Chris Cooper's Blog, page 35

Huge Client Headcount: The Top 10 Gyms Around the World

Chris Cooper (00:02):
Which gyms in Two-Brain have the most clients, and how did they get those clients, and how are they keeping them? I’m Chris Cooper, this is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and this is my monthly leaderboard show where I take one of the key metrics that we track in Two-Brain, I report to you who’s doing the best and then I ask them, “How’d you do it?” and I share all the answers with you. Today, we’re tracking client headcount, and while client headcount in a coaching gym is one of the key drivers of success, you have to have enough clients. It’s also a multiplier of client value. So, for example, while just having a lot of clients alone is not enough to make your gym successful, having enough high-value clients is what actually counts. You’ve all heard of gyms out there who seem to be killing it with 300, 500, 800 members, but then when you look at their books, they’re barely profitable and sometimes not even profitable.

Chris Cooper (00:55):
On the other hand, you know personal trainers who maybe charge $800 or $1,200 a month, but they don’t have enough clients to pay for their bills. You have to have both, and when we break these metrics down, we can look at: What are the things that help you get more clients? What are the things that make those clients more valuable, and what are the things that keep those clients longer? And that is truly the recipe for a successful gym in Two-Brain. We look at these things together and separately, and today, I’m going to share with you how these gyms got all the members that they do have. So first, the leaderboard, the Top 10 gyms in Two-Brain this month, and what’s really impressive here is the international representation we’ve got this month. I love it so much. So coming in 10th, in Switzerland, a gym has 341 members.

Chris Cooper (01:41):
Now remember, this is a coaching gym. This is not a club gym where they’re just paying for access. These are people who are paying a membership for CrossFit, or they’re paying for a semi-private program, or they’re strength and conditioning gyms, and sometimes they’re like a youth specific gym, but whatever type of method the gym is using, these are people who are paying for coaching. It’s not a $50 a month membership. Coming in ninth, from the Netherlands: 410 members in a coaching gym. Again, these are high-value clients, and because it is a Two-Brain gym, you know that they’re not charging some ridiculously low thing with high churn, but I’ll come back to that. Coming in eighth, from Sweden: 422 members. This is a CrossFit gym. While these members are doing group classes, a large number of them are doing personal training or a combination thereof. In seventh place this month, from the UK: 432 members.

Chris Cooper (02:36):
Outstanding. Way to go. I can’t wait to learn from these gyms, and we’re going to do that next; I’m going to share their lessons with you. Coming in sixth from Denmark: 460 members. And coming in fifth, also from Denmark: 464 members. What’s really impressive here is that we’ve been through six gyms. This gym in fifth place has 464 members. We haven’t had a US gym yet, but that’s coming next. We haven’t had a Canadian gym yet. You know, go Canada. I want us on that leaderboard. We’re going to be working hard on that this month, and what’s crazy interesting is we’ve seen a lot of representation from Europe, which I love. Coming in fourth place, USA, one gym: 556 coaching members. Again, these are not people who are paying nine bucks a month for access. These are people in a coaching gym who are paying for coaching, massive difference in services.

Chris Cooper (03:30):
In third place, from Chile, this gym has been here before, and we’re going to hear their top tips again: 700 members in one location, one coaching gym. In second this month, Denmark: 703 members, one location, one coaching gym. And at the top of the leaderboard this month for the first time ever, a gym from Australia with 941 members. Now here’s what’s amazing: In Two-Brain, we talk a lot about the 150 model. That means that with 50 clients, you should be paying all of your bills. With 100 clients, you should be paying your bills and making more than you would make as a coach working for somebody else, as the owner. At 150 clients, you should be paying all your bills, making $100,000 a year or so and paying a full-time staff member and another part-time staff member. When you start by getting those numbers right, every member on top of that is you scaling up.

Chris Cooper (04:26):
So, if your model works at 150, when you get to 250, your model is crushing it. You’re really saving lives, and you’ve got a sustainable model, a good income, and you’re providing really good careers for coaches. If your model doesn’t work at 150, though dumping another 50 members on top will not fix the model. So, if at 150 clients you’re not paying your bills, you’re not making a really great income as the owner and you’re not paying a full-time coach, adding another 50 clients, getting to 200, will not solve those problems with your model. You’re going to hear that over and over today. So, without further ado, here are our top lessons from the top gyms in Two-Brain with the most members. I’m going to give you the direct quotes from these gyms in a moment, but first, there’s some common themes.

Chris Cooper (05:12):
First theme: To be big, you must have great retention, great funnels, good sales systems, and great general business systems that can be used by a large, cohesive team. This is very hard to do, but if you’re shooting for 200 members before you break even and pay yourself, these things will not be in place. It’s not going to work. Second, there are challenges to running big classes. One of these gyms runs classes of up to 80 people, but this is abnormal, and it requires elite-level management, not just elite-level coaching. This gym has low churn and a stable client count, but retention can be very hard in this model, and even a low churn requires a solid marketing and sales and intake plan. Again, if you’ve got a membership of 400 people and a churn rate of like 3%, you are going to be replacing a new member every day just to stay even.

Chris Cooper (06:06):
You have to have a systemized sales process, marketing and retention. And the third theme is start with the 150 model. Get your act together. Then grow with stability instead of riding this rollercoaster of chasing 200 clients and dropping back to 80 and doing some crazy marketing plan to get to 150 and dropping back, never making an income and just running out of time and money and going out of business. Alright, so here are the quotes from the gyms with the most members in Two-Brain: Number one, “We’ve been around this for about 12 months. This is a low point for us. We’re in Australia,” so you know which gym this came from, “and that’s why we’ve joined Two-Brain to help us go to the next level.” The next quote is, “Our membership is very stable with a low churn rate; it’s continually building because we focus on retention more than anything else.”

Chris Cooper (06:55):
“Specialty programs: While our general population classes form the bulk of our membership, we also offer highly attended specialized programs such as Legends for those over 60, Mom-Fit, which is a postnatal program, and our youth program. The Legends classes run every weekday with 18 to 25 participants daily. The Mom-Fit classes are held three times a week with 20 to 25 mothers attending, and our youth program is extremely popular as well.” That’s the end of that quote, but notice that this gym is really, really good at its core niche, and then it builds programs for its other niches like Legends, like new moms, et cetera. The next quote is about focus and operating at scale. They said, “Our specialization is in group training, and we strive to be the best at it. We offer 30-minute, 45-minute and 60-minute classes throughout the day, starting as early as 5:25 a.m. and running right through till 8:30 p.m. We have busy classes with some peak time seeing up to 80 participants in a class, and this would be our more bootcamp style class, but in our more traditional strength and conditioning classes, we still have 30 people attending.”

Chris Cooper (07:59):
Again, these people did not start by opening up a class time and hoping that 80 people showed up. They started by getting profitable and successful at 150 members and then adding these other things and then scaling up. Another quote is about client experience. They said, “I’ve incorporated many principles from professional sports into our gym operations to make them appealing to the general public.” They’re good at media. They’re good at hype. They’re good at promoting and talking about their members. Another quote is about client experience: “We’re focusing a lot on improving the service and coaching experience at our gym,” and another quote is also about client experience: “Our first rule is that our members need to leave the box with a bigger smile than when they came. Next to that is we put a big effort in remembering our members by name.” When you have 100 clients, you should know everything about every one of those clients.

Chris Cooper (08:50):
You should know their name, their spouse’s name, what they do for work, and what their kids do on the weekends at a minimum. As you scale, you can’t lose that personal connection with your members. You might not be able to remember everybody by name. As humans we’re limited to about 150 names, but that’s when you bring in staff, and that’s what scaling means is that you keep doing the basics remarkably well with the help of your staff. You don’t just stop doing them because now we’re too big to know everybody’s name because you’ve grown your business to be something just beyond you. When you have 200 members, you can’t know every client’s first and last name, their spouse’s name, what they do for work and what their kids do on the weekend. It’s too many people for our human brains to process. That’s when you add staff to scale yourself in these relationships, and again, you’ll notice that a lot of these quotes from leaders focus on retention.

Chris Cooper (09:45):
They’re not focused on: What’s the next marketing hack? How do I grow to 2,000 followers on Instagram? What is my front-end high-ticket thing that I can sell to people once and then have them wash out? They’re really focused on sustainability, and sustainability is about systems and retention. So, while you do have to have marketing and sales dialed in, you need them to be part of a larger system, and that’s what we mentor you on at Two-Brain. We want you to not just learn the latest marketing hack; we want you to build a marketing system that will work forever, and you can change little parts of as you need to, but 80% of it stays the same year over year. We want you to build a sales system, which is a process that you can do, but you don’t have to be the linchpin that you can train other people to do.

Chris Cooper (10:32):
If only your winning personality and your charming ways are what sign people up for the gym, you don’t have a system, and that’s what we train you to build is a system. You need to have a retention system. If your retention is entirely based on the interpersonal relationships that were formed by your first 50 clients, then you don’t have a retention system. You just have a buddy system. That’s not going to scale to 150, 300 clients, et cetera. If you have separate deals with each one of your trainers—I’ll pay you 50%, I’ll pay you X per hour, and I’ll pay you whatever—you don’t have a staff system. What you have is just a bunch of relationships individually. That doesn’t scale. You can’t do that. If you are just depending on people to come in and shadow you, watching classes, then you don’t have a training system for your staff.

Chris Cooper (11:20):
You need to build that too. If you just depending on them to go out and get their CrossFit L1 or their blue belt in jiu-jitsu or you know whatever the kickboxing thing is, then you don’t have a training system. You’re relying on somebody else to handle your staff hierarchy and ascension model for you. You need to build systems for all these, including paying yourself. If you don’t have a strategy for paying yourself and you just take what’s left over, then you don’t have a payroll system. You don’t have a growth system. Look, mentorship is all about building these systems and then training you in skills to become a better entrepreneur. You do not get to 900 clients at your gym without being a good entrepreneur, and notice that even the best entrepreneurs, the people who have a very high number of clients in their gym, these are the people who are most likely to seek a coach.

Chris Cooper (12:12):
It’s why professional athletes seek a coach because they’ve learned the value of coaching transcends its cost. Amateurs see coaching as an expense. Professionals, the people who are at the top of this leaderboard, seek out as much coaching as they can get because they know it’s an investment. Two-Brain measures the ROI that we produce in our clients, just like we measure how many clients they have and what their ARM is and how long they keep clients. We want to make sure that we’re giving you an amazing return on our investment, and I’m fully convinced that there is no better investment that you can make as a gym owner than investing in mentorship with Two-Brain, and I built our program with that in mind. If you want to start for free, if you want to get talking to a few Two-Brain mentors, to 9,500 other gym owners around the world, get some free resources to make some money and get you started—right?

Chris Cooper (13:06):
Amazing, infinite ROI. You pay nothing, and you get this thing that makes you money—all you have to do is go to gymownersunited.com. You can join that group for free. The price of the group is just be a good citizen. Help where you can, be polite, be kind, and look for opportunities to help. You can join that group for free. We’ll help you, you’ll help others, and we’ll grow this entire movement together. Thank you for being part of this movement. Thank you for serving humanity. This is the “Run a Profitable Gym” podcast. I’m Chris Cooper.

The post Huge Client Headcount: The Top 10 Gyms Around the World appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How Many Members Do You Need at Your Gym?

Client count can be an irrelevant “glory metric.”

I recall many conversations over the years in which a gym owner would say to another “how many clients do you have?”

The answer is only important if you understand the gym’s model.

For example, a gym that sells access for $30 a month might have 1,000 clients and a $30,000 gross that’s eaten up by a costly lease on a 15,000-square-foot space in a great neighborhood.

In that case, 1,000 clients aren’t enough.

On the other hand, some gyms have just 80 clients—but the average revenue per member (ARM) is $750, the length of engagement (LEG) is 20 months and the lifetime value of each client is about $15,000.

In that example, the monthly gross is $60,000, and the 80 clients can be served in a space with low overhead. Because the clients stay a long time, the gym owner doesn’t have to spend a lot of time and money on marketing but can afford to open the wallet to acquire clients because the lifetime value is so great.

Another example: What if you have 400 members but horrible LEG? If you must acquire 80 members every month to stay at 400, you’re not really in the business of coaching. How can you change lives if 20 percent of your clients leave each month?

In that scenario, your real business is client acquisition, and it’s a hamster wheel. You’ll burn through your audience, burn out your staff, and burn up your cash. And then you’ll probably close.

Client count does matter, but only in relation to your model and your other key performance indicators, like ARM and LEG.

As a general rule, Two-Brain gyms first target 150 clients with an ARM of $205 and a LEG of 13 months. Those are great starting points that will allow the owner to earn $100,000 a year.

If you don’t have a clearly defined business model, use those targets to start.

Of course, we adjust the targets for our clients based on their business models and goals. Some models require more clients, while others require fewer. We also prioritize high-value clients and industry-leading retention (the industry average is 7.8 months; Two-Brain clients average 20.7 months).

We can create a plan for any gym, but it will always be based on metrics. It will never include “300 members” because it’s a nice, round number that puts you “ahead” of the gym down the street.

It’s important to explain all that before I reveal our leaderboard for client count in May 2024.

The gyms on this list are working hard to acquire and retain the clients their business models require:

“Do I Need a Lot of Clients?”

So how many clients should you target?

It’s impossible to say without knowing your exact situation, so I’ll give you two options that will help you move forward:

1. Head to Facebook and request my guide that shows five models that will help you earn $100,000 a year with 150 or fewer members. Review the spreadsheets and run your own numbers to figure out how many clients you need to earn the income you want. If you do this, you’ll be well ahead of most gym owners.

2. Book a call to find out how a mentor can provide a detailed plan to help you drive up key metrics in your business. That plan for your gym will address client count, but the metric won’t be on an island. It will be tied to other key business metrics and your personal goals.

I hope you’re inspired by the numbers I showed you here, but I don’t want you to think, “I need 900 members, too.”

Remember, you need the number of members that will support your business model. Don’t chase more for the sake of more.

Chase more if that equals “better.”

The post How Many Members Do You Need at Your Gym? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

“No One Scales Retention”—But Everyone Should

“No one scales retention.”

When Chris Cooper said this on a recent episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” I suddenly realized why my gym once reached about 230 members and then quickly slide back under 200.

As we grew, we scaled lots of stuff: staff, sales and marketing, programming and so on.

But we didn’t successfully scale our retention systems, and it cost us.

When rapid growth is happening, it’s easy to drop the ball with current clients.

Instead of treating them like the golden geese they are, you start assuming they’re happy, locked-in clients who will just keep renewing memberships. You take them for granted. Your eyes turn to the flood of new people at the door, and you forget that you must build value and “resell” to current members if you want to keep them.

It’s not that you don’t care about them or recognize their contribution to your business. You just start making assumptions and fail to care for the relationships.

Here’s the mentality: “Tim’s been here for years and is always happy. I don’t need to check in on him. I can work on getting more leads to book free consultations.”

Except Tim does need something.

Maybe he dinged his shoulder at work and now feels like a burden in class. Or maybe his kid has started evening sports and he can’t make the class where he’s been a fixture for three years. Or maybe he’s traveling more often for work and won’t be at the gym for 10-day stretches every three weeks.

Or maybe Tim wants to maintain the personal connection that brought him to the gym in the first place, and he’d love nothing more than a “how ya doin’?” text.

I had a bunch of Tims. But I didn’t know it because I was setting up systems to manage the leads from our six-week challenge and trying to figure out how to get new coaches up to speed fast.

A bunch of Tims started to notice they weren’t getting a lot of attention, and soon these pillars of the business started leaving.

System Rot

I wasn’t completely ignorant of the need to retain members.

In fact, I did set up basic retention systems that included check-ins with members who hadn’t showed up for a week or so.

Here’s where I failed: As the gym became busier, the retention systems I had set up became overwhelmed, and they broke down. All my systems rotted out because I didn’t check on them, shore them up and upgrade them.

I assumed the system that held onto 150 members would allow me to hold onto 230, and I was dead wrong.

I had failed to scale retention, and my gym sank right back to the level of my systems.

Here’s what I should have done:

I should have used the revenue boost from new members to hire a client success manager (CSM) whose sole job was improving retention. No GM duties, no coaching, no sales commitments. I needed a detail-oriented, caring person who had one point of focus.

This would have cost me about $400 a month, but it would have saved me thousands of dollars. Remember, I started bleeding out dozens of clients. Had the CSM saved about three per month, the costs of the position would have been covered.

Here’s what I did instead:

I got mad at my staff as my revenue plummeted. When we started losing a lot of money every month, I got scared and started taking drastic measures. Not all of them were good.

But one—hiring a mentor—helped me right the ship.

Maintain Airtight Retention Systems

I assure you that your systems will crack if you don’t repair and upgrade them as your gym grows.

It’s not because you’re a bad business owner. It’s because scaling a business is very difficult and requires a new skill set.

Easy example: One owner-operator can serve about 150 people with just a little extra help. Beyond 150, that owner needs a team—and building a functional team is not the same as teaching people to squat at 6 a.m.

If I could go back in time, this is what I would do:

Hire a mentor before problems appear.Use that mentor to create an airtight business that serves 150 people at an A+ level.Work with the mentor to figure out how to scale up without sliding back or imploding.

Who knows? I might have decided 150 members were just fine if I added high-value services to increase average revenue per member (ARM). Maybe I would have targeted acquisition of 180 members while improving length of engagement.

Or maybe I would switched to a different model to serve about 50 high-value members in a facility with much lower overhead.

With direction, I would have had options. Without direction, I had stress and panic.

If you’re reading this right now during a period of growth, I have two recommendations for you:

1. Lock yourself in your office and review all your retention systems. Fix the broken stuff and upgrade your systems to handle the new volume. Do this right now.

2. Book a call to talk about mentorship so you know exactly how to maximize your current model without breaking it.

The worst plan: Focusing on adding new clients while assuming your current members are happy. If you do that, you can expect major problems in less than a year.

The post “No One Scales Retention”—But Everyone Should appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Essential Retention Tactic: The Client Journey

Mike Warkentin (00:02):
Do you have a client journey? If no, you need one. If yes, is it optimized for retention? Well, it should be. Welcome to “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. I’m here with Peter Brasovan. He’s a full-time mentor, and he’s a mentor trainer with Two-Brain Business. Today we’re talking about the client journey and its effects on retention. Welcome Peter. How are you today?

Peter Brasovan (00:21):
I’m doing wonderful. Really excited to be here to talk about this amazing topic that everybody needs to be knowledgeable on.

Mike Warkentin (00:27):
Yeah, you are a longtime gym owner who ran a great business. Now you’re a mentor, and you’re training mentors. You are the guy who’s going to help us explain exactly to gym owners how a client journey can help. So, I’m going to set the table by telling you about my shameful client journey. It was this: You drop in, you do Fran, you puke, and then you decide whether you want to stay for about three years or you disappear completely. The end. It’s not good. It wasn’t good; it wasn’t a great retention plan. It had no nothing in there to keep people coming and doing the things that they want to do and accomplish their goals. It was super weak. So, 2024: What is a client journey? Why should a client—why should someone have one? And who are the essential staff people who deal with this?

Peter Brasovan (01:07):
Well, real quick recap of 2016 and previous. If you didn’t do something like you were doing Mike Warkentin, then we weren’t necessarily doing CrossFit the way it was back then, right? And that also is one of the most beautiful parts of mentorship 101 is anyone that joins mentorship now learns from our mistakes. So hopefully no one is still doing that. And if you are, that’s OK. There’s still time to change it.

Mike Warkentin (01:28):
We’ll help you today. Here it is.

Peter Brasovan (01:29):
Yeah, absolutely. So, the 2024 version of a client journey really is a full picture from the day that someone becomes a lead or a prospect. This is before we even know if they’re going to be a member. But when you get that first name, phone number, or email address, this client journey for yourself has started a little bit. And I’ll talk about some key things that are really important on knowing who you’re talking to from that point right there. And then our goal, when someone finds us on social media or somewhere else in the world, get them from social media. Get them to your website to give you their contact information as smoothly and quickly as possible with as few clicks as possible. And once you get their information, now the ball is in our court as owners or CSMs or high-level managers. Because now that real client journey starts inside of our gym. How are we going to contact them for the first time? Is it going to be text, phone, email? That process is really important. Get them in our door as quickly as possible, get to know who they are, and then lay out the first 14 days and then the first 90 days, and we’ll break that apart in some of this episode.

Mike Warkentin (02:33):
It starts before a client is a client. We call it the client journey, but it’s when the client first hears about your business, what is the experience? What do they hear; how do they feel? And then that goes all the way to the end. When they leave for whatever reason—it could be they die, 40 years down the line with a great level of fitness that you provided, or it could be they moved to another city, or it could be some other reason—we’re going to document everything in between and talk about how you can keep clients as long as possible, who’s responsible for that and all that other stuff. So, it’s like from first contact to final exit, what happens for every client? And the more that you can make that a cohesive process that’s the same for every single client, you can raise your standard of excellence, you can delegate that to staff members who hold that standard of excellence, and you’ll keep more clients longer. So, let’s talk about it. What are some of the essential elements that you can put into this client journey to increase length of engagement?

Peter Brasovan (03:24):
Well, I wish I could say there’s some simple elements. I’m going to hit a quick top five. And this comes from a phenomenal book out there, “Never Lose a Customer Again,” but it also ties deeply into mentorship with Two-Brain. So, every client journey needs to know exactly what we just said. How are you assessing when somebody joins? How are you admitting them into your gym? How are you activating them and getting them started? What accomplishments are they getting in the first month, 90 days? And then how do you adopt them for the long term? So those are five big ones, and I’m not going to break those down today. That’s what full-time mentorship is for. But the three key things that fall in there for me, so three main ones are the No Sweat Intro process—this truly is our opportunity to shine.

Peter Brasovan (04:07):
And there’s so many small things that someone listening to this today can do to make their gym stand out from the gym down the street. So, No Sweat Intro process, number one. Know who you are talking to. Newsflash, it’s 2024. If you haven’t paid attention to social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you can know your client before they walk in a little bit, and that is just huge—we’ll talk about that more in a moment—and then finally, setting your gym, especially in the first 90 days as a gym that can do either “Unreasonable Hospitality” or “Powerful Moments,” and these two are also books. Actually, at the 2023 Summit, I did a whole speech on “Powerful Moments,” and at the 2024 Summit, Chris Plentus rocked the stage with a whole speech on “Unreasonable Hospitality.” So, these are very important topics.

Mike Warkentin (04:53):
So Chris Cooper has talked about this: Every client needs a goal, a plan, and someone to hold them to the plan. That’s you as a coach. But to get the goal and the plan, you have to talk to a client. When I had them do “Fran and vomit,” I didn’t get a goal, and I didn’t get a plan. I wasn’t able to provide accountability. So, we’re talking about the No Sweat Intro—that’s the free consultation—so, we’re going to skip past the part where you get a lead into your gym. We’ve got lots of resources for you to help you do that. Once they’re there, what happens in this essential step of the client journey, and how does it help us keep them for years?

Peter Brasovan (05:22):
This is—again, we can do a whole other podcast on just the No Sweat Intro, but we’ll try to keep it short for today’s purposes. But when somebody walks in their door, if you have a complicated parking situation—you know, not every gym is the same—did you take a video and say, “Hey Mike, this is what the parking’s going to look like before you get here. Make sure you park in these key spots, and send them a personalized video so they feel like they’re the most special person to you? Even AI will do that now, right? There’s recording ways that you can make AI say the person’s name so you can just have a forever green video that gets replicated. So that step for many gyms is really important. So how do they park? How do they arrive? When they walk in—Mike, oh, this one; we did this in like 2017, and it changed everything. A little—you have whiteboards. Everybody has whiteboards in our gym already. Write, “Welcome Mike,” on the whiteboard. Everybody could do that today. When someone walks into the gym for the first time, they know they’re coming, write their name. Better yet, if you have a TV, you’re using one of those, put a welcome on the sign, or you use one of those little pegboards. There’s so many ways to make someone feel unique. I guarantee you the gym down the street is not doing something that simple.

Mike Warkentin (06:26):
Yeah, because it feels terrible to go somewhere where you’re already intimidated. Like fitness is scary to a lot of people. So, you’re like, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what this place looks like. I don’t know where to go.” I hate that feeling. I stand there awkwardly. But if you said, “Park here. Do this. Come in,” and like bells go off and my name’s on the board, I already feel like I like this place.

Peter Brasovan (06:45):
One hundred percent. And then simple things. Do you have a bottle of water? Is it a hot day? It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere right now. Like, is it hot? Give them a bottle of water. Is there an air-conditioned place you can sit down and chat so it’s a little more comfortable? Just set the tone so they know that they’re the most important person to you during that No Sweat Intro.

Mike Warkentin (07:00):
And this stuff is—you’re going to document this stuff, and you’re going to do it every time for every client, right? This is not going to be a thing where it’s like, “Well, we sometimes put the name on the board.” It’s like, “You’ve got to do this every time.” If we’re talking unreasonable hospitality and really going the extra distance to set yourself apart and build value, that’s what it takes, is doing the same high level of service every time. Not just for Tim, but not John, right? What else do we have related to the No Sweat Intro process?

Peter Brasovan (07:24):
So once they come in, again, have a comfortable place where they can sit down. Some gyms still do the old tour. I’m 50/50 on the tour. It’s not necessary at the beginning. If you’re a good salesperson and you’re confident in what you’re talking about, you could tell them, “We have an amazing gym with some of the best equipment, but we’re not going to talk about that today. At the end of the conversation, if you want to see more of it, by all means. But this conversation is about you and your goals.”

Mike Warkentin (07:46):
I don’t like the tour. And the reason why I don’t like it is because it cuts into the time that I could be talking to the client. I’m looking at, “Oh, look at my reverse hyper.” No one cares, right? Like, obviously, you care. But if you can talk to the client and get their info and work them into a situation where they’re happy to sign up, why not do that? And they’re not going to sign up because you have Rogue Echo Bikes as opposed to Airdynes or whatever it is. Like talk to them.

Peter Brasovan (08:07):
They don’t know the difference yet. And that’s exactly why the we’re—

Mike Warkentin (08:09):
No, you’ve got to teach them.

Peter Brasovan (08:09):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I could go on, again, another episode on just why gym tours are a bit strange. So, but I tell them—outline their expectations for the next 15 minutes. This one is also a simple one to input today in your gym. OK? “We’re going to talk for the next 15 to 20 minutes. We’re going to talk about your goals. This is about you and what you need out of a gym. We’re going to talk about what we offer. Make sure you understand where we’re at. Then I’ll tell you about our pricing and what’s the best prescription for you. And then I’ll make sure that you have the right choice. And we’re going to get you signed up to get started as early as tomorrow, as long as our coach is available.” So, I outline all that before I start the conversation. Because otherwise people are like, “Mike, I just want to know the price. I just want to get started. What are we doing?” If we don’t set their expectations, they’re just waiting for their chance to ask the question they want to ask.

Mike Warkentin (08:54):
Yep. And so, you said something really important that has to be highlighted. You said find out your goals because it’s not the goals or your goal as a coach where it’s like, “Oh, I want you to lose weight and get fitter and have a big deadlift.” It’s, “What is the client’s goal?” Chris Cooper and I talked about this in a previous show. It’s essential to find out what the client wants to accomplish, not what you think the client wants to accomplish. I made this mistake for decades or a decade. Find out the client’s goal. Tell me more. What do you have?

Peter Brasovan (09:20):
Oh, just, yeah, we all project. I see this all the time in mentorship right now, especially with newer gym owners; they’re still projecting their feelings. And I talk about it all the time. We have evolved. So many people are evolved that you have to understand your clients are as well. So, know their goals. Do they have family? Why are they trying to join your gym? Do they want to go skiing this winter? Do they have family? Do they want to be the best dad, the best grandfather? Whatever it is, that’s such an important part because then we get into that keyword I also said a minute ago: the prescriptive method. Yeah, really big one. Every client might start very similarly. You might only have one or two prescriptions, and that’s OK, but when I sell you that prescription, you want it to make it feel like it’s the most important prescription for that client.

Peter Brasovan (10:03):
Again, a very simple thing to start with tomorrow on the next client you talk to is even if you only offer the same thing for everybody, make them feel like they’re the most unique person to ever get this offer, this deal. And so, the prescription usually would be four to six one-on-one sessions so they really understand your culture and your vibe. I don’t care if they know the snatch and clean and jerk down the street. Maybe they were taught different ways. Who knows what it was? We want to make sure they understand our gym and our lingo because we want the other 150 members we have in classes not to be slowed down by the new person, all of a sudden confused. So that prescriptive method where they do four to six one-on-one sessions and then get started is really important.

Mike Warkentin (10:40):
Click the link in the show notes for the prescriptive model. It’ll tell you everything you need to know in detail. So, when this show wraps, you can go through that and figure out what to do. But this is very simple. In this part, you’ve got the goal, you offer the prescription—the prescription might be the same for everyone, but you personalize it because you know lots about the client and you’re just going to say, “Based on your goals and your schedule and your budget, the best thing that we can do to accomplish your goals fast is X.” Maybe it’s three times a week personal training, or maybe it’s group classes or whatever it is. Give them the prescription. You are showing them your expertise and telling them the plan, and you’re going to provide accountability to that plan. So that’s goal, plan, accountability. What else do we have on this one?

Peter Brasovan (11:18):
So yeah, that prescription should be very simple. It should be clear. Ideally, you’re going to have some type of sales sheet, and even if you have multiple pages of the sales sheet or sales binder, try your best to just show them the page that’s most important for them and what they need so that this is very clear, and don’t oversell them. You’ll also have chances to upsell them and goal reviews and stuff in the future. Right now, keep it simple, keep it streamlined, get them in the door, get them started. So that’s really—from a No Sweat Intro process, those are the simplest things I could talk about right now.

Mike Warkentin (11:45):
So, if you’re looking at this, this from the outside already sets you apart. You’re not getting the person in for a free workout, you’re not doing a tour—you can, but you’re not doing all those kinds of gym sort of salesy things. You’re getting this person in, talking about goals, having a personal conversation, providing a plan, and telling them, “Here is the best way to accomplish your goals.” This alone will set you apart. It raises the value of your service. You’re going to sell more, and here’s a key one where—I’m not going to jump in front of you, Peter, but—you’re going to book that 90-day goal review session at that time. OK, we’ll get to that in a second. But like this is all packaged together because we talked about the client journey from start to finish. You’re going to actually set up the next steps. And in the podcast I did before this, Chris Cooper talked about this. He says, “At that client journey, at that meeting in 90 days, I’m going to ask you for a referral if you’re happy.” He’s setting the table for more, and so this client journey is all documented. If you start doing this stuff, you will have better results. Take me onto the next thing on your list, Peter. What can we do to improve retention on the client journey?

Peter Brasovan (12:43):
Absolutely. And this one maybe could have been first. I wrote it in this order. Know who you’re talking to. I briefly mentioned this one already, but oh my gosh, Mike. Why are people not doing more of this? I know it can sound creepy; I get it.

Mike Warkentin (12:54):
Like stalking.

Peter Brasovan (12:55):
This is the world we live in. So, if you see, especially a name like mine, Peter Brasovan, coming into your gym, you better throw me into Google or Facebook. You’re going to find me. I think I’m the only one in the United States, so not hard to find me. Please know who you’re talking to. You’re going to know: Did they just move to town? Do they have kids? Do they have family? Sure, it sounds creepy, but that person’s also going to feel special. So do it in a way that’s not over the top and say, “Ah, Peter. I saw you were coming in. I like to know who my clients are, so I threw your name into a quick search, and I saw that you work at Two-Brain. That’s super exciting. I’ve always wanted to hire Two-Brain as a mentor.”

Peter Brasovan (13:27):
So know who you’re talking to, especially with LinkedIn. People want to be found, and people want to be seen, and they want to be heard. So again, you have to know with some context who you’re talking to and not go over the top, but you should know, “I’m talking to Peter Brasovan. These are some things I know about him.” People also—Mike, they love to hear their name. You should be trying to incorporate someone’s name into the sales process a minimum of three times, probably five to seven times by just saying, “Mike, I hear what you’re saying. Thanks for that great question. I’m so excited to talk to you today,”or “Mike, here’s your plan.” And the more you can work that in—again, not over the top, but doing it subtly and getting it in—people are going to feel like they’re the most special person to you during that time. So, know who you’re talking to.

Mike Warkentin (14:09):
Yeah. And it just makes sense because these resources are out there, and you can then use them to make connections, right? Who doesn’t want to be asked about their dog? Like, “Oh, you know, I saw you’ve got a dog. I have a dog too. What’s the name?” Like all of a sudden, you’re building rapport with this client, and it’s making this relationship so much smoother, so when you’re asking for a sale later on, they already know that you’re doing some work. You’re not treating them like a number or just a faceless person. You’re treating them like a real human being. You know something about them. You put in some extra effort; they’re going to be more inclined. Like you’re becoming a friend essentially, and if you do it the right way, like Peter said, you’re not saying, “I was creeping on your Facebook, and I saw you drunk on Main Street the other night.”

Mike Warkentin (14:45):
You’re not doing that. You’re just saying, “Hey, I saw you went on vacation. Like holy cow, you climbed whatever mountain that was. Wow, that’s incredible. That’s going to relate to your fitness goals. I can’t wait to hear what they are.” That kind of stuff is essential, and I’m going to take this further, Peter, if we go further on the client journey; this should never stop. You should never stop learning about your client. So, if you look at a picture, take a group picture of your next workout. Look through there. Can you name everybody? Can you name everybody’s spouse? Can you name everybody’s job or what they do? If you can’t do that stuff, you need to start asking more about your clients and getting to know them on a personal level. If you do, then you can ask for referrals. You can ask, “Hey, can your spouse come in? Can your friend come in?” If you don’t do that, there is a random client that I don’t really know anything about: “Do you have any friends who might like to join?” That’s crappy. Don’t do that. Take me further on this one. Is there anything else we need to know about finding out more about your clients?

Peter Brasovan (15:41):
It never does end. And internally we have a word we use: affinity, right? Affinity marketing. And that’s exactly what you’re talking about, and that does go into what we’re saying. So, a lot of what we’ve talked about so far today is all about the sales process in the client journey. But now it really sets the tone. Once they decide to join, you give them their best prescription for their most successful client journey. Now we go into how do we retain them for—the first focus needs to be only 90 days. If we go straight into long-term retention, we’re going to miss the most critical time in any journey is the first 90 days. So, in that time, affinity marketing goes a long way. If you start to understand who someone’s brother, sister, spouse is, who their neighbors are—what sports do they play?

Peter Brasovan (16:20):
Kickball, dodgeball, auxiliary things, softball, whatever. And then where do they work? What kind of coworkers they have. Because once someone becomes a member of your gym, losing a customer is the biggest threat, right? And that’s where the client journey is. We don’t realize this. We just probably spent 30 minutes to upwards of two hours to get this client in our doors between the No Sweat Intro, doing the research, all this stuff. And now we have this customer, and they probably have a minimum of two to seven people that they could bring into the gym if we start the affinity marketing process right then. So, your client journey at this point becomes really important. And as a smaller gym owner, what I’m about to say probably hits you right in the heartstrings. You need teammates to help them. And if you only are a one man, one woman show right now, this is tough.

Peter Brasovan (17:04):
But if you can start to think of things like a client success manager, even if they’re only part-time, five to seven hours a week, or your coaches. Your coaches are the front line, and they need to understand that every day they show up, they need to be hitting the processes of the client journey. If it’s Mike’s 20th class, they should know that because we’re checking people in. “Hey Mike, congratulations. You made 20 classes. You get your T-shirt today,” or whatever it might be. All client journeys should have some type of simplified process that tracks people at 30, 60 and 90 days at a minimum. And the coaches need to be in on that, or a client success manager needs to be in on that because that’s going to be critical to long-term success.

Mike Warkentin (17:43):
Now we’re not going to get into the exact details of SOPs and delegating, but we have shows on that. The short version: You need to systematize everything in your gym and decide what is a 10 out of 10. Communicate that to your staff along with your vision and then you get your staff members to perform to that level, either through mentorship or checklists, and make sure that you provide the accountability they need to serve your clients the way you want. Do that stuff, and your client journey could be a little bit different than we’re talking about, but whatever it is, everyone has to be on the same page, and everyone has to know their role, and you can delegate retention. In fact, when your gym gets bigger, you’re going to have to, but you have to do that with a system, and you have to ensure excellence within that system because otherwise, what happens? You get 300 clients, no one’s taking care of anything, and all of a sudden you have 150 clients, and everyone bled out. So that’s the short version. We have shows in our archives here for standard operating procedures and inspiring your staff. Check that stuff out because it will help you. Alright, take us on to the next essential element. What have we got?

Peter Brasovan (18:42):
Well, I do have the last essential element, but I want to hit on something you hit just for today’s purposes. Please, anyone listening to this who’s still not in mentorship or still on the fence about a client journey, really important—one of my favorite phrases possible is, “Action is greater than perfection,” and that also leads into: Client journeys are living documents. Whatever you start today will probably and should be different six months and 12 months from now. So don’t get frozen or paralyzed because Mike’s saying all these fancy things and go listen to other podcasts and episodes because they’re there, and you could do all this on your own, but just take action on that. Even if it’s as simple as updating that No Sweat Intro like we just talked about, that is better than doing nothing at the end of today’s call.

Peter Brasovan (19:21):
The next big thing though is to get those systems and processes in place. Do go listen to those things. But whatever you do today, keep it simple, Mike. Keep it super simple because you can make it better for the next 10 people come August or September or whenever it is in the next few months. The last big piece falls into this 90-day journey. These are the powerful moments. I cannot tell you how many gym owners—and you could go interview every gym owner. Tell me something you love about your gym that’s super special. A top comment is always, “We have the best community.” Newsflash, everyone should be saying that. And if they’re not saying that, then there probably is something really incorrect. So, if you are fighting the gym down the street for more clients, and you’re all saying, “We have the best community,” you need to really do something that sets yourself apart.

Peter Brasovan (20:07):
What is something that they cannot provide because you as the owner uniquely are doing for your gym? And to me this is serving powerful moments and unreasonable hospitality. If you are willing to write handwritten cards after somebody gets to their 25th class, or you’re giving a special 25th class T-shirt that you can’t get anywhere else, or you’re going ahead and sending somebody a card because they had a baby or because their dog passed away, sure other gyms can try to do that, but it will never sound the same as it does from who you are. And so, in your 90-day journey, again, keep it simple, but have at least three touch points. One at the 30-day, one at the 60-day, and one at the 90-day. That elevates a client to what we say, “putting them on a pedestal” and makes them feel like, “Holy cow, these people are really caring about me and tracking me along my process.”

Peter Brasovan (20:56):
And then at the very least, at that 90-day mark, as Mike said once earlier, and Chris Cooper talks about this all the time, there has to be a pre-scheduled 90-day check-in, and at that check-in, if you can come in with something that they weren’t expecting—maybe it’s a personalized water bottle at that time, or maybe it’s this personalized jump rope. But if you come to that meeting saying, “Congratulations on your first 90 days. I can’t wait to talk to you in a year,” that person’s going to be with you, and they’re going to become a raving fan. And so, for those powerful moments, that unreasonable hospitality, what can you do? And is it—I’m not trying to say break the bank; a lot of this can be done for free. Again, a handwritten card costs 30 cents and five minutes of your time.

Mike Warkentin (21:32):
And along your theme of keeping it simple, how about this? What if in your client journey, within the first 30 days, you had, “Owner or coach calls client to congratulate them on something that they’ve accomplished,” whatever it is. And what—it costs you nothing but a minute to pick up the phone and or even text a video and say, “Hey, I saw your name on the board yesterday. You deadlift a hundred pounds. Holy crap, you are so close. You’re so far on your way already towards your goal of X.” A simple thing like that costs nothing. But it improves the client experience. And all the gyms that are talking about community, like Peter said, how many of them are doing that? Almost none. Right? It could be just you, and if you are the client, think about how that makes you feel. Peter, what’s one of the most powerful moments that you’ve ever had for a client? Do you have any examples of something that was just like, “Oh my god, that was incredible.” Coop’s talked about this a few times when he’s had clients literally in tears crying about something that happened at the gym, and it was incredible. Have you got anything like that?

Peter Brasovan (22:28):
I have so many things like that.

Mike Warkentin (22:30):
Yeah, I have so many.

Peter Brasovan (22:31):
The best ones are probably not going to jump into my head, I know. If you guys don’t know me, I did sell my gym to a 50/50 partner, great friend of mine, but Myriad Health + Fitness, they relaunched the founder’s club because they moved their gym, and they allowed some of their oldest term members, longest seed clients, to have personalized barbells when they moved locations. So, they got them specified colors. I think they even tried to put their names on them, and now some of these longest time seed clients to have their own personalized barbell, and when I went to drop in there not too long ago, two guys wanted to show me their barbell: “Look at this barbell I got,” and it was one of the coolest client journey things I’ve ever seen. Like, thanks for putting up with us while we move all this stuff. And now I have my own orange and black barbell this guy showed me. I thought that was one of—really, that one brought me. And then a lot of times just simply recognizing people. We used to do a quarterly meetup for new members. This was so simple.

Mike Warkentin (23:20):
Oh, I like that. I like that.

Peter Brasovan (23:21):
It was so simple: “Hey guys, on the last Saturday morning of the month, we’re going to have some coffee and some snacks for you. If you’re a new member, come on in. I just want you to meet the other new members that are alongside.” And then, we specifically pick a few old members to come to that to help network. And that one was really powerful and so simple. It cost us a jug of coffee and a couple snacks and only five to 10 people were to join, but those five to 10 people were with us for years afterwards, and so quarterly meetups for new members was huge.

Mike Warkentin (23:48):
So, first 90 days, you’ve got to put some surprise-and-delight-type stuff in there that makes people happy, feel seen and accomplishing their goals, right? Chris has talked about this. If my goal is, “Lose 30 pounds,” that’s intimidating. But what if somewhere in that first 90 days, the person loses a pound? That’s a huge win, and you need to highlight that. And that’s again, goal plan and accountability. You are holding them. You’re showing them their success according to the plan, and you’re holding them accountable. We lost a pound; the next one’s coming—whatever it is. That’s just one example. Do this stuff, put this stuff, document it, and like Peter said, keep it simple, but put this stuff in there and add these touch points in. We touched on this a little bit, Peter, but I’m going to ask you this.

Mike Warkentin (24:27):
It sounds cool for you and me to like—we could do this with 80 people, we’d be great at it. What happens when gyms start to get bigger, and you have to have the staff people in place? And I want to ask you specifically about the client success manager’s role in this and delegating retention. Because every single gym owner I’ve talked to on the show who hires a client success manager says it is a 100% investment. They see a return on it, so talk about that one a little bit for me.

Peter Brasovan (24:49):
Yeah. And again, at my peak when I owned my gym before the pandemic, we were at 500 members, so we had this process dialed out in so many ways.

Mike Warkentin (24:56):
Yeah, let’s have some details then, and this’ll be good.

Peter Brasovan (24:58):
Yeah, absolutely. The number one thing is start with a highly organized, just highly personable person. Again, this stuff starts simple. We talk at such a high level on podcasts like this, but we all started at a very simple process. Find the person who’s the most organized and most energetic, and tell them what your goals are. “Hey person”—we’ll call Megan—”I need to get—every member needs to have a handwritten card at least twice a year, and I want them to have at least one touch point once a quarter, and I need the coaches to be a part of this process, so I need you to help me organize the coaches. Ultimately you are in charge, but you have them to work with you. And so, the CSM could be utilized in so many ways, but the first CSM probably needs to be about five to 10 hours a week, checking in on the new members first.

Peter Brasovan (25:44):
The new members are the most important right now if you’re just getting started with this process. So, take care of them for the first 90 days, and that should be about five hours a week. And the other five hours a week should be checking in on old members and working with the team to delegate. Are we doing goal reviews? We haven’t even talked about that in this episode. Goal reviews are so huge, right? If we’re doing goal reviews, that’s a beyond 90-day thing. And then are the coaches realizing that they—and I said this already—they are the absolute most important person? If a coach is coming in and they’re tired and exhausted and showing up to the 5 a.m. at 5:05, honestly, that’s a client success manager thing. Yes, the owner needs to take care of that—don’t get me wrong—but the client success manager needs to realize we are losing our ability to be the best gym because we’re showing up five minutes late. We need to be this, that, and the other, so we need to put our best people in front of the most amount of people. And the client success manager needs to be in charge of these people, riding the cars, doing all these things that we talked about today.

Mike Warkentin (26:36):
I’m going to give you a tip guys from one of our top gym owners. He had his client success manager run a report and find at-risk members who hadn’t been there within—it was like two to four weeks or something like that. That client success manager contacted all of them with a goal of reducing the list to zero, and he retained a huge percentage of them. Think about that. People who are potentially on their way out of your gym, what if you could save them with a phone call? That happens. So, that’s an interesting one that you guys could look at. Again, keep it simple, but that’s another market inside your gym where you can look at the client journey. Someone is on the verge of quitting: How do I keep them in there? Give me a couple quick details. Client success manager: What kind of pay rates are we looking at? Like this is like a $50 an hour job or $20, or what are we looking at here?

Peter Brasovan (27:18):
Well, one thing I wanted to hit because I said I had multiple—at about 150 people, you probably need to be having either an assistant client success manager or maybe a second client success manager. So, when we were at 500, we ended up having two people, but our coaching staff was heavily involved, and we would split our client list and say, “OK, you’re in charge of this many people,” so that was really important because we looked at career roadmaps as well—a whole other episode. But if you want to make a full-time career in your gym, then you could do more work by being a part of the client success team at that point for larger gyms. But the pay rates—really, it’s going to depend market by market still, and it’s going to depend on what your needs are. They still can be $15 an hour type of roles and tasks for a very starter gym. It still can be in many markets, but we are probably looking at something like $18 to $22 an hour type deal. But we’re still not breaking the bank on this. Five hours a week, maybe $100 to $150 a week. But if you keep one client each week longer, that pays for itself without even thinking.

Mike Warkentin (28:14):
It’s a no brainer. One client pays for the week of the client success manager, and it happens so regularly. And I’ll give you—I’ll ask you one other one. Does the client success manager get a checklist, or how do you keep that person on track?

Peter Brasovan (28:27):
Yeah, at the end of the day, it’s the same thing. What’s the SOP, and what is needed? So, we could blow this up really big, but as the owner, you’re looking at your value ladder. What are the things that you can do that bring the most value to the gym? And at that point you need to say, “Well, keeping clients longer is a really high-value role.” So, what does that mean? And then you write an SOP, and it should probably be a checklist. Very simple. I’ve used this so often today because most of this stuff just needs to be simple and clear. “These are the five to six tasks that must happen each week. They’re non-negotiable. If all of these are done, then here’s your list of things that are a little bit more negotiable. You’re sending videos, you’re sending flowers and doing something else.”

Peter Brasovan (29:00):
We actually—one last thing that was really important. We gave our client success—she came to us one day and she’s like, “I really want to do all these things. How come I can’t do them? I don’t understand.” I was like, “Well, what do you need to be successful?” She’s like, “I just need a budget.” And I was like, “What? I’ll give you $500 a month.” Again, we are a large gym. I could afford that. “$500 a month. Keep it in these parameters. Do whatever you want, keep the receipts, and let me know what it is.” And all of a sudden people were getting flowers, and they were getting gift cards to the restaurant, and they were getting all these things, and she loved it because we did have a checklist. We gave her parameters to work with, and then we gave her a budget to work with and then she just took off from there.

Mike Warkentin (29:31):
That’s delegating retention. The analogy I always like to use is the baseball diamond. You can play anywhere within these lines. Outside these lines are out, but you have free reign in here and get the stuff done, and we’re going to track metrics, and we’re going to see: Is the retention, length of engagement, is that improving? If yes, continue. If no, adjust. That’s the clear part of delegating retention. You cannot just push it. You can’t abdicate and say, “Do the stuff.” You have to get the lists in place, give the options and the resources, check in and mentor, and then things will improve. So, let’s go on to this one. What are some of the sticking points in a client journey? Like you’ve got one, and you’ve set one up. Where are some of the things where you’ve commonly seen people or things go off the rails for gym owners?

Peter Brasovan (30:11):
Oh, inconsistency.

Mike Warkentin (30:13):
Yep. That’s a big one.

Peter Brasovan (30:14):
Oh god. Inconsistency is absolutely the biggest one. You do it for the first three clients, and then you don’t follow through with every step on client four and five; then you try to get on six. Oh, that is absolutely the biggest derailment. And then they get frustrated. Gym owners get frustrated. We say, “It doesn’t work.” We have to deliver an A product every time. And then also just letting—you must, as the gym owner, be in the driver’s seat. I’m going to say that in the affirmative, the gym owner must be in the driver’s seat. I hear—and the reverse of that is, “Well, the client doesn’t want a goal review. Oh no, my clients are different. Our clients don’t do goal reviews.” Oh, if I had a dollar for every time that’s said. That’s because you’re letting them dictate what the gym looks like.

Peter Brasovan (30:48):
But if you are saying, “We do goal reviews,” fine, change it to a synonym. “We do athlete check-ins.” “We do client check-ins.” “I just want to know what’s going on in your life. Hey, how are you doing?” It doesn’t have to be the specific word “goal review,” but by letting the client dictate if they do or don’t show up or if they do or don’t give you affinity marketing, then that’s where these things get really derailed. If you’re just a fly on the wall in your gym and listening to someone on a Monday say, “Oh, I had a great weekend. I went boating. I did this, this and this,” and you’re jotting that down, that’s a part of affinity marketing. So, this is—the positive is do this every day. The affirmative is do this every day and be a part of the client journey. The things that people get derailed on is they just are passive on it. They’re not consistent on it. They let the client dictate the journey, and then they don’t follow through with the coaches or hold them accountable. And so that lack of accountability and lack of follow through are the biggest things.

Mike Warkentin (31:37):
System rot is a huge problem. I had it in my gym. I created a standard operating procedure, a whole giant book. I was so proud of it. I never updated it. It was worthless within a year. It’s a living document. You have to keep that stuff going. And like we said at the very beginning of the show, every client must get the same standard of excellence if you’re going to be an excellent business. If you’re not, if one client gets excellent service and the rest get a C, not a good gym. So, you’ve got to keep that stuff top of mind. It’s funny because that happens so much. You put together this great amazing client journey and then implementing it, you just can’t do it. It never happens. And you’re just like, “What did I do?” You know? Did that happen at your gym? Was there any backsliding, or were you able to keep it right in line?

Peter Brasovan (32:16):
There was always backslide unfortunately, but every time, we learned, and we grew. We thought one person could do it. She was a rockstar. She did it as best she could, and she’s like, “Guys, I’m overwhelmed.”

Mike Warkentin (32:25):
Five hundred is a lot.

Peter Brasovan (32:26):
Yeah. Then we delegated: “OK, between 10 staff members, everyone has 50 people.” Sounded phenomenal until we weren’t holding everyone accountable. Everyone wasn’t delivering the same level of excellence. So, we went through and kept learning, but we were always consistent in follow through with, “Is this process working?” So, did we have rot? Maybe not rot, but we had failure or mistakes, but we were always keeping it up and keeping it growing. And so, yeah. A lot of learning process by mistakes and growth.

Mike Warkentin (32:57):
So, what are the rewards? Now let’s talk about what gym owners are going to get out of this. So, what are the rewards for putting together an airtight client journey—either done by you, the owner, or by the staff members or as a group, whatever your business model is—what are the rewards for doing this long-term and establishing this excellence?

Peter Brasovan (33:13):
What are the rewards for long-term client journey success? What a beautiful question. Imagine this, right? You get to 150 clients, everything looks wonderful, and you could keep every client forever. I know this is farfetched. People move; people’s lives change. Babies happen. I know it is. But in theory, if you only lost one to two clients a month because of moving and life circumstances and then you gained, let’s call it two losses a month and gained four a month, you’d have 24 extra clients by the end of the year. So, an airtight client journey allows you to really back off the need for more sales. You might not even have to run ads or do anything big because your client journey is so airtight that you might be just getting referrals on the backend and get two to four new members and lose one or two because people move, and you get such a big reward. People just don’t understand that losing customers is absolutely more detrimental than the need for gaining more customers. And an airtight client journey allows you to keep clients longer, and that’s the bottom line.

Mike Warkentin (34:13):
Yep. And I’m going to go even further, and I’m going to suggest, based on Two-Brain data, an airtight client journey—using the prescriptive model, No Sweat Intros, goal review session—increases length of engagement. It goes well beyond the industry standard of like 7.8 months, which is terrible. Two-Brain clients will be over 20 months, which is huge. You think about the math on that; that is huge. And that comes all from that model. Average revenue per member in this model goes up. Every client who does—sorry, 30% of clients who do goal review sessions will upgrade their packages by about 30%. That drives up ARM; everything gets better. All these metrics start to go up, so lifetime value goes up, profit goes up, gross goes up; everything goes up in your business. And I’ll give you this one, tacking what Peter said, marketing costs may go down because you don’t need as many clients.

Mike Warkentin (35:00):
You don’t need to replace as many clients. And get this, every client who comes in has a whole bunch of friends and a spouse, partner, whatever—you can probably get one of those, so every person that comes in is a plus one. All these people stay longer and refer more people. There is a gym, Sara Snellman runs it in Zurich, Switzerland. She has—I think it’s capped at like 340 members or something like that. She has zero marketing costs. She loses, from 340, 10 members a month. That’s it, and she replaces them by going to her waiting list and saying, “You’re up,” and that’s all she does. She also gets other clients back. She’ll call former clients and say, “Hey, we’ve got a spot. You want to come back?” and they do. Zero marketing costs, huge revenue, and it’s all based on this model. So, we can’t understate how important this thing is. Peter, let’s close this off. Give someone out there—we’ve gone through a ton of stuff, and you said keep it simple. What is a simple thing someone can do today to start on this path of the client journey? What would you advise?

Peter Brasovan (35:57):
Simple thing today? Oh man, I want—keep it simple. Have lead capture on your website. So, the first thing that someone does when they come into your gym is just give you their name and email and keep it less than two clicks.

Mike Warkentin (36:10):
I like it. So, you’re going to check your systems right now. Check your system. Go to your website. How difficult is it for someone who has just visited your site to give you contact information? Is it like 17 different clicks and this thing that was hidden on my website where you’ve got to figure out how to do it? Or is it super easy where it’s like, “Hey, I can give you this free guide. Want it? Email address,” or whatever it is. So do something there. I’m going to give you a second step: If you’re super aggressive, figure out what to do after that. You’ve got this person’s contact info, what are you going to do? My advice: Call them within five minutes and ask about their fitness goals. Those are two simple things, and you can try that with the next lead that you get. So, try that today. Put that down. Peter, thanks so much for doing the client journey for us. If people use this, I think all metrics are going to go up. Do you agree?

Peter Brasovan (36:56):
Oh, absolutely.

Mike Warkentin (36:58):
It’s a no brainer. Thanks so much for being here, Peter. I appreciate it.

Peter Brasovan (37:01):
Thank you.

Mike Warkentin (37:02):
My name is Mike Warkentin, and this is “Run a Profitable Gym.” Please hit “subscribe” wherever you’re watching or listening because we do this twice a week every week with Chris Cooper and John Franklin and the best of the fitness business. And now here’s Chris Cooper with a final word.

Chris Cooper (37:13):
Hey, it’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. We created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you, have already joined. In the group, we share sound advice about the business of fitness every day. I answer questions, I run free webinars, and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I’d love to have you in that group. It’s Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gymownersunited.com to join. Do it today.

The post Essential Retention Tactic: The Client Journey appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Delegate Retention Duties in Your Gym

Here’s something that happens way too often:

A gym is running well. Clients are happy and stay for a long time. As the client count grows, all the systems that kept people training start to crack under the strain.

Suddenly a gym that had pushed up to 200 members is back to 150.

You can’t just stop working on retention because your gym is growing. If you do, you’ll kill the growth, and your business might even shrink.

As the owner, you might not have time to tick every box on the retention checklist. You’re the CEO after all, and you have a ton of stuff on your plate.

But someone has to work on retention—and do a great job.

Key Staff Members

It’s worth noting that your coaches are part of your retention plan.

Yes, they must tell clients to push their knees out in a squat.

But they must also motivate clients, show them they’re making progress and celebrate their results.

With that said, a client success manager (CSM) is your real retention safety net. A CSM’s No. 1 job is to improve retention.

A CSM will manage all your retention systems and apply them to clients at various points on the client journey.

For example: On Day 2, the CSM might call each new client to check in with “how are you feeling?” or “do you have any questions?”

That’s just one of hundreds of tactics you can use to improve retention. The exact timing of the check-in isn’t important. What’s important is that someone is executing on a detailed plan to keep clients longer.

See, gym owners scale all kinds of things as their businesses grow. They scale marketing and sales and improve their coaching, but most gym owners fail to scale retention until it’s too late.

“Too late” means an owner looked at a P&L statement and said, “WTF?”

Real-world example: One of our clients started very small and eventually built his gym to more than 200 members. And then he lost a bunch very quickly. So he put a staff member in charge of retention and thought the problem was solved. About six months later, he looked at his revenue and realized he was bleeding clients again.

What had happened?

His CSM had stopped following the plan, and no one noticed until it was too late.

Retention must be scaled—and scaled properly. To do that, a CSM must be hired, trained, mentored and held accountable.

You can’t miss any of those steps. You can’t just hire and go to the beach. That’s abdicating and assuming.

But you can hire, train, mentor, hold someone accountable and then go to the beach. That’s delegating, and great CEOs are master delegators.

I won’t give you a laundry list of exact tasks for your CSM (you can find a complete gym hiring plan here), but I will highlight a few key jobs:

1. The CSM must notice when people are absent, contact them and get them back in the gym. This is a simple task that has a dramatic effect on retention.

2. The CSM must be proactive. That means solving small problems before they become huge, checking in with clients regularly to ensure they always feel noticed, and surprising and delighting clients with congrats, gifts, cards and notes.

3. The CSM must book your clients into goal review sessions every 90 days and ensure they show up.

If someone took care of these essential tasks at your gym, would you hold onto clients longer?

Yes.

Invest in Retention

Our top gym owners—the ones who post the best metrics—all have CSMs. Some have two or more. The role is that important.

Nevertheless, it’s a role with high leverage. All you need is caring, detail-oriented person who can follow a plan, and you can start a CSM with five or 10 hours a week at about $20 or $25 an hour. You might invest $400-$600 a month to start.

But do the math on that: If the CSM prevents one client a week from canceling, you’re winning if your average revenue per member is more than $150 (which it should be; coaching is valuable).

When we ask the gym owners on our monthly leaderboards about CSM costs, they brush them off because they get huge ROI from the position. They consider the money they pay a CSM an investment, not a cost.

I’ll give you an example: Rune Laursen at BoxLife/CrossFit 5512 tasked his CSM with addressing an at-risk client list with 80 names. After the CSM reached out to the clients on the edge, the list had fewer than 10 names on it. That’s 70 clients saved.

Rune’s retention systems are now so good that the at-risk list seldom climbs above seven names.

He has 512 members, by the way. Rune learned how to scale retention—big time.

And he said this of the CSM position: “It is the fastest paying-itself-back role I could ever imagine in the gym.”

I can’t emphasize this enough: Retention is the foundation of a strong gym business.

So who’s responsible for retaining clients in your gym, and exactly what is that person doing?

If you can’t answer those questions immediately, you’re losing more clients than you need to.

We help clients beat industry-average length of engagement by a year. To find out how a mentor can teach you to keep more clients, book a call here.

The post How to Delegate Retention Duties in Your Gym appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Motivate Clients to Train for Years

“Am I going where I want to go?”

Your clients are going to silently ask that question at some point. Maybe today.

What if they don’t have a quick answer?

Here’s what happened to me:

We once had a lot of powerlifters in my gym, and we eventually ended up with 15 women who could deadlift more than 300 lb.

It was amazing, and I was so proud. I put them on Instagram and celebrated them.

And they all quit.

Why?

One woman finally gave me her personal reason: “I don’t look any better.”

It was like a punch in the face.

I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been prioritizing the thing that mattered to the client. She hadn’t made the progress she wanted, and she was unmotivated to continue working with me even though she was getting stronger.

I failed her because I didn’t know her goal and I put my goal for her ahead of everything else.

Motivation: How to Create It

Motivation isn’t just “in some people.” It can be created and nurtured. In a gym setting, this must happen, and you are responsible for it.

Motivation is a balance of regular wins combined with a desire to achieve the next milestone—and eventually the major goal.

“I want to lose 20 lb.”

Great goal. But the reality is that you motivate this person to lose 1 lb. at a time and stack the wins to build momentum.

The most motivated he’ll ever be? When he’s lost 19 lb. and has a single pound left to lose.

As a coach, you need to break the big goals down for clients so they can win and celebrate regularly. That creates motivation.

Think about it: If your goal is “lose 20 lb.,” when will you celebrate?

Sometime way in the future.

That’s not good for retention. In fact, it’s horrible.

Losing 20 lb. the right way is hard, and it takes commitment over months. How do you get that member to keep working for months or even years?

To retain this client, you need him to win regularly, and you need to educate him on the process so he can spot the wins and expect more.

Here’s what I say now:

“That’s a great goal: 20 lb.! We’re going to take this 3 lb. at a time. Every time we drop 3 lb., we’re going to celebrate. I’d expect the first 3 lb. to take four to six weeks, and we’ll use an InBody test to measure results.

“We’re going to do the workouts we discussed, and here’s something cool: Tomorrow, you’re going to be a little sore, and you’re also going to be hungry. That means your metabolism is working and we’re on track! When you feel sore and hungry give yourself a pat on the back. You’re winning already!”

I’m not just telling the client “I’m an expert who’s done this 50 times before. Trust me.”

I’m telling the client to watch for signs that scream “this is working!”

See the difference? I’m putting obvious wins into the process right away so we can build momentum.

To motivate a client, you must know the client’s goal, show them the results they might not notice on their own and then forecast results to come so they can say “my coach said this would happen. I’m crushing it!”

I believe in this process so deeply that one of our mottos at my gym was “teach our clients to know more than any other trainer in town.”

The Skill Every Coach Needs

It’s easier to choose a path that’s clearly marked.

And it’s easier to stay on the path when you see obvious progress and have a guide to say “let’s rest here,” “don’t step there” and “you’re almost to the destination.”

As trainers, we often think the most important thing we do is programming or coaching movement.

Let’s be real: The most important skill is getting the client to the gym. That’s the skill you must develop to get results for members.

Don’t ask yourself, “Can I correct squat mechanics?”

Ask yourself, “Am I quick to call a client I haven’t seen for three days?”

That’s the skill that really makes a difference, gets results for clients and gives them the motivation they need to train with you for years.

The post How to Motivate Clients to Train for Years appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Retention: What Really Matters and What’s Completely Irrelevant

Mike Warkentin (00:02):
Retention is a huge deal in gyms, but some retention tactics don’t do a thing and other ones are essential. We’re going to talk about exactly what the essential retention tactics are today and how you can get more clients to stay at your gym for longer. My name is Mike Warkentin. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m here with Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper. Welcome Chris. How are you doing?

Chris Cooper (00:20):
Awesome, Mike. Thank you.

Mike Warkentin (00:21):
I have fired up with this. Retention is a passion of mine because every client who stays is one less person I have to try and find at great expense and cost of time. So, I want to talk about things that do not matter for retention. There’s a whole list of stuff that we think matters, and it’s little pins and buttons and things like that. What does not matter? We’re going to get into the big stuff, but what’s some of the frivolous stuff we can just do away with right now?

Chris Cooper (00:45):
Bar hopping, like client social outings. Competitions don’t really make a difference for retention. Giving client milestone rewards—they might matter a little bit, but it’s really hard to track. And discounts, like discounts don’t affect client retention. So today we’re going to talk about the things that actually do move the needle, like the big important things that you have to do. And then if you want to do some of these other nice-to-haves, like, “Hey, my client is in the 100 Workout Club,” fantastic. But make sure that you’ve got these cornerstones in place first.

Mike Warkentin (01:17):
Yeah, I’ll give you an example of something that I—we renovated our gym. We had a number of contractors and people that were there. They all pitched in, and they helped us do some work very cheaply and donated labor. It was great. I put up a plaque saying these were the original builders of the gym and so forth. By about year three, all of them were gone. I thought that was a big retention deal, that plaque—it really wasn’t. It was a nice thank you. I probably could have just given them a card and a hug, and it probably would’ve done better. That stuff doesn’t matter. So, what really matters? Let’s get into the nuts and bolts, and we have data to back this up. What keeps clients longer?

Chris Cooper (01:48):
Well, the number one thing that you have to have and the foundation of everything is every client needs to have a clear goal, a plan and accountability. So, you need to know what their goal is. Their goal is not to do CrossFit. Their goal is not to do a bootcamp. Their goal is to use CrossFit or use bootcamp or use exercise or use your nutrition plan to achieve the goal that they care about: to fit back into their swimming suit, to get faster on the bike, to look like a bodybuilder, to touch their toes. They have a goal, and if you don’t know what that goal is, you’re already starting off on the wrong foot. The next thing is that they have to have a plan to get there. Now maybe their plan is to come in every day or three times a week and do our group workouts, and eventually you’re going to get there.

Chris Cooper (02:33):
But it’s even better if you say, “OK, for the next three months, our plan to get you to this goal is X, Y, Z. Your goal is to lose 10 pounds of body fat. You’ve already lost five. What we’re doing is working. Let’s keep that going.” Like that’s the plan, but you’ve had the conversation. The client needs to know that there is actually a plan in place and that somebody is overseeing their progress and making adjustments as necessary. And then the third is somebody has to hold them accountable to it. As coaches, a lot of the times we think that the most important thing we do is the programming or “What schedule should I do?” The most important thing that you do is get the client to the gym. And that’s the skill you have to develop. It’s not “How well can I correct interior rotation of the knee on the squat?” No. It’s like, “Am I quick to call this person if I haven’t seen them in three days?” That’s the skill of coaching that really makes a difference and gets client results and keeps them around for a long time. And we’re going to talk about client results and what’s important there in a moment. But the reality is if you don’t know a client’s goal and they don’t know the plan to get to that goal and nobody is holding them to that plan, they’re gone. Why would they pay a coach?

Mike Warkentin (03:47):
And the irony of that is that stuff is all completely outside the work that happens in the gym. And I thought for so long that my credentials and my skills at coaching and all this other stuff that I did was going to hold the clients. I forgot to ask them what their goals were, right? I didn’t have that structure built outside it to help them understand, “We have a goal, we have a plan, and I’m going to hold you to it and get you to it.” I didn’t do any of that. I just thought they wanted to come and do Fran with me. And that was a real struggle because I was focused on the wrong stuff, and that’s why we’re doing this show to help you guys understand what’s really, really important in retention. So, I’m going to drop a link for you guys.

Mike Warkentin (04:20):
It’s the prescriptive model. I’m going to put it in the show notes. And the thing that you’re going to take from there is that everything is listed right out, this entire model and how you can put in place at your gym. So, if you have questions about it, check that link out; it’ll be in the show notes. So, Chris, you mentioned something super interesting here. We’re talking about goals, but it’s not my goals for the client, which is like, “Oh, I want them to have a 400-pound deadlift and a one mile run or a four-minute mile run,” or whatever it is. What are we actually doing here to motivate clients? How does the goal review—how does that set up for client success?

Chris Cooper (04:51):
Well, number one, it’s a measuring stick. So, you know, it is interesting when you start a program like CrossFit—or you start any fitness program—you start to see results; you start to feel a little bit better. You start to look in the mirror when you walk by, right? And you just casually check out your arms in the donut shop window. But like the key is that at some point you’re going to say, “But am I going where I wanted to go?” So, what can happen, and this happened to me a lot before I figured it out, was especially with women—like women would come into the gym, and I would look at them, and I would immediately see so much potential for them. Like, “You’re going to be awesome,” and we’d start working out. They would get really good at something in my gym. It was usually the deadlift because we had a lot of powerlifters, and so suddenly we had like 15 women who could all deadlift 300 pounds or more.

Chris Cooper (05:39):
Incredible. I’m so proud of them. And they all kept quitting. And I’m, “But how can you quit? You’re so amazing now. You’re so awesome. You just ran your first 5K; you just deadlifted 300 pounds. We put you on Instagram.” “My bathing suit still doesn’t fit. In fact, it fits worse than it did six months ago when I started your gym.” And that’s—yeah, and I can remember actually the woman who was the most transparent about this, Tori. She’s like, “My husband says I don’t look any better.” Oh, immediately, I was like, “I’ve failed here,” because I didn’t know her goal, or I was putting my own goal for her ahead of the goal that she had for herself.

Mike Warkentin (06:18):
So, how do you motivate clients? Like how do you hold them? Like walk us through this process so that we don’t make the same mistake because I’ve done stuff like that.

Chris Cooper (06:25):
Yeah, well so, motivation is really a balance of success with desire to achieve the next outcome, right? Like everybody can say, “I want to lose 30 pounds,” but the reality is you motivate people to lose one pound at a time. So, the most motivated person is the person who has just lost one pound and has one pound left to go. So, what you want to do is start with, like, “Here is your big goal: 30 pounds lost.” You want to break that down into small achievable steps: “We’re going to take this three pounds at a time. OK? So, every time we lose three pounds, we’re going to celebrate.” Then you’re going to set up like the measurement points: “So, we’re going to measure you once a month. I would expect you to lose on average about three pounds a month, give or take a little bit. We’re going to do an InBody test to make sure that you’re losing fat.”

Chris Cooper (07:11):
“You’re going to feel a lot better, but the first thing that’s actually going to happen is that tomorrow you’re going to wake up, you’re going to be a little bit stiff, a little bit sore, you’re going to be hungry, and that one is the signal to you that your metabolism is working better than it was today.” So, what you’re doing is you’re telling people not just, “Here are the steps. I’m an expert who can get you there.” Not just, “I’ve done this a hundred times before,” but also, “Here are the signs when you’ll know it’s working,” because people do not recognize change in their own bodies. You know, I’m sure if you thought about it, and I said, “How much do you weigh today?” you’d be able to give me a guess within five pounds, but you couldn’t tell me if you were a pound heavier or lighter than yesterday. And that’s because we’re too close to the problem. We don’t know. We don’t see the progress ourselves. So, the key is that you have to know the client’s goal. You have to show them their results because they won’t automatically see results or recognize them as they’re happening. And you have to even forecast, “Here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s what you’re going to feel like.” And then they’ll say, “He was right. I do feel like that.”

Mike Warkentin (08:13):
It sounds like you’re doing a lot of client education.

Chris Cooper (08:16):
Oh my god, yeah. I mean our first motto at Catalyst was, “Teach our clients to know more than any other trainer in town.” So quite often we would say something like this—we’d have a group class, and we’re going to do deadlift to max, right? And they would be like, “Oh, why are we deadlifting?” And this was 2005, 2006. There wasn’t a lot of knowledge out there. Most women coming into our gym were still scared of getting bulky, and they didn’t want to lift weights. “Why are we lifting heavy weights? Oh my god.” “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to deadlift. Everybody’s going to feel good. We’re going to high five. We’re going to write your name on that board. But I want to prepare you for what’s going to happen the rest of your day. You’re going to leave this gym feeling pretty good. An hour from now you’re going to be starving, and 90 minutes from now you’ll be willing to run through a wall to get food. This afternoon, one or two o’clock, you are going to want to nap. And what’s happening there is your nervous system is just resetting because it’s going to keep burning calories all day. Come back tomorrow and tell me if I lied.” The next day, they all come in, “Oh my god, Chris. Sixty minutes later I would’ve eaten a binder.” And now it’s like, “OK, yes, I’ve predicted what’s going to happen. They’re seeing that happen even though they didn’t know before how the max deadlift was helping them. Now they see it’s all part of the plan.”

Mike Warkentin (09:35):
And that’s really what it is when you’re talking about motivating clients, retaining clients—if they see the plan, they know the plan, they understand the plan and they see progress along the plan toward the goal, that’s going to keep a client a lot longer than a T-shirt for a hundred workouts. Right?

Chris Cooper (09:50):
Yeah. And there’s a lot of really great research on this that we’ve shared on the blog before, like Loewenstein’s gap theory where the closer a client is to a goal, the more irresistible that goal becomes. So, the best thing that you can do is give them the teeniest tiniest goals: “Let’s lose one pound,” you know. And, “Oh I lost a pound.” “Great, you’ve got momentum. Let’s lose one more pound.” “OK, well I can stick with this to lose one more pound,” or something that my coaches repeat often is, “You can do anything for 10 seconds.” And what that shows them is how close they actually are to achieving their goal, doing their plank holds or whatever that is.

Mike Warkentin (10:24):
Yeah. And if you’re a fitness coach, you might not have this perspective because fitness for you is very easy, like you see it right away. But put yourself in a different situation. For me it’s home repair stuff. I feel completely overwhelmed by large projects. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do; I’m incompetent, but if an expert says to me, “Just pick up this hammer at the store. That’s your win for the day,” I’m like, “Got it. Yes, I’ve got a hammer.” “Next, I want you to cut 25 boards that are exactly six feet.” And you’re like, “OK, I can do that.” All of a sudden, these wins start adding up, and I’ve got a fence or whatever it is. But at the beginning I look at my backyard, I’m like, “I am screwed.” And that’s how your clients have to look at it. In the fitness world, you maybe can’t see that. I couldn’t see that as a coach. I couldn’t see how a client viewed losing 40 pounds or adding a hundred pounds to a deadlift. I couldn’t see the gap. You need to show them progress toward those goals. And if you do that, they’re going to stay motivated. That’s the principle, at least for me. But I couldn’t see that. Chris, have you had that experience with stuff in your life?

Chris Cooper (11:18):
Yeah, I mean we all fear what we don’t understand. If I have to change the battery in my four-wheeler, I’m like, “Oh, this is going to be a big thing.” And then if I put a YouTube video on, it’s like, “Step one, remove the bumper.” “Oh, I can do that. Yeah.” “Step two, look under here. Remove the negative or the positive terminal first.” “Oh, I could do that.” It’s like the more you break it down, the less scary the path becomes, and the clearer it is, the more you’re motivated to get it done.

Mike Warkentin (11:48):
And then you’ve got the person saying, “Chris, watch the rest of that video, and do the next step.” Right? Because it’s like you stop. That’s where the coaching comes in, and that’s where the accountability comes in. So again, guys: goal plan, accountability—those things can’t be separated. They are the three legs of the stool here when we’re talking about retention. So how about this? When you get to a certain level as a gym owner, you may be like, “I could do it to about 120 to 150 clients maybe.” But I could handle retention because I knew everyone’s name, I knew what they did, I knew what their dog’s names were, their partners. But once it started to get into that 120, 150 range, I started to lose track of stuff, and I didn’t know who people were. I didn’t know what was going on. Is it possible to delegate or outsource retention? And if so, how?

Chris Cooper (12:29):
Yeah, so, a lot of gyms in Two-Brain will start doing lead gen and eventually they’re getting more NSIs, intros, than the owner can handle. And so, they’ll have to hire and train a salesperson. Same is true with retention. You can’t just stop doing retention because you’re being successful, and your gym is growing. So, you have to hire what we would call a client success manager. And this is basically the person that’s in charge of retaining people. So, what this person is going to do is take all the systems that you’re using for retention, they’re going to look at the client journey—like a roadmap of what every client goes through—and they’re going to say, “OK, where is Amber on this client journey? Oh, she’s at the 15-day mark.” On the 15-day mark. I call her up and say, “How are you feeling?”

Chris Cooper (13:14):
“Are you still feeling stiff after every workout? How’s your energy level? Are you getting more sleep at night?” Like check in with them. That’s part of it. But you have to be very conscientious. Just like when you’re selling, it can’t be like, “Do you like gyms?” It has to be, “Hey, I’m looking at your client journey here.” So let me give you exactly what I say. Right now, my role in the gym is not retention, but quite often if somebody comes in through a referral, that referrer will have mentioned me: “I go to Chris’s gym,” so I want to be the one to check in. Now I don’t have time to call everybody. So, what I’ll do is I’ll just either call them or I’ll leave them a voice message, and I’ll say something like, “Hey Mike, I know you’ve been at the gym for three weeks now.”

Chris Cooper (14:02):
“That’s amazing. Thank you so much for joining the Catalyst family. We’re really proud to have you here. I know you’ve probably just finished your first on-ramp, and so I checked in with your coach Jessica, and Jessica says that you did a good job in on-ramp. You’ve got the basics down, and you’re comfortable joining a group, and that’s the direction you’re headed, which is awesome because I know I’m going to see you in the group. I can’t wait to meet you. I’m going to introduce myself. I’m going to look over Jessica’s shoulder for the first three months, make sure that you’re making progress and tracking toward the goal that you gave us at your intake, which is lose 10 pounds or whatever it is. And in the meantime, yeah, I’ll see you at the new group. If you ever need me, I’m right here, but I know you’re in great hands with Coach Felipe.” You know, and that’s my quick check-in. There’s a million little tactics like that you can do. But the bottom line is that as we get busy, we deprioritize those things, and this is why we start to have bad retention because we don’t scale our retention practices. We scale our marketing, we scale our sales, we get our coaches leveled up or whatever. We need to scale our retention too, and so when you reach a point where you can’t do that anymore, you need to hire somebody to do that for you. That’s the client success manager.

Mike Warkentin (15:13):
Yeah. So, the client success manager, CSM—what are some essential things that your CSM does? Like what are some of the things that really matter that have to be on that checklist?

Chris Cooper (15:22):
Well number one is if somebody’s missing, they are a blinking red dot. Like we haven’t seen this person in a week, somebody better be on the phone with them. And me, that’s the kind of thing that I forget. Like I’m not a high EQ person. If somebody’s missing, “Well they got some stuff to sort out. They’ll be back.” But you know, the CSM team at Two-Brain would be calling you. The CSM at the gym would be calling you. Jessica would wonder why you haven’t been there. So, she’s going to call you, “Oh your grandmother passed away? I’m so sorry to hear that,” and then she’d probably send you a card. You know, it’s like—so first is noticing when people aren’t there. That’s so massive. Next is being proactive and booking goal reviews. We want to make sure that everybody’s on a good goal review.

Chris Cooper (16:07):
So one thing that we’ll do is we would call it “retain by chat.” We’d send them a quick DM: “Hey Sally, how’s it going?” “Great.” “Yeah. Hey, how’s your fitness progress going?” You know, and then if it’s going great, “That’s so wonderful. I’m so proud of you,” and we move into, “Let’s tell your story.” If she’s like, “It’s going OK,” “Hey totally get it. It’s the summertime. Why don’t I book you in on a 10-minute meeting with Jessica just to review your progress and see if there’s anywhere we can speed it up?” And then if they’re like, “It’s not going well. I’m not making it into the gym,” great—red alert. “Hey, why don’t I book you in for a 15-minute meeting with Jessica, and we’ll take a look at your progress and see if there’s another way that we can turn the ship around and get you back on track.” You know, that’s retain by chat. It’s really, really easy. But if nobody is assigned that work, it just doesn’t get done, and you start losing clients that you don’t have to lose.

Mike Warkentin (17:02):
One of our gym owners that I had on the show, he got his client success manager to address his at-risk list. And that was like, he prioritized those people, and he cleaned a ton of people off that list. Instead of canceling, they all stayed, and he doesn’t have to market as hard; he’s not bleeding people out. He just went to the people who were missing and absent and got the client success manager to say, “Where are you?” and he retained a ton of them. It was a huge percentage, and he’s running a very, very strong gym in Denmark. So that’s a really cool one. Goal review sessions, you mentioned—that’s tied to the intake process. So, if your client success manager is involved in your intake process—you’ve got No Sweat Intros, you’ve got the consultation—they should be booking, in a best practice, that goal review session 90 days hence, as they’re leaving.

Mike Warkentin (17:45):
And you can get a client success manager to do that, right? So that it’s part of the client journey. You come in for your consultation, you sign up, “Here’s your on-ramp, your onboarding process. We do an InBody scan,” whatever it is, “and your first 90-day goal review session is going to be on September 24th,” or whatever the date is.” That’s all a huge part of the client journey. Chris, I’ve had so many gym owners come on the show and talk about client success managers, and I always ask them, “Is it a cost or an investment?” And they’re like, “Investment.” No one has been like, “Oh god, I regret hiring a client success manager. This is the worst decision you’ve ever made. My clients are bleeding out. I’m losing money. They’re so stupid.” They’re all like, “It’s a no-brainer, and these are the best gym owners in the world.” Do you look at that when you see—at your gym, is your client success manager well worth their weight in gold and then some?

Chris Cooper (18:28):
Yeah, I mean it’s a very leverageable role. So, you’re talking about somebody who doesn’t have a super technical skillset; they just have a lot of care, and you’re paying them less than you would pay them for personal training or whatever. It’s a different role. You could even hire a college kid who’s good at instant messaging to start. And so, in my case, it’s usually like $25 an hour. And if you look at, like, “What is the value of saving one client?”—well, if my ARM is 200 bucks, then I’m getting eight times return on that investment if she just saves one client, you know? And usually it’s not like, “What is the technical conversation I need to have to convince this client to come back?” No, it’s just like, “Oh, somebody cared enough to email me.” You know, I had this with this woman, she was an optometrist, she just retired, she’s like, “Now’s the time to take care of myself. I’m joining the gym. I’m signing up for the $400-a-month semi-private package.” I was like, “Hey, I haven’t seen you at this gym in like eight years. How long has it been?” Sent her a message. Boom. “Oh Chris, I was going to quit, but I really appreciate that check in. Somebody here is watching over me. I’m being taken care of. I’m good.” Like that’s the kind return on investment you get from a CSM.

Mike Warkentin (19:41):
Let’s bring this back, and we’re going to stay on the topic of delegating retention. Let’s bring it back to inside the gym. So, you talked about the goal, the plan, and the accountability and all that stuff. And the CSM is kind of your retention safety net when people have gone astray and you need to get them back and contact them and you get your absentee list and so on. Talk about the coach’s job to motivate and get results inside the gym. How does that relate to retention? How important is that stuff?

Chris Cooper (20:04):
Well, it’s super important. I mean, you have to have a good product. People will leave if your coaching sucks, right? But the reality is that most people that we talk to, their coaching is like a seven out 10 across the board—like their worst coach on staff is a B+. And their business is like a two out of 10. And so, we work on their business first because that is their top priority. But eventually there are things that your coaches can do. So, number one, your coaches should be doing goal reviews. They should know the client’s goals so that they can say, “Here’s how this workout is going to help you.” Even if they’re in a group class, they should be able to say, “Hey, if your goal is to lose weight, this workout will help because,” or hey, “If your goal is to get stronger, this workout will help because.” OK? We do this every single day at my gym.

Chris Cooper (20:49):
I post the workout; I give the clients a brief: If your goal is this, here’s how this will help. I tell the coaches, “Here’s how you run this workout.” Alright, so that’s the first thing. The second is client knowledge. So, you have to know who’s in your group. “Hey, I don’t have anybody here who said that they’re really interested in weight loss. OK, I don’t have to talk about that. I do have three people here who are worried about mobility, so I’m going to address that problem.” OK? And next is our clients seeing the success that they’re having: Are they recognizing that success as it happens? So, the coach should be like, “Hey Mike, was that a PR for you?” Hey Mike, I can’t recall you ever going this fast in that 400 meters. Was that the fastest you’ve ever run?” Like they have to recognize that because the client won’t always recognize it for themselves.

Chris Cooper (21:33):
And then after class, it’s celebrating that stuff. So, if my coach has one minute that they can spare during the one-hour class time, they are not going to waste that minute saying, “What was your favorite car in high school?” They’re going to spend that minute at the end of class saying, “Was that a record for you putting you up on the board and celebrating you?” That’s what counts for retention. And then finally, the last piece, which is a surprise to a lot of people is referrals. So, when somebody signs up, we tell them, “Hey, 90 days from now, you and I are going to get together and we’re going to measure your progress, and if this is working really well for you and you’re really happy, I’m going to ask you for a referral. The reason I’m going to do that is because we want more people just like you in this gym instead of doing a lot of advertising.”

Chris Cooper (22:21):
“Fair enough?” They say, “Yes.” Now they’re expecting a referral. They’re coming to that goal review knowing that I’m going to ask for a referral, and they’re not defensive about it. So, they come in, it’s their first goal review, and you’re like, “Hey, you’re down three pounds. I’m so proud of you, congratulations.” Maybe I’m going to ask them to tell their story. And then I’m going to say, “OK, now are you comfortable referring me to a specific person who’s special in your life?” or “Is there anybody in your life who you think would really benefit from the same service that you are receiving right now?” Half the time they’ll give me a name: “Yeah, my husband Mike.” The other half the time they’re going to be like, “I can’t think of anybody.” And you’ll say, “That’s OK. Are you comfortable writing a five-star review for my gym?” So, if somebody is really thrilled, they will become an evangelist.

Chris Cooper (23:11):
They’ll give you a name, a referral. If somebody is pretty happy, but not over the moon yet, that’s OK, they will be. But they’re going to start by giving you a review. And what happens is really interesting. So, people who refer their friends or even give you a review stay at your gym longer because now they have publicly asserted that you are good, and they are getting results. And when people say things out loud, they become married to those things that they say, and they entrench even more. So, if somebody brings their spouse in, they stay longer than they would’ve on their own.

Mike Warkentin (23:45):
I wouldn’t have thought that. Honestly, referrals doesn’t seem like a retention thing to me, but when you lay it out like that, it makes sense. I have now stated publicly that I love this place; I must stay.

Chris Cooper (23:53):
I’m sure you’ve been at Christmas dinner with a drunk uncle who’s made some ridiculous claim.

Mike Warkentin (23:58):
“I invented the question mark!”

Chris Cooper (24:00):
Yeah, exactly. And then the more you press them on it, the more they entrench: “Yeah, no, I invented the question mark.” And they’re going to fight you for it, right? When you tell somebody, “This gym is amazing,” and then they come to the gym with you, and you’re like, “What did you think? Was it awesome?” and they say, “It is OK,” you’re going to talk them into thinking it’s amazing because you’re invested in that now. You’ve made that in your position, so that’s why referrals really help with retention too.

Mike Warkentin (24:27):
It’s super interesting, and that’s one you might have not have thought of guys out there, but think about if you can set people up for referrals and do this as part of your client journey—“I’m going to ask you for a referral in 90 days.” In 90 days, “You’re super happy. Let’s do that referral”—that’s going to keep that person around longer. You will probably get a plus one out of that client. That person is going to stay on longer as a result of this link to your current client, and then that person who joins gets a 90 day, “Hey, referral”—that check-in happens too. And all of a sudden, you’ve got this daisy chain of marketing that costs about $0. Like that’s the best part about this is that you are getting clients very easily through referrals. They’re high-value, like warm leads, easy closes. You’re not spending a ton of time marketing, and they’re staying a long time. Like it’s kind of a win all over the place, hey Chris?

Chris Cooper (25:12):
Yeah, man, like honestly, 2018, Mike, I stepped out of my gym, handed it over to a GM. We did no marketing until 2020—almost exactly five years, like 2023, I stepped back in. The gym kept growing because of this referral cycle and amazing retention, and that’s it. There was no other marketing. This to me is the underlying foundation of all of your other marketing because if you bring somebody in through a Facebook ad, and then they turn into two people or four people through referrals, the value of that Facebook ad has just quadrupled. If you bring in somebody from Instagram, same thing, and then you get a referral, like the value of your Instagram work has doubled, quadrupled. Like it multiplies every other marketing challenge you have.

Mike Warkentin (25:59):
Yeah. And we’ve talked about how you can make $100,000 a year as a gym owner with just 150 clients. I’ll make it even simpler. If you get 75 clients and you can get 75 friends and spouses, how much easier is that? Right? So, like this stuff and then everybody who travels in packs, they generally have the money. So, like you said earlier, if you’ve got an accountant client and he is making $120,000 a year, his accountant friend is probably making $120,000 a year. He probably lives in the same, more or less, area in the same city. He’s already heard of you. The referral thing is such a huge play. And then it creates—all of a sudden you have this web between all these different members of this pack, and they all want to stay at your gym.

Mike Warkentin (26:36):
And for us it was firefighters at one point. We had a really good group of them. You said nurses and accountants were a big one for you. Right, and so, this retention web is just—it’s incredible, and you start holding onto high-value clients for years. And then not only are you building your gym, you’re changing their lives. And there’s a little bit of both because you want to build a great business and make a living, but you also do want to improve health. You can’t do that if people are bleeding out constantly, right? Like that’s one of the things that you’ve passionately talked about, Chris, is if people are leaving all the time, you’re failing as a gym owner, or you’re not helping anyone.

Chris Cooper (27:06):
Yeah. If the average retention rate of a client coming into a group coaching gym—F45 CrossFit, Orangetheory—their length of engagement is just under eight months, that sucks for the business, but it really sucks for the client because you are not changing their life in eight months. That’s not enough for them to develop long-term habits. If somebody comes to your gym and they stay for two years and then they leave, like, OK, they’re probably not quitting fitness. Maybe they found something else, so they’re going to another gym, but you’ve changed their life, and they’re going to keep pursuing that for the rest of their life. But if you’re letting people go after seven months on average, and I’m not talking about like—I know you’ve got a dozen clients who’ve been with you for five years; that’s cool. I’m talking about the person who starts today. Are they likely to stick around for five years and be a unicorn, or are they likely to be gone by January? And yeah, you have to know that you’re keeping them long enough to change their life.

Mike Warkentin (28:05):
Check the prescriptive model link in the show notes; that’s going to be a really important thing for you guys to check out. And Chris stated earlier the thing that really matters: goal, plan and accountability to that plan. If you can get that stuff in place, you are going to change lives, and your business will be successful. Chris, where can gym owners continue this conversation if they want to chat more?

Chris Cooper (28:25):
If they want to do it for free, it’s gymownersunited.com, which is our free public Facebook group for gym owners around the world. There’s 9,400 of us in there right now. It’s always very positive, upbeat and supportive. And if you want to go there, we can continue this conversation on Facebook.

Mike Warkentin (28:41):
And if you want to go further faster, I’d encourage you to book a call. That link is in the show notes. You can talk to someone who will tell you exactly how a mentor can help you improve retention and all the other key metrics at your gym. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” Chris Cooper was here. I’m Mike Warkentin, and please hit “subscribe” on your way out so you don’t miss an episode.

The post Retention: What Really Matters and What’s Completely Irrelevant appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Retention: Are You Majoring in the Minors?

Client social outings, badges and rewards, competitions—they only move the retention needle a tiny bit.

And yet gym owners will often focus on these things first when they try to improve retention.

That’s a mistake.

If you have a 100-workout club and a holiday party but don’t know each client’s exact goal, you’re coming at retention backwards.

Goal, Plan, Accountability

Here’s the foundation of retention in a gym:

Every client must have a clearly defined goal.Every client must have a plan to reach that goal.Every client must have someone to hold them to the plan.

Combined, those three things trump every other retention tactic combined.

Why? Because the other stuff is really window dressing when you get right down to it.

Yes, it’s nice to get a coffee mug after 500 workouts, but how many people stay for 500 workouts if they never make progress toward a goal?

Clients buy your services to accomplish something. The goal and progress toward it matter more than anything else. Clients will leave their birthday card by the rowing machine if they want to lose weight but never drop a pound.

The best thing you can do to improve length of engagement is use a free consultation to find out exactly what a client wants to accomplish before they join. You’ll measure something related to that goal so you have a starting point. Then you’ll provide your expert plan to help the person move from the starting point to the finish line.

The conversation and prescription set you apart from all your competitors: You, the expert, provide the best solution to the client’s problem and the quickest path to accomplishing the goal. No one else does that.

Then you go further still by providing accountability throughout the client journey. That includes daily stuff such as “let’s book your next session right now” and “did you eat veggies at lunch?” It also includes larger stuff such as a goal review session every 90 days.

This process has been proven to improve these key metrics:

Length of engagement (LEG).Average revenue per member (ARM).Lifetime value (LTV).Gross revenue.Profit.Net owner benefit (NOB).

Your “community” and clean bathrooms don’t do that.

Real talk: When clients have a goal, a plan and accountability, they stay longer and buy more services. Those are huge wins for your gym.

They also get fitter and healthier. That’s a huge win for each client, but it also fulfills your noble purpose of helping people.

The Other Stuff

Yes, you can add other retention tactics to the client journey. There’s nothing wrong with a 100-workout club, a coffee meet-up for new clients or a card that says “congrats!” after a PR.

You can implement stuff like that to offer “unreasonable hospitality” and create “powerful moments.” Put a cherry on top of the service sundae.

And your bathroom must be clean (you do not have to clean it personally, by the way).

But don’t major in the minors. Do not prioritize lesser tactics over the goal-plan-accountability triplet that’s a huge winner every single time.

Start doing this: Ask your next prospective client to come in for a free consultation. Ask the person about their goals, and then present the perfect plan to accomplish them. When the person signs up, book a goal review session 90 days down the line, and be sure to check in with the client regularly before that to highlight progress, offer congratulations and provide motivation.

If you do that, your gym will rise above the industry-average length of engagement of 7.8 months and hold onto clients long enough to change their lives.

How do I know? Two-Brain clients are mentored to use this process to improve retention, and our clients’ average length of engagement is over 20 months.

What would happen to your business if you held every client for an extra 12 months?

The post Retention: Are You Majoring in the Minors? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Free Trials at Gyms: Still Not a Good Idea

“Should I offer a free trial at my gym?”

No—I’ll be blunt even though many gym owners and industry people will disagree with me.

Two-Brain data shows that a free consultation leads to the best length of engagement, so I’ll build my business on that extensive research.

Retention in gyms is more important than just about anything else, so I have no reason to experiment and risk losing members with a free trial.

This old debate popped up again when Morning Chalk Up released an article called “Are Free Trials Helping or Hurting Your CrossFit Business?” (It’s available here, with a subscription.)

Short summary: Some gym owners use free trials and say they work.

I’ll review what they said and ask a few questions here.

Tino Hildebrandt of CrossFit Virage uses free trials but sits prospects down for a consultation afterward.

To me, that’s not a free trial; it’s a consultation preceded by a workout. There’s a huge difference—and we know consultations work, so you can’t chalk a close in this format up to the “trial” alone.

Workout plus consultation can equal success if you handle the consultation properly and help clients solve problems by providing a detailed plan.

David Israel of CrossFit Felix offers a free trial to people who have CrossFit experience—that’s a huge qualifier.

A free trial might work for someone who just moved into town and is looking for a place to do Fran, muscle-ups and heavy deadlifts, but how many of those athletes are around? The majority of people do not have experience, so we need an airtight plan to help them get into gyms. It would not make sense to create an intake plan based on the needs of a very small segment of the market.

I’d also ask this: If I have experience, do I really need to sample Cindy or Helen? I personally have 16 years of CrossFit experience. Were I to look for a new gym, I’d want to talk to the owner to get answers to very specific questions. I already know Fran sucks.

Jeremy Sims of CrossFit Bolder offers an entire free month and says seven of 10 samplers become members.

My question: Could Jeremy equal or beat that number with a free consultation and sales training? I bet he could, and he wouldn’t have to give up a month of revenue to get a member.

I’d love to see Jeremy add recurring revenue on Day 1, not Day 31, at the cost of just 15 minutes of time rather than a service package that should be valued at over $200.

Finally, gym owner Avery Jesmer of CrossFit Ravage offers a free week and has a 93 percent conversion rate. She said this: “Giving them time to experience all that your affiliate has to offer will appeal to any of the reasons why they came.”

I’d like to know more about Avery’s process. Is this really just a free trial and nothing else? I have to think that some conversations/consultations are happening during that free week. (If they aren’t, I think they should be.)

My follow-up question would be about retention and lifetime value of those who join: Could it be improved through an initial free consultation and follow-up goal reviews?

I believe the answer is a loud “yes!”—and I believe that because Two-Brain data shows length of engagement is measurably better when free consultations are used, and 30 percent of clients who do goal review sessions upgrade services by 30 percent.

Run the Numbers!

None of this is criticism of gyms who use free trials. I want gym owners to add more clients, keep members longer and earn more, so my comments all come from a place of “can we do better?” I appreciate that each gym owner shared info with the Morning Chalk Up so we can improve the gym business.

In my personal experience, free trials worked only for people who were ready to join already. They had done the research and just needed confirmation, and a good sweat with a fun coach provided it. Those early adopters filled my gym from 2011 to 2014, but I ran out of them in 2015.

So I had to start asking these questions:

What about the average person who just wants to lose weight or gain strength? How do I get that person in the gym and keep them for years? Does tossing that person into a free class answer any of their questions and help them make a life-changing decision?

I don’t believe so.

It also doesn’t expose the person to the best solutions: PT, nutrition coaching, semi-private coaching.

In fact, that’s my greatest problem with free trials: They don’t allow coaches to build value by presenting expert solutions to very specific problems.

As a coach, I want the opportunity to say, “This is exactly how we solve your problems and help you accomplish your specific goals.” If I get that chance, I’ll probably sell coaching, which is worth a lot of money.

If I don’t get to have that conversation, I’m just selling workouts and loud music—which you can get anywhere. And when you can get something anywhere, you’ll make your decision based on price.

If you’ve only used free trials at your gym, you owe it to yourself to try free consultations (instructions here). Test the process and run the numbers on sales, average revenue per member and retention.

If you do that, I’m confident you’ll ditch free trials and never look back.

The post Free Trials at Gyms: Still Not a Good Idea appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Exactly What to Say to Handle Objections and Close Sales

“What do you say when a lead says ‘I need to think about it’ in a sales meeting?”

This is one of the most frequent questions I see in the gym community.

Two-Brain clients have access to a host of sales resources, including regular “office hours” with sales and marketing experts. But I’d like to help you here by telling you exactly what to say in a number of scenarios.

See, I want you to close more sales this week and earn more as an entrepreneur.

What should you do with the money you earn with improved sales skills?

I’d invest it to make even more money. Mentorship is a great investment: If you get expert help building your business, you’ll more than cover the cost of mentorship and quickly drive up your profit.

But feel free start with the sales solutions I’ve got for you below. If these lines help you earn more members, consider booking a call with a member of my team to talk about hitting additional “easy buttons” in your business.

The Words You Need in the Sales Office

To close more sales, you must contact leads as soon as they appear. The gold standard: Call within five minutes of opt in. Then keep calling until you get hold of the person.

If you reach the lead, your goal is to get them to book a free consultation the same day or the next day.

Speed matters in sales!

If you use this process, here are some of the things you’ll hear—and exactly what you should say in response.

Objection Handling While Booking Consultations

If they say: “I’m busy” or “call me later” or “I’m at work.”

You say: “No worries. I wanted to see what time you’d like to come in tonight to check out the program. I’m here until 8 p.m.”

If they say: “I’m with my kids right now.”

You say: “No problem! We are kid friendly.”

If they say: “I’m too old” or “I’m too out of shape.”

You say: “No worries! We are beginner friendly. What time would you like to come in?”

If they say: “What’s the cost?”

You say: “I can’t go over pricing over the phone because our programs are customizable. But what I can do is tell you that we just sold 10 programs last week and we have two spots left. What time do you want to come in tonight? I’m here until 8 p.m.”

If they say: “Can you tell me a bit more about the program?”

You say: “You’ll be lifting weights, doing cardio and doing many other types of training. People love this program. What time do you want to come in?”

Closing Sales

If they say: “I need to think about it.”

You say: “Totally understand. Is three days or three months better for you?” Then, “It really doesn’t matter how long you have. You’re going to have to confront the decision. Do you think that this program will work? Do you have the money for two weeks’ worth of the program? And do you think I can help you?”

Or you say: “Totally understandable. Can I just ask you where we are on a scale of 1-10, 10 being ‘I am going to buy right now’ and 1 being ‘I never want to speak to you again’?” After they reply, ask, “What would it take to get you to a 10?” Then answer the question and finalize the sale.

If they say: “I need to sleep on it. I don’t make fast financial decisions.”

You say: “I totally get it. I’m the same way, but I wouldn’t consider this a fast decision. You’ve been wanting to achieve [INSERT GOAL] for a while now. I think this program is the perfect opportunity to achieve that without wasting any more time, money or energy.”

If they say: “I’ve got a lot going on. I don’t know if I can commit.”

You say: “You will always have a lot of things coming up. It’s never a good time with holidays, birthdays, parties. You have to commit to reach your goals. You want to do this or not?”

If they say: “I need to think about it still.”

You say: “I totally understand, but let’s take this first step and make a commitment to your health. You are making a decision either way, so let’s take a step in the right direction.”

Or you say: “If everything about this program were perfect, would you sign up right now? What are we missing?”

If they say: “I really need to think about it. It’s expensive/I’ll lose money.”

You say: “You can spend the money and then commit to seeing results. You are investing in yourself and your goals. You can see amazing results or walk out the door without trying.”

If they say: “I need to ask my spouse/partner.”

You say: “Totally understand. What if they say ‘no’?”

If they say that their spouse will probably not say “no,” then get them started!

If they say they will not be able to join if their spouse says “no,” ask them if it is because of the program. Then you say: “I understand. But if your partner is anything like mine, they would want you to reach your goals.”

Rehearse and Help First

Are there other things you can say? Of course.

But everything above will help you handle a host of very common situations. I’d recommend you practice delivering these lines: Use the mirror or role-play with a partner or staff member.

As you get more comfortable delivering the lines, you’ll feel more confident. As you gain confidence, your own personality will show through, and you might make small adjustments so the words are yours.

The thing to remember: Handing objections and closing sales are essential skills for gym owners. If you can’t guide someone to sign up for your services, you can’t change their lives.

It’s not about being pushy. It’s about recognizing that someone reached out to you for help, and you need to provide it.

Once you realize that selling is helping in the fitness world, you’ll handle objections and close sales with ease.

The post Exactly What to Say to Handle Objections and Close Sales appeared first on Two-Brain Business.