And when you open a gym, you might be able to commit to paying yourself $900 a week because your family will starve if you don’t. But over time, if you want to increase your NOB further, you must be intentional about it. If you set that intent, you’ll build better systems, delegate to staff, make better investments, market better and forge a stronger gym.

So focusing on earning more is a forcing function. If you don’t think about earning more, it’s easy to become complacent.

Planning for Profit

Beyond a lack of focus, the absence of a plan will prevent you from earning more.

Some great plans do exist. One of them is called Profit First. My friend John Briggs wrote a book called “Profit First for Microgyms,” and it supplies a plan you can use to grow your income.

You can also just follow a pay-yourself-first strategy of pulling out your checkbook—like a real checkbook—and writing yourself a paycheck in advance for the next six months. Then you are never tempted to skip a payday and buy a new rowing machine.

You can add other tweaks to that plan, too. For example, you can automatically give yourself a 6 percent raise every quarter. Write these checks in advance, too, so you don’t have to make a decision about what to pay yourself every single week.

Avoiding Distraction

Entrepreneurial distraction is the third reason gym owners are unable to increase their NOB.

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to start something new but hard to grow what you currently have. Most of us grow to the level of our knowledge and then struggle to go further—so why not start something new and novel?

“I don’t know how to improve my sales. I don’t know how to improve my marketing. I don’t know how to improve my retention. So I’m gonna go start something else where I can crush the stuff I know how to do.”

This is the reason most gym owners will never reach a net worth of a million dollars. They try to do too many things that don’t produce enough money. They get burned out and overwhelmed, and the original “golden goose” begins to struggle because it isn’t getting any attention.

Think about this: Imagine you hired somebody else to be CEO of your gym.

“Great! By the way, I’m also gonna be CEO of that yoga studio down the street,” the new CEO says.

“What the hell?” You might reply. “You’re supposed to be focused on growing my gym.”

But there’s nobody to hold your feet to the fire as the CEO of your gym, so you might grow it until it pays you $35,000. Instead of figuring out how to get that gym to pay you $100,000, you think, “I know how to get a gym to pay me $35,000, so I’ll open two more locations and earn $100k.”

But the reality is that a second gym is four times the work. And adding a third gym is six times the work. So all of them struggle and you don’t increase your net owner benefit.

The Solution

To increase your NOB, you need a goal, a detailed plan to hit that goal, and someone to help you stick to the plan.

That’s where a mentor comes in.

We get the average gym owner to $100,000 NOB in just over two years, regardless of starting point (some people move much faster). And we’re certifying new millionaire gym owners every quarter.

I’ve provided some simple tactics to help you earn more above. I hope they help.

If you want to take the next step and push hard to reach $100,000 NOB—and even millionaire status—book a call here to talk about mentorship.

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Secrets of Above-Average Gym Owner Earnings

I’m going to give you a sneak peek at what gym owners are making each month.

Our annual “State of the Industry” report will be out soon, and you’ll be able to evaluate the health of your business in about 10 different critical areas.

Perhaps the most important area of all: net owner benefit (NOB)/profit.

In 2024, the average owner of a gym that focuses on big-group training is earning between US$2,500 and $6,000 a month. That’s $30,000 to $72,000 a month in salary, benefits and profit.

And it’s not enough.

I want you to earn at least $100,000 from your gym every year—or about $8,333 per month. Great news: We can get the average gym owner to this level with just over two years of mentorship, no matter how poorly the gym is doing before a mentor digs in to help.

And $100,000 a year is really just a nice, round starting point. I actually want you to earn whatever you need to earn to live the life you want to live.

To show you what’s possible when you do the right things at the right time to grow your business, I’ll reveal our most recent leaderboard for monthly net owner benefit, then I’ll present insight from the leaders.

When you review this leaderboard, remember that these are rolling three-month averages, not one-hit wonders. All the gym owners on this leaderboard paid themselves very, very well for a quarter, and most sustain these levels all year.

In fact, here’s what they said when we asked them if these numbers were abnormal:

“We expect NOB to improve next month. Our NOB is actually down because of some investments in marketing infrastructure.”

“We have had this NOB for around six months or so and expect it to go up.”

“We expect the numbers to stay at this level.”

We had one gym owner who said a seasonal win gave her higher-than-normal NOB numbers, but remember we’re dealing with rolling three-month averages. She made our Top 20 when we ran our NOB Leaderboard back in April, so she’s not just making a guest appearance this month.

Here’s the Top 10:

Tips From Our Leaders

We always ask our leaders “how did you do it?” Let me put their answers in context for you: Our top-earning gym owners used all sorts of creative strategies to generate the revenue they need to pay themselves.

Some invest in real estate so the gym pays them rent as landlord, some focus on corporate partnerships, some are marketing wizards, some have a solid number of clients with above-average revenue per member (ARM), and others have a smaller number of clients with monster ARM. And so on.

Here’s what they share: They all work with a mentor, and they all prioritize “paying myself first.” That’s not greedy. I know you got into the gym business to help people, but you can help more people for decades if a strong, profitable gym supports you, your family and your staff.

If you can’t pay yourself a great salary, you clearly can’t pay staff members properly. So build a career for yourself, then build careers for others. Then change your city or town for the better by helping people get fit.

Here’s how our leaders are generating amazing NOB:

Adherence/ARM: “We have seen very slow lead flow the past two months, so we are focusing on maximizing attendance for revenue.”

ARM/PT: “We do a lot of personal training for new clients, and every new member has an average of 10 to 12 PT sessions in the first months.”

Staff Communication: “We wrote down core values and teach our trainers to base decisions off that as a compass.”

Partnerships: “We built relationships for partnership agreements, which required a year’s worth of work. It was a lot more work than I had anticipated, but it was well worth it.”

Partnerships: “We have been quite successful with corporate clients and now have six different businesses that we do workouts for every week at their locations.”

Long-Term Planning/Real Estate: “We bought the building and are now paying rent to ourselves.”

Pay Yourself First/Retention: “We have been focusing a lot on retention and paying ourselves first for the last few years, and it has really paid off!”

And here’s one I love: “It made a massive improvement starting with Two-Brain Business. We took the gym from $25k months to $45k, but the biggest jump was when I committed to one hour a day of marketing after dialing in systems.”

Growing your gym in just 60 minutes a day is the theme of my new book, “The Golden Hour.” The top 12.5 percent of gym owners outperform everyone else because every day they do one thing to grow their businesses before they do anything else—and they always end up on our leaderboards.

Want to take big steps fast to improve your NOB? Work with a mentor: Let’s talk about it today.

Not ready for that? Let’s build some momentum together during my Golden Hour Challenge. For six weeks, I’ll help you establish entrepreneurial habits that will blossom into skills you can use for life. To take part, join the Gym Owners United group and watch for my posts starting Nov. 1.

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What Exactly Are Gym Owners Doing to Earn Over $16,000 per Month?

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Are You Wasting Your Golden Hours Posting GIFs?

Here’s a self-evaluation experiment for you:

Using a running timer, hit “start” whenever you begin wasting time while “working.” Then hit stop when you recover your focus and get back to building your business.

This is a terrifying thought, right?

Hear me out because we only need to find 60 minutes a day.

If you’re up for growing your business, run a timer whenever you:

Absentmindedly check social media.Look up that totally random thing you need to find out, such as “did Han or Greedo shoot first?” or “longest field goal in NFL history.”Open marketing emails and click on stuff you’re thinking about buying.Respond to random texts, send GIFs, play an online game for “a few minutes”And so on.

Do this without holding yourself back. We want to evaluate your patterns as they are. Be yourself and log your time, just as you might ask nutrition clients to track everything they eat for a day so you can get a baseline.

We both know the timer will have a significant number on it at the end of the day. (I will confess that I spent 10 minutes researching the “Han shot first argument” immediately after I mentioned it above.)

So what’s the point here?

Well, Chris Cooper’s ninth book is all about measurably growing your business in just 60 minutes a day. It’s not a rah-rah, go-get-‘em thing. It’s actionable and realistic—if you can carve out a single hour to do focused work.

The simplest summary: Spend your best 60 minutes each day doing the things that will have the greatest effect on your business.

If you clock your daily dalliances, you’re going to find 60 minutes no matter how busy you are. We all mess around and bleed time we might spend on our businesses.

So what if you invested in a “Golden Hour” at the very start of your day?

If you used that framework, you would get a ton of important stuff done fast, and your business would move forward.

By starting with the essential stuff, you win early. If you use the Golden Hour properly, your gym grows even if the rest of the day is a complete disaster.

Here’s an example: You use your Golden Hour to message five absent clients and say, “Coming to the gym today?” Three respond with “yes!” and two more say “thanks for checking—I’ll be there tomorrow.” You just improved your adherence and retention. Then, your day explodes and nothing goes right. You’re pulled in 100 directions and have to put out fires everywhere.

But you already pushed your business forward during your Golden Hour, so the day is far from lost.

Make Time for a Golden Hour

Try my experiment just to prove to yourself that you do have time to do important work. Then pick up Chris Cooper’s new book, “The Golden Hour.”

Coop will tell you exactly what to do in the 60 minutes you set aside to grow your gym, and he’ll give you all the details you need to create a powerful new habit.

If you stick to the plan and prioritize business growth for even three months—90 Golden Hours—think of where your gym will be.

Then think of where it will be in a year or more.

Got time for a Golden Hour?

Yes, you do!

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Golden Hour: 5% Client Boost With Just 60 Minutes of Work a Day

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Get More Done Faster With This Simple Hack for Gym Owners

Skills aren’t developed overnight.

They are developed through consistent, habitual practice.

It’s like fitness—you already know that clients who keep showing up, doing the work and watching their diet will eventually be successful.

It’s the same in business. For gym owners, this means consistently performing the small but important actions that contribute to the overall success of the business.

You don’t perform these actions for a while or every so often. You do them on a precise schedule, and you never miss a day. If you do that, you’ll develop incredibly powerful skills you can apply to any business in any field.

Here, I’ll give you a very effective method to build these skills through “habit stacking.”

Habit Stacking

Habit stacking involves starting with a few manageable habits and gradually adding more, establishing a routine that creates growth.

You don’t “do all the things at once.” You know how that goes for gym clients, right?

That’s why we have you start your Golden Hour by adopting the marketing tactics gradually.

We start with just two habits the first week: The goal is to establish these habits before adding more. The tasks in the first week are related—one leads to the next, and the first makes the second easier (create content, then distribute it).

Once the initial habits are established in your routine, you can start adding more.

Again, you don’t give a new client a gigantic chipper workout with 10 complex movements.

Same deal here: If we suggested doing everything in Week 1, most people would get overwhelmed and give up.

When building a new habit, it’s crucial to start small so you don’t feel overwhelmed. You want momentum, not frustration.

The keys to habit stacking are patience and persistence. Don’t rush the process; allow each habit to become ingrained before adding more.

Over time, this approach will help you develop the skills necessary to grow your gym and maintain that growth.

Embrace habit stacking as a strategic approach to skill development.

Here are the habits we’re going to stack in the Golden Hour Challenge:

Monday: Write one blog post or record one QuickCast.Tuesday: Distribute Monday’s content to your email list and social media.Wednesday: Check in with five clients.Thursday: Mine your leads.Friday: Set up your social media for the following week.Saturday: Take 10 client pictures or record two video interviews.Sunday: Send a “weekly preview” message to your staff.

And here’s how we’ll stack the habits in the challenge to ensure they take hold:

Week 1: Do the Monday and Tuesday work.Week 2: Add the Wednesday and Thursday work.Week 3: Add the Friday work.Week 4: Add the Saturday work.Week 5: Add the Sunday work.Week 6: Complete a full week.

So do you take five days off in Week 1? No. Early on, you’ll find that it will take more than a day to complete the work, so we leave space for that.

But after you do something once, you increase speed and efficiency, and then we stack the next habit.

The Golden Hour Challenge

You’ve probably guessed that habit stacking can be used in any area of your life—and as a gym owner, you’ll see how you can use it to help your clients get results.

Want to stack some habits together to grow your business measurably in just 60 minutes a day? Take part in our November Golden Hour Challenge—join the Gym Owners United group and watch for my post on Nov. 1.

To get your copy of my new book, “The Golden Hour,” head to Amazon.

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The Golden Hour Challenge FAQ: Grow Your Gym in 1 Hour a Day

My new book is out, and I’m excited to set you loose on the Golden Hour Challenge: You’ll work for six weeks to grow your gym in just one hour a day!

Does the plan work? Yes! Example: One of our mentors used simple marketing tasks in his Golden Hour to add 5 percent to his client total in just four weeks. 

I laid out the details of the challenge on a podcast here and in a video here.

Now, I’ll answer the eight most common questions about the Golden Hour Challenge, which starts Nov. 1 in the Gym Owners United group.

1. What is the Golden Hour Challenge?

The Golden Hour Challenge is a six-week program designed to help gym owners develop a daily habit of working on their business during the first hour of their day. The challenge builds key tasks—such as content creation, client connection and marketing—into a manageable daily routine that will ensure consistent business growth.

2. Why is the first hour of the day called the “Golden Hour”?

The first hour of your day is typically when you’re most focused and least distracted. By dedicating this time to high-impact activities, such as marketing and communications, you can make significant progress in growing your business. This Golden Hour has the potential to generate more results than several unfocused hours later in the day.

3. What specific tasks do I perform during the Golden Hour?

The Golden Hour follows a structured routine, summarized as the GOLDEN Framework:

 G: Go to a quiet place where you can focus. O: Open your mind through journaling or clearing mental clutter. L: Lead with marketing “reps”—consistent actions that attract new clients. D: Do your big projects that grow the business. E: End after one hour to maintain discipline. N: Next steps—plan for the rest of the day.

4. What is the six-week structure of the Golden Hour Challenge?

The challenge is designed to build habits gradually:

Week 1: Focus on content creation and distribution (Monday and Tuesday tasks).Week 2: Add client connection and lead generation (Wednesday and Thursday tasks).Week 3: Incorporate social media planning (Friday task).Week 4: Start collecting client testimonials (Saturday task).Week 5: Introduce staff communication (Sunday task).Week 6: Implement the full system for a complete week.

5. How can I ensure I stay consistent with the Golden Hour?

The key to consistency is setting a clear, unbreakable daily habit. Schedule the same time each day, ideally first thing in the morning, and make sure you have a dedicated space free from distractions. Even on busy days, prioritize doing at least the marketing tasks, as they will keep your business growing.

6. What if I can’t complete everything in one hour?

It’s OK if some tasks take longer initially, especially in the first few weeks of the challenge. The goal is to build the habit of working on your business daily, even if it takes more time. With experience, you’ll improve speed and efficiency. The discipline of working for an uninterrupted hour is more important than perfect execution early on.

7. How will the Golden Hour help me grow my gym?

By focusing on critical tasks first—such as client outreach, marketing, staff communication—you’ll consistently spend time addressing the things that drive the growth of your business. The compound effect of dedicating just one hour a day to business development ensures that you make steady progress in all critical areas and don’t get distracted by tasks that don’t move the needle.

8. Can I adjust the routine to fit my schedule?

Yes, while it’s most effective to schedule your Golden Hour first thing in the morning, you can adapt the routine to your lifestyle. The main point: You must dedicate an uninterrupted hour to these business-building tasks when you are very productive. The exact time is less important. The structure and focus are most powerful, so stick to the GOLDEN Framework even if the exact timing of the hour changes.

Join the Challenge, Grow Your Gym!

The Golden Hour Challenge starts Nov. 1, and you can be part of it by joining the Gym Owners United group.

I’ll be in that group to lead you through the challenge, and together we’ll build momentum and grow your business for six weeks in just one hour a day.

To get your copy of “The Golden Hour,” head to Amazon.

The post The Golden Hour Challenge FAQ: Grow Your Gym in 1 Hour a Day appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

The Golden Hour Challenge: Grow Your Gym in Just 1 Hour a Day

To watch this episode on YouTube, click here.

The post The Golden Hour Challenge: Grow Your Gym in Just 1 Hour a Day appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Did We Really Say “All Group-Class Gyms Will Fail”?

Does one gym “prove” established, data-backed practices are “wrong”?

No—but that was the opening argument in an Oct. 2 article in the Morning Chalk Up.

According to the article, Odin CrossFit, in Maryland, is on track to gross $1 million per year, with 95 percent of the revenue coming from group classes and 5 percent from nutrition coaching.

The gym is, according to the article, “very profitable.”

No problems here, even if there’s a lack of precision with regard to profitability. I don’t know what “very” means and would prefer an exact figure.

Here are the issues:

The article states that Two-Brain gyms “are mentored to diversify and offer higher-ticket membership that goes beyond group class memberships,” with the implication that this is the only model we use to help gym owners.The article states that Odin CrossFit is proving this is “wrong”: “Hybrid memberships—which include other services such as personal training, individual design and nutrition coaching in addition to group classes—are an effective way to increase average client value and overall revenue.”

We’ll clean it up so you have the correct info.

“You Need More Than Group Classes to Succeed”

“’You need more than group classes to succeed as a gym owner.’ It’s a message many gym business mentors and successful gym owners put out there, and they have data to back it up,” the firewalled article states, with a link out to a second article in which Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper lays out recommended gym revenue breakdowns (70 percent from a primary stream, usually group classes, plus 20 and 10 percent from two other streams).

So did Cooper actually say that you absolutely must avoid the group-class-only model to succeed?

No.

In our guide “5 Ways to Make $100,000 a Year From Your Gym” (request it here), Cooper lays out the exact plan to generate $100,000 in profit and salary with more than 90 percent of revenue coming from group classes.

He wouldn’t describe the model if it were impossible to use it.

As check-our-work backup, the guide includes a spreadsheet, an executive summary, and a list of pros and cons for the group model.

Your summary: The group-only model can work—but it’s very fragile and puts a lot of strain on owners. In many cases, it’s unsustainable. Another model might result in a stronger gym.

And here’s the really important part: You can make $100,000 a year running the group class model with 150 clients if you set your prices correctly, but chasing more than 150 clients at low rates requires a huge level-up in ownership skills. You won’t just snowball your way to 300 members because you’re an awesome coach (I tried this approach personally; it didn’t work).

Want proof that huge client counts are rare in group class gyms? In our upcoming 2024 “State of the Industry” report, our survey data confirmed what we know from previous research: Half of gym owners who use the big-group model have 122 clients or fewer.

Yes, you read that correctly. The median client count for survey respondents who derive the majority of their revenue from group training is just 122. Not 150 or 200 or 300. Just 122.

Acquiring and retaining 300 or more members is very difficult, and managing the large team required to serve 300 members is similarly challenging. (Odin has 14 coaches, by the way.)

Because of these facts, very few successful 300-member group-only gyms exist.  

But they do exist. Odin is presented as one example.

And one Two-Brain mentor, Saara Snellman, runs another: CrossFit Kreise 9 in Switzerland. I dug into her numbers in this article. She has 340 members and runs mostly group classes.

But Odin and Kreise 9 are very rare. I’d suggest Saara is an elite-level fitness entrepreneur—she’s probably in the top 10 percent of gym owners worldwide.

Very profitable group-class gyms with huge client counts are just not common, and they don’t represent a “do it exactly like this and win every time” model.

It is a mistake to suggest that a few gyms like this show that most gyms don’t need to consider diversification, personal training, small-group training, nutrition coaching, hybrid memberships and other options if they want to build a resilient, anti-fragile business. 

Short summary: Huge, very profitable gyms like Odin and CrossFit Kreis 9 are fantastic, but these few businesses exist in spite of the flaws in the group model, not because the model will work for everyone.

So are Two-Brain clients “mentored to diversify and offer higher-ticket membership that goes beyond group class memberships”? Often yes, but not always.

As I said above, we have a guide that shows you exactly how to make $100,000 a year with five different business models. Our mentors work with gym owners to create the strongest, most profitable gyms. We don’t force a model on anyone. We meet them where they are and help them build the best business by prescribing the tactics that will help the owner accomplish their stated goals.

Saara’s mentor worked with her to create an amazing gym that focuses on group classes. Other mentors help other gym owners create new and very profitable revenue streams, including the “hybrid memberships” mentioned above.

And yes, these memberships “are an effective way to increase average client value and overall revenue.” That fact isn’t erased by one gym that is using a different model. 

Data Vs. Outliers

Here’s the main thing you need to remember when you read the Morning Chalk Up article:

One example doesn’t invalidate mountains of data.

In fact, the rarity of huge, profitable group-class gyms confirms that Two-Brain data is accurate.

Want more data? Our 2024 “State of the Industry” report is coming before the end of the year. We have data from thousands of gyms, and we’ll share it with you for free.

Even better, we’ll help you use our data to analyze your own business so you can figure out how to improve it fast, whether you run a PT studio or big group gym. Stay tuned: We’ll tell you how to get the report.

And if you don’t want to wait for it, book a call here to talk about how a mentor can use hard data to help you accomplish your business goals.

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