Chris Cooper's Blog, page 50

The Vocal Local: How to Create a Referral Web for Your Gym

Mike Warkentin (00:02):
How can you dominate your local market? Well, I’ve got someone who’s done it, and we’re going to talk about it today. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. I’m here with Chris Cooper. Chris runs Catalyst Fitness in Sault Saint Marie, Ontario, where he is a household name with every business owner and almost every person, everybody knows Chris there, to the point where when I meet someone from Sault Saint Marie, I actually ask them, “Do you know Chris Cooper?” And I’m surprised when they don’t know him. So, Chris, we’re going to talk about how you dominated your local market, and we’re going to help people do the same thing in their area. How are you doing today? Are you ready to talk about it?

Chris Cooper (00:34):
Well, first, I want to know the phone number of this person who doesn’t know me. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, man, I’m so fired up about this. I love this stuff.

Mike Warkentin (00:42):
It’s the way you built your gym. And it’s so cool because I watched you blog about it for like over a decade now, just from like piece-by-piece Lego blocks up to the point now where you have this business that’s long established and is known in the community to the point where media people will just call you first for a comment and things like that. I think that’s such a cool thing that you are like a go-to source now for things like that. But other people out there, whether they’re starting out or they have a long-established gym, they maybe don’t have a clue how to do this, and it’s simpler than they think. So, one of the things is obviously, “OK, I’m going to blog and do SEO and all this other stuff.” That stuff works. And there is a route into what’s called local SEO. However, that’s not as easy as just getting to know people. And Chris, I’m going to ask you first for like a couple of things, a couple stories of things that you’ve done just to make local connections that pay off in tens of thousands of dollars over the year. What have you done?

Chris Cooper (01:31):
Yeah, I can give you some great examples. When I was first starting out as a trainer—we can get into like media publication because that was a strategy that I used—but one of the first things that I did, one of my very first clients, like one of the original three, she was a soccer player and a shot putter, and her parents had hired me as a personal trainer. They met me at the treadmill store and said, “Holly needs some one-on-one help.” And so, I started just working out with her. And when she had her first high school track meet, I showed up, and I brought a tent. I didn’t ask anybody’s permission to set up the tent. I didn’t ask permission to hang my banner on the tent. I figured if I’m doing something bad enough, they’ll kick me out.

Chris Cooper (02:12):
And, so Holly came over to the tent; she did some stretches, but of course she’s a teenage girl, so she’s not going to come alone. And you know, there’s no sides on the tents or anything like that. So, she comes over and she brings a couple of her friends, and two of her friends were Janine and Marty. And Janine is a 400-meter runner, and Marty is a 1,600-meter runner. And then their parents are calling, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we saw Holly’s parents think you’re the greatest.” And you know, Holly also plays soccer. She’s the goalie. So now I’ve got some soccer parents. And so that worked wonders. We did that for probably five or six years until somebody finally said, “You can’t set up your tent here anymore.”

Mike Warkentin (02:48):
But still, let me just dig into that for a second. So, you just randomly set up a tent for a client, said, “Bring your friends, I’ll help you warm up,” and then all of a sudden you’ve got some additional kid clients and their parents.

Chris Cooper (03:00):
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, one great thing about training kids is the parents—it’s not even a question of like, what’s your price or whatever. It’s just like, “Hey, I want to do whatever my kid wants to do, and I want to support them.” You know, and a lot of these kids actually did go on and get scholarships and stuff too. But the key is you don’t focus on “How can I get my name in front of 3,000 people?” It’s “How can I forge a better relationship with one person?” And paradoxically, that’s what usually leads to other connections. They see you—you know, these other parents are like, “Wow, he is really showing up for that kid; like, here he is at her soccer game. Here he is at her hockey game, and I want that for my kid.” You know, personal training was fairly new in town.

Mike Warkentin (03:45):
It’s like you said, like a billboard. You put that up, people drive by it; it might never get to your client, but a bunch of people might see it. But actually shaking a hand, putting a face to a name: “Oh, you’re Marty’s parents; nice to meet you. What do you do? Oh, you work at the mill? Oh, I’ve got a client there. Do you know Steve?” All of a sudden you’ve got a connection. At the very least, they know you run a gym, and you’re a great guy. At best, they want to train because their kids are training with you. And so, the principle that we’re looking at here, listeners, is go where your clients are, and that means after the gym, they’re going somewhere else; they’re doing something else. What are they doing? Find it out and go there. And we’re going to talk a little bit at the end of the show about some of the tactical stuff—the exact steps of what you would do when you see them there. But Chris, tell me some more stories before we go further into that. What else you got?

Chris Cooper (04:27):
Well, one of my favorites is a big one. So, when we started Ignite, we said, “OK, who is our customer here?” Like, it’s not people with brain injury, really; it’s the people who control their care or tell them like, “Here’s your treatment plan.” And so like, the people we really want to make relationships with are physical therapists, chiropractors, speech pathologists, occupational therapists. And so, what I started doing was just emailing people in our city, like physical therapists—they were the ones who took me up on it—and just said like, “Hey, it’s Chris. We don’t know each other. I’ve got this new book. I’d love to come in, bring you some copies of the book, and bring lunch and just talk about brain injury. I’d love to learn from you guys.” And a couple of the more progressive ones took us up on it, but we had established relationships with these guys years before.

Chris Cooper (05:22):
So for example, even in 2005, if somebody joined Catalyst, I would say, “Who’s your chiropractor?” Or, “Do you work with like a healthcare professional?” And I would shoot that person a fax. You know, 2005, we had a fax machine, and I would say, like, “Hey, Mike just joined the gym. He said he’s done some work with you. Here’s kind of our loose plan. If anything seems awry, shoot me a—give me a call, send me a fax back, whatever you want.” I never, ever, ever had somebody say, “You’re doing it wrong. He shouldn’t be there. You’re going to break this guy.” It was always just like, “Yeah, thanks for checking in.” Like they’re not checking your homework. Right? But we did that from the start.

Chris Cooper (06:00):
And so, when Ignite launched and I said, “I’d love to bring you a tray of sandwiches,” it was just like, “Oh, he’s so nice. We know Chris from the faxes, and oh, he’s going to bring us these sandwiches” and you know, bringing people food or bringing people a hot cup of coffee, it changes their brain chemistry, and they want to talk to you. And not going in and being like, “I wrote this book, and I’m going to tell you guys how to do brain rehab.” It’s like, “Hey, I’m bringing you sandwiches because I want to learn from you.” We did very little talking in those meetings and just one of those relationships was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to us over the next five years.

Mike Warkentin (06:39):
Now, I haven’t told you this story yet, Chris, but there is someone that just proved that this works last month: Michaela Munsterman. She runs a gym in Austin, Texas, and she literally—her marketing plan involves no advertising dollars. She made our ARM leaderboard for December. So, she’s got a huge client value. Yeah, it’s over 400. She’s in the leaderboard, Top 10. Yeah. And get this, no, she doesn’t spend any ads money on ads. What she does is she makes cinnamon rolls or homemade salsa and different things like that, and she takes them to medical professionals in her area, and she’s building her gym around that principle, and it’s working. She got on the leaderboard doing what you did a decade or more ago.

Chris Cooper (07:16):
I love it so much. Wow, Michaela. Cinnamon buns.

Mike Warkentin (07:19):
Yeah. And it’s no ad spend.

Chris Cooper (07:22):
Oh man, it’s wild. I’m lucky now—like we started off with this kind of coffee tactic. Like my philosophy or my theory was that even when we were in the industrial park, I’m not going to walk across the street to like the electrical contractor and pitch, “I’m going to train your 130 contractors,” right? Like it was, I’m going to take the owner coffee because I wanted to create kind of this like black hole of community friendship with all the businesses around me so that if somebody walked into the FedEx office next door and said, “What’s that gym over there?” They would hear, “Oh, those guys are amazing,” right? And like, if you think about how many people are going into a salon in the course of a day, it’s probably 80, and they’ve got nothing to do. They’re trying to make small talk while they get their hair cut, and they’re like, “Hey, what’s that gym across the street?”

Chris Cooper (08:11):
“Oh, that’s Catalyst. Have you met those guys? They are so nice.” Like, that’s what you want. And so it was kind of like fly paper in our neighborhood. And then when I moved to a more commercial area, I just started buying people coffee, and I would go across to like the internet provider guy, and then I’d go across—there’s like a ticket printing business across the street and there’s a Habitat for Humanity down the road. And like there’s a paint store two doors up. And I would just take them coffee and just be like, “Hey, how’s business?” And listen, like, let them teach me something about business. And before you know it, they were all my clients.

Mike Warkentin (08:46):
So on the blog this week, we actually have an exercise where you’re just going to go to a map, and you’re going to use a tool and draw a 10-kilometer circle around your business and think about what’s in there. Because again, you may not be able to dominate a city of 2 million people or something like that, or even, you know, the SEO and the internet. But in that 10-kilometer radius, you can have a huge, huge impact if you just meet people. And so, the idea that that’s in there is what if you once a week took coffee to a business inside that area and start with the ones closest across your parking lot and then work your way out. But what if you did that once a week? In 52 weeks, you had 52 business owners who had met you and had a cup of coffee with you and knew what you did. Like, Chris, what do you think would happen to a gym if it was just starting and that was their entire marketing plan?

Chris Cooper (09:28):
Well, I mean, I know what happens because that’s what we did. When Catalyst started, there was no Facebook. And just because that is a valuable or viable strategy to use right now doesn’t mean that the old strategies aren’t effective. In fact, I’d even argue that they’re more effective. You know, I had an experience literally today where I was packing down our snow machine trails. The manifold on my snow machine started leaking. I called a store, and they’re like, “We got 80 snow machines ahead of you, but if you bring it in tomorrow, we’ll get you in, Chris.” Now, I’ve never met the people on the phone, but when they fixed a lawnmower for me last fall, I took them in like 12 coffees and said, “Thank you so much. Like, you guys have really saved my butt by fixing this lawnmower, and I really appreciate it. You did great work. Here’s 12 coffees.” And when I called this time, they knew who I was. And of course, they all know that I have the gym up the street too.

Mike Warkentin (10:26):
And there’s a reciprocal arrangement there too, where when someone at your gym says, “Oh God, my sled won’t start,” you’re like, “Go to Murray’s place” or whatever that—you know?

Chris Cooper (10:34):
I’ve got a guy.

Mike Warkentin (10:34):
Yeah, right. You’ve got a guy, and they get business back. So, this is a reciprocal arrangement. And listeners, we’re not suggesting that this is your only marketing tactic. Two-Brain teaches four different funnels that operate at all times so that you’re not ever relying just on one. But this is a really strong one, and it’s especially great if you don’t have a ton of money because what does it take? Like 30 bucks in coffee, maybe an hour of your time across the parking lot, and it pays huge rewards. Now you could certainly back that up with the other funnels, like paid marketing content, social media, all the other stuff. But this referral funnel, which is what we’re going to lump this in with, has huge, huge rewards. So, I tell you: Go across the street tomorrow morning with a cup of coffee and just see what happens. You might not get rewards instantly, but you might. You’ll probably get some rewards down the line. Talk to me, Chris, about a couple of other things—going where your clients are. How about like “Lunch-and-Learns” or seminars for stressed clients at their workplaces? What have you seen with stuff like that?

Chris Cooper (11:26):
Yeah, so years ago, our original location was next to this massive Ontario corporation: Ontario Lottery Corp. And most of the people who worked there were either call center employees or accountants. And so, they would come up, and they would do our noon group, and we’d be two blocks away. And what I’d always noticed is like, these were some of the most stressed-out bureaucrats ever. And so, I just said like, “Hey, how come you guys are all stressed out all the time?” And they’re like, “Oh, our workplace is a pressure cooker. Like, I just want to get out of there.” And I’m like, “Well, you know what, if I came down, everybody brought their own lunch, and I just brought like some of these big Swiss balls, and we just did a little stretch or workout or whatever? Would that help?” And all these employees were like, “Oh, you would do that?”

Chris Cooper (12:07):
“Yeah, no problem; let’s go.” And of course, you know, I collected everybody’s name and email address while I was there, signed my waiver, put them all on the email list, and we ran private groups for that company for six or seven years until we moved locations. And it was the same at a local senior center too. It was just like, “What is your biggest problem?” “Oh, you’re locked in all winter, I can solve that. I’ll be there.” You know, and you show up the first time and then you, you basically just say, “Here’s what it costs to keep this going.” And it keeps going.

Mike Warkentin (12:40):
How many clients do you think you got out of that corporate situation over the years? Do you have any idea, ballpark?

Chris Cooper (12:44):
I don’t know.

Mike Warkentin (12:46):
More than one?

Chris Cooper (12:47):
Yeah, hundreds.

Mike Warkentin (12:48):
Hundreds, hundreds. So, there you go. Yeah.

Chris Cooper (12:49):
When we launched CrossFit at our personal training studio downtown, I mean, they were all from banks or the lottery corporations, and we had met each one of these people one-on-one. It’s not like we were handing out fliers on door hangers. We were shaking hands.

Mike Warkentin (13:06):
Doing that and connecting with people, again, it’s so easy now to get locked in behind the computer and behind the screen, and you know, you’re in a waiting room, and you’ve got your head down looking at your phone. I see everyone doing that. But what if you just introduced yourself and asked how business was the next time you are at a dentist or something like that, and tell people that you run a gym. It’s just a fascinating thing. And Chris, I love that you did this in practice, and now I’m seeing—like a decade or more later, I’m seeing your clients, the mentees, actually putting into practice, and it’s still working. Even though Facebook ads sometimes work, sometimes don’t, shaking a hand and smiling always seem to work. You have a—let’s talk about like another “go where they are” kind of thing. You have a story about a local trail run. So, your clients love to run this, and I’ve seen the pictures; it looks amazing. Tell me about how you use that event both to generate some revenue in your business and to make a huge impact, fill that event and get some clients out of it.

Chris Cooper (13:59):
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s really about being curious, right? So, if you show up to one of these events or one of these workplaces and you’re like, “I’m going to tell you—or I’m going to sell you my thing.” Like, that’s not going to work. You want to go in with this air of curiosity like, “Hey, what goes on around here, and how can I help?” So, this trail run was on the island where I was born, and the organizer, her name is Crista Wardell. And about, oh my goodness, 13 or 14 years ago, she organized it, and I said, “That looks amazing.” Like, so this trail run, it goes through all these apple orchards, there’s like stone fences from the 1800s. It is gorgeous. And when they do it in the spring, like there’s apple blossoms everywhere and maple, and you’re running on these hard packed earth trails, but it’s not groomed or anything.

Chris Cooper (14:48):
So the next year I called her, and I’m like, “Hey, it looks like you had a great event last year. I know you’re raising funds for like kids’ sports or whatever; like, what’s the number one way I can help?” And she’s like, “Bring people; we had 11 people show up.” And I was like, “No problem. You know, I can do that.” So, we just set up this like “Couch to 5K” group, and we said, “If you’ve never run a 5K before, this is the perfect, most forgiving, but also most picturesque, beautiful event ever. Nobody is watching you; nobody expects you to go fast. It’s up and down hills. The goal is just to finish.” And we had like 32 people sign up for the running group. They all signed up for the Mountain Maple. They all brought their friends, and they went from like 11 runners to 120 the next year. And they’re like, “Well, it’s all because of Catalyst.” And so, the relationship has just blossomed year after year after year. And we still do the running groups. We’re still the primary sponsor of the Mountain Maple. The only thing that’s different is that Crista is now working for Two-Brain as one of our CSMs.

Mike Warkentin (15:47):
I thought I recognized that name. Yeah. But you made revenue by running this prep group. So, you’re training people for this event, so they have more fun. So that’s frontend revenue for you, just doing what you do. Then you’re bringing people either—you know, and you’re probably sucking in some extra people who, they said, “Oh, I’ll try that event.” So now you’re bringing all these people to that event. They show up in force—likely wearing bright, bright green Catalyst shirts, I’m imagining—celebrating, looking, you know—just cheering, high fiving each other. All of a sudden, there’s this massive presence of people at this event. The other people that are there are then like, “Who are these amazing people? And where—how can I be part of it?” Right? Like you must’ve gotten clients after clients from that event as the years went on.

Chris Cooper (16:24):
Yeah. And now when you go to the event, it’s really cool because you’ll have like—and this isn’t everybody, but I mean there’s 400 runners at this event now. And you go, and there’s of course there’s the Catalyst contingent, and we’re all working out together. And of course, we’ve got the tent because that’s what I learned to do in 2005. But you’ve also got all the other gyms, and they’re all represented too. And because it’s like a cross-country trail run, you can’t really tell who’s winning ever. So, it’s just a lot of support. Most people bring their kids, and they have a three-year-old race and a five-year-old race and a seven-year-old race. And they have like a big table of cookies for the finishers and stuff like that. And it’s, it’s just like a great time. And I wouldn’t say like, we did anything to grow this. They just had an amazing, friendly, happy concept. And when I see something like that, I want to support it. And that’s what we did. We just pointed our audience at it, and everybody won.

Mike Warkentin (17:11):
I’m going to ask you for one more example before we go through a quick tactical thing. But have you had any success with just joining something like the local Chamber of Commerce or local running or cycling group or something like that? And how do you access that and then bend it into getting clients on leads without seeming like you’re worming your way in? Like how does that process work?

Chris Cooper (17:30):
Well, so, it’s always “Help First.” So, you join something like Rotary Club; it’s mostly business owners—in my town anyway, I don’t know how it is everywhere else—and they rotate speakers. And so, I didn’t even put my hand up to speak. They were just like, “Everybody in here is a business owner. They’re well-to-do. They’re all overweight; they’re diabetic. These lunches aren’t helping. Like, what can we do?” And I got up on the stage one day and said, like, “Here’s five things every single one of you guys can do because, you know, we need you; you’re community leaders and stuff.” And of course, they all joined the gym. I didn’t have to say, “Join my gym.” It’s just like, “Here’s a person; he’s in our group, we know and trust him”—hopefully some of them like me. And “We’re going to join.”

Chris Cooper (18:14):
The latest one that we’ve joined is like an angel investing group. So, my wife and I, every quarter we go to these meetings; people get up and pitch just like Shark Tank kind of, and it’s early-stage angel investing, so it’s higher risk, but everybody else in that group is attorneys, physicians, like CEOs. And of course, when you’re sitting at that table talking with these people about the stuff that they’re passionate about, and they say, “What do you do?” “Oh, I’ve got this little gym.” And you know, because we do semi-private a lot now, like if you and I are sitting at this table, and I’m like, “You know, just come with me; you know, 11 o’clock. I go Mondays and Wednesdays. Semi-private: There’s only like four of us. You know, the coach will give you a workout, but we’ll be together. We just banter.” Like that is the easiest sell I’ve ever had in 20 years of owning a gym.

Mike Warkentin (19:03):
You said something once, and I can’t remember the quote. I’m going to ask you if you remember it. It was something along the lines of “If you’re having a conversation and someone asks you about your gym, they probably want to join.” It was—do you remember that? It was something along those lines.

Chris Cooper (19:14):
Yeah. So early on as a gym owner, I thought, like, “OK, people are looking for me.” They’re not; what they’re looking for is an invitation. And so, often I’ll be at like a hockey game, right? My kids still play hockey—or a track meet or whatever. And somebody—you can tell when somebody’s being polite, and they’re like, “Oh, how’s the gym going?” Right? OK. But if they’re like, “Oh, I heard you own a gym,” they’re starting that conversation for a reason. And the reason is they want you to invite them. You know, everybody’s shy. It’s not just you; everybody’s introverted. It’s not just you, and so you have to be like the one to go first. And so, you have to be the one to bridge that gap. You have to get over yourself just enough to say, “Do you want to come with me?” And like that is it. And for me, you know, I’m a shy introvert too, but if, if I compare—if I weigh my shyness against how much I’m desperate to help this person, that desperation wins every time. And so, when somebody is at a hockey game and they’re like, “Oh, I heard you have that Catalyst gym,” like you are damn straight, I’m inviting that person, and I’m going to feel awkward about it, but I am very eager to help them. And that’s what gets me over the hump.

Mike Warkentin (20:22):
So that’s the segue into the tactical stuff, and you kind of hit it there, but let’s summarize it: So, when you’re having a conversation with a person, and this is just like you’ve gone somewhere, and you’re having a chat with someone, whether it’s in a Chamber of Commerce group or it’s the parent of kids in hockey games or whatever it is—just invite them. Like, what do you do? You just say to them, “Hey, come to my gym.” How do you do it, Chris?

Chris Cooper (20:42):
Well be curious. I mean, none of us are good at small talk. So, first you’re going to be like, “Man, it’s cold outside.” Then you’re going to say, “What do you do?” And then they’re going to say, “What do you do?” And I’m going to say, “Oh, Catalyst gym. Have you heard of that?” And you know, you can even be grinning like, “Oh yeah, I know you’ve heard bad crap about my gym. Like we kill people,” or something. And you know, we’ve been around 20 years; people have always heard of Catalyst. Yeah. Hey, and you know, in a town of 70,000 people, everybody—you’re one degree of separation away, right? So, like, “My buddy Mike Warkentin goes there.” “Oh, no kidding, Mike. Oh my God. Did he ever invite you to come along? Oh, you’ve to see this guy. He’s so good.” So, you start with curiosity, then you just banter about it normally. And then you just be like, “Hey, do you want to come? You know, Mike’s in my semi-private group Monday/Wednesday at 11. Why don’t you just come with Mike and I?”

Mike Warkentin (21:33):
So, it’s just easy. It’s just kind of being human and just like taking that first step. It’s much like dating back in the day where you’re like, “Just want to come to my gym?” But it’s not that difficult. You just throw it out there. And if they’re asking, they probably want to come anyways. So that’s an easy first step, hey?

Chris Cooper (21:47):
Yeah, I mean, you’re really doing them a favor because they are too awkward and shy to say, “Can I come?” And so, you are doing them the service of inviting them.

Mike Warkentin (21:55):
OK, that’s a tactic where you’re engaging just with one person that you’ve met somewhere. Now talk to me, Chris, about: What would you do to convert some people? Let’s say, like a Lunch-and-Learn or some sort of seminar where you’re talking to a group. How do you get them to be leads? Like how do you get their email addresses, and how do you eventually get them as clients if they don’t sign up right away?

Chris Cooper (22:14):
Well, you give them something. And I think anybody listening to this email—sorry, to this podcast—is probably already on my email list. And so, they know, like you and I try to give people things every single day, and you just—you give, you give, you give, you give and then you invite. And that’s basically it. So, if there was somebody—if I was doing a Lunch-and-Learn at like the Rotary Club or something, what I would do is I would go there with like, “OK, I’ve got five basic tips for you guys. If you just do these five things every single day, I can probably add five years to your life, and they’re going to be good years. So, here’s the five things, OK? If you’ve got a pen, you can write this down. If not, you know what, just give me your email address, and I’ll send it to you later.”

Chris Cooper (22:54):
Just like that. And so, you know, you’re holding the sheet up, and you’re like, “OK, so it says here: Number one is drink water. Here’s what I want. I want you to fill up a gallon jug every day and drink half of it.” OK, whatever. “Number two is eat protein. OK? So, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to look at your hand and eat this much protein at every meal, OK?” And you’re just going through like simple stuff like that. They might remember one thing, but what they’re going to remember at the end is your invitation to get more. And if they’re asking for more, they’re not saying, “Give me just a little bit more,” they’re saying like, “Tell me what you know.” And so that’s where it’s really easy to make an invitation. So, my strategy for 20 years has been: Get people on my email list and just continue to help them until they’re ready to join.

Mike Warkentin (23:38):
You could do it as easily as just putting up a sign-in sheet as people walk in the door and saying, “Do you want to be on my mailing list? Stay tuned; stay in touch,” whatever. And a great one, like Chris said, “I have a PDF where all this stuff is summarized. Nobody likes to take notes. I’ll email it to you afterwards.” Pass the email sheet around; away you go. And this concept does work. My wife puts out a ton of content. She’ll actually build her mailing list. People ask her, “Can I get on your mailing list?” Which is kind of unheard of where you have to like usually have to work hard for these email addresses. If you give away valuable stuff—and you have to figure out what your audience wants, but that’s by talking to them—you can give away the stuff and get email addresses.

Mike Warkentin (24:12):
The conversation from there can either happen—be done live where you actually message the person. Here is the thing: “How’s it going or what’s—” You know, start the conversation like, “Here’s my high-protein baking guide. Do you have any problems with protein intake right now?” Or whatever. Ask a question; keep it going. You can also deliver these things as part of an automated nurturing sequence. But Chris has always said, “Optimize stuff before you automate it.” Don’t just assume the robots will take care of everything. Things will be better if you do it yourself. And you can always nurture them with background stuff, but nothing will take the place of saying, “Hey, did you get that guide I sent you? What did you think of it?” Conversation started.

Chris Cooper (24:50):
Yeah. Conversations are the most important thing that you can do to grow your business. And you have to have conversations one at a time. I mean, in the gymownersunited.com group, we probably get 60 chats a day. Like people DMing me, “Can I have this guide?” “Hey, where’s that Intramural Open thing?” You know? And I think a lot of people believe it’s a bot that’s responding to them. Like it’s not, you know? And often, somebody will be like—you know, this guy this week was like, “Wow, this is really good. Like I believe it could actually be you.” And so, I quickly just sent him a voicemail, right? Like, “Hey dude, it is,” you know, and then they’re like, “Well, how do you have time to do this? Like, if you’re doing 20 DMs with strangers every single day, like how do you have time to do it?” And the reality is, I just know where my priorities lie. It’s conversations.

Mike Warkentin (25:41):
And that that’s the whole thing later on of, like, you’re not delivering the service of mentorship anymore. You have a staff of mentors who are doing that. Your role is something completely different. So that’s why you have the time is because you’ve developed your systems and processes, handed them off to talented people, they take care of the service delivery, and you work on the pointy end of the spear. So that whole thing is another story. Operations and everything: We cover that on this podcast regularly. But to leave you guys with something to do, the advice that I give you: Do what Chris did and what Michaela in Austin has is doing and take something across the street to the closest business that you don’t know. And just start a conversation. At the very least, you’re going to make a new friend who will be happy to say, “That gym owner is pretty cool.” You might get a client out of it; you might get an email address, but if nothing else go across the street. Chris, when you do that now—if you were to do that now, would you take a pamphlet or something, or would you just do the coffee thing and handshakes?

Chris Cooper (26:32):
No, coffee and curiosity, man. It’s like, literally, here’s my opening line: “Hey, I’m Chris from Catalyst. I brought you these four coffees. How’s business?” That’s it. And it’s like, most of—they haven’t heard of me or anything like that. Like it doesn’t matter. I don’t say, “Oh, I need to set up a corporate-rate-deal discount program before I do this. Like, that’s step nine. Step one is meet people, and step two is be curious, and like, that’s it. And, you know, it doesn’t pay off—they’re not like, “Let me get out my checkbook while you’re here.” It’s like you’re gifting yourself in the future. You’re planting seeds here, and then at some point, they’re going to need you. Everybody’s going to need you. Everybody in your town needs you. They might not be ready yet, but what you’re doing is you’re priming them so that when they are ready, it’s you that they come to.

Mike Warkentin (27:23):
So that’s your tomorrow job. Get up and do that. Coffee, lunch, whatever. Do something to connect with a local business owner. The long-term play that I’ll give you tactically: Find some sort of event where your clients are, whether it’s a local group, a local event that they’re training for, a workplace that you can do something at—find a way to connect with that local event. Be where your clients are, and meet the people around them. These people have probably already heard of you because your current client raves about you and can’t stop talking about the gym. We all know that happens. And when you do that, meet some people. If you do that, you’re going to get a whole bunch of connections. And then from there, you now have—without spending a ton of money—you’ve got this web of people in your gym. And then we actually have tactical affinity marketing strategies that you use with each individual person to target people in their lives. And we have some really, really cool things that our mentors teach our clients to do: how to actually make lists in goal review sessions of exactly who your client’s hanging out with. And say, “Your friend Steve, you know, you mentioned he’s really having back trouble. Can we help him out with that?” Done. Chris, thanks so much for being here today and sharing the story because I know I don’t know anyone who’s done it quite like you have in a local market. So, thanks so much for sharing that again.

Chris Cooper (28:32):
There’s no downside. I mean, worst case scenario, they’re like, “Who are you? Get out of my office.” You have four coffees now. Like your day is made.

Mike Warkentin (28:40):
Second worst case scenario, you get your sled fixed ahead of the lineup.

Chris Cooper (28:44):
Third case—this actually happened: So, I took these coffees to this guy named Wayne Prouse, and Wayne at the time was probably 75. He owned this business across the street, and in his generation, if somebody brings you food, it’s rude to not eat the food with them, right? So, he’s going to drink the coffee with me standing at his front desk. The coffee is burning and he’s—burning our mouths—trying to drink this coffee and make conversation while it cools off. That’s the only downside risk. Other than that, it’s all upside.

Mike Warkentin (29:10):
So do it tomorrow. You heard it here; go do that tomorrow. And I would love to hear about it. Send Chris a message: chris@twobrainbusiness.com. You could actually tell him. If you do this tomorrow and it works for you, send a message. He would be ecstatic.

Chris Cooper (29:23):
Send a coffee. Yeah, no, I’ll be ecstatic with a message. Yeah, thanks Mike.

Mike Warkentin (29:27):
Alright, this is “Run a Profitable Gym.” That was Chris Cooper. I’m Mike Warkentin. Please hit “Subscribe” on your way out wherever you are watching or listening. And if you want to continue this conversation and talk about anything related to the gym world, gymownersunited.com is your next stop. Join it; host Chris is in there all the time. You can talk to him there. Thanks guys.

The post The Vocal Local: How to Create a Referral Web for Your Gym appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

The Obvious Choice: How to Dominate the Local Market

You probably can’t dominate the fitness market.

But you can probably dominate your local market.

In fact, if you use the right tactics and focus on making connections, your business can become the obvious choice for people in the immediate vicinity.

And when that happens, you win, your staff members win, and your community wins.

Your 6-Mile/10-Kilometer Market

Back in 2017, the marketing firm Dstillery released some data:

The average distance between a person’s home and their gym is about 4 miles.People will travel farther—about 5.5 miles—for higher-priced specialty gyms.People will only travel about 3.2 miles for lower-priced gyms.

You sell coaching, so let’s use 6 miles/10 km to map your prime turf for connections.

Try this:

Select Map Tools, then Draw a Circle Tool on this siteEnter a radius of 6 miles or 10 km.Zoom in to find your gym’s location.Click to draw your circle.

The million-dollar question: What if everyone within that circle knows your business is the best place to receive fitness and nutrition coaching?

Answers:

You would personally make more than $100,000 a year, and you’d be on your way to $1 million net worth.Your business would be profitable, and your staff members would be well paid.Members of your community would be healthier and fitter.

So how do you become the go-to fitness business in your local community?

You must make connections.

In this series, we’ll talk about business-to-business (B2B) connections and connections to individuals. Here, I’ll give you a tactic to help you start building your local web (our mentors have dozens, and they help our clients select the exact tactic that will help the gym most “right now”).

B2B Connections

Connecting is an active enterprise: You place the plug into the socket, for example.

But many entrepreneurs don’t take action. They just assume connections will be made. That’s the equivalent of looking at the plug and assuming it will find its way into the socket. It won’t.

Here’s where you must address your mindset: You are not a fitness coach. You are the CEO of a local business. Start making local connections!

When I was younger, I copied and pasted email addresses found in chamber of commerce material and built a mailing list. That’s not as easy to do today, but you get the idea: You must meet people and introduce yourself.

I would ask myself, “Where do my best clients congregate when they’re not in my gym?” and I’d go there. I’d join their running groups. I’d join their Facebook groups. I’d join Strava or the chamber of commerce, or I’d volunteer to coach their kids’ sports. I’d make it my personal goal to shake 365 new hands a year.

Imagine you did that: introduced yourself to one local business owner every day or even every week.

Don’t skim past this mental exercise. Literally think for a minute about what would happen if 52 to 365 business owners inside your 6-mile radius know who you are and what you do.

What if the owner of the hair salon that specializes in wedding parties knows you can help people lose weight?What if the owner of the sporting-goods store knows you train local athletes?What if the screen printer who makes uniforms for 100 local baseball teams knows you offer a preseason training program for kids?What if the owner of the chiropractic practice knows you’re great at creating customized programs that help people safely build strength?

I could go on for hours. I hope you get the point.

If you don’t, here’s proof:

I have personally connected with local care providers and created relationships. One single connection has been worth tens of thousands of dollars over the years.One Two-Brain gym owner, Michaela Munsterman, is building her business, Elite Medical Exercise in Austin, Texas, by introducing herself with homemade salsa and cinnamon rolls at the offices of local care providers. Michaela doesn’t run ads. And she made our leaderboard for average revenue per member per month in December 2023; it runs from $427 and $798.
Take Action

Do this tomorrow morning:

Get a jug of takeout coffee and walk into a neighboring business. Say something like this: “I run the gym across the parking lot and wanted to introduce myself. I brought coffee. How’s business?”

Make friends. Don’t try to sell anything. Just ask questions about the business and respond to any queries you get. Shake hands and smile on your way out.

When clients at that business ask about you (they will), your neighbor will say, “I know they’re great!” You’d be surprised how important that endorsement is.

If you do this, you’ll be “plus one” in the connection department.

Do it every week, and you’ll be on your way to dominating your local market.

If you don’t want to be “the obvious choice” in your area, save the $30 in coffee and the hour of your time. Spend it scrolling Instagram posts to find hot marketing hacks to flood your gym with leads.

I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow morning to grow my business.

What will you do?

The post The Obvious Choice: How to Dominate the Local Market appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Easy-Button AI Testimonials for Gym Owners

Testimonials from real gym members are gold.

This “social proof” carries a ton of weight with prospective members, and it helps you create the people-like-us-do-things-like-this image Seth Godin has highlighted as a key to good marketing.

AI, of course, helps you cut a lot of corners and create content fast.

Here’s how to use artificial intelligence to massage real info from real people into content that will help you acquire more clients.

Step 1

Ask a satisfied current member to answer a few quick questions by email for a blog post. They don’t have to write a novel. They can just tap out quick answers. Tell them you’ll use AI to link their answers together to create an article.

Of course, you can ask the person to write a full post if they want to—that’s way better, but some people won’t want to do it or won’t have the skill to do so.

If you want to double down, you can interview the client and record the responses so you can create a video testimonial. If you go that route, use a transcription service to get the client’s answers into a text document.

Here are the questions (you can add more if you like, but you don’t need to):

What are you trying to accomplish in the gym?Have you ever worked out at a gym before, and how did you feel about joining a new gym?What is it like to work out at this gym?What are your favorite parts of our service?Why did you feel comfortable starting to work out with us?Have you accomplished your goals or made progress toward them since you started working out at the gym?What would you say to someone who is thinking about working out here?
Step 2

Feed the answers into ChatGPT or any other AI program with this text preceding the Q&A section (change bolded text to tailor the post to your business):

The text below is from an interview with a client at my gym. The name of the gym is Mike’s Fitness in Cleveland.

Please use the answers to the questions to write a 500-word blog post in the voice of the person who supplied the answers.

The title of the blog post should be “What It’s Like to Work Out at Mike’s Fitness.”

The goal of the blog is to help people in Cleveland understand the process of joining a gym and working out so they might consider joining, too. But you don’t need to push people to join. It’s more important to showcase the experience of a real person who’s telling a story, not overtly promote a service. Please prioritize the person’s experience at my gym.

Please use a very natural, conversational voice. Please use words that a newer gym member between 35 and 55 would use. I want language that’s appropriate for busy 35- to 55-year-old professionals in Cleveland who have families and jobs but want to get fitter or reclaim lost fitness.

The article should be positive but not overly effusive or pushy. It should not feel like a sales pitch.

Here are the questions and answers: (paste Q&A here).

Step 3

Ask the client to review the post and adjust it if needed.

Step 4

Post the text with a picture of the client and share the link everywhere.

Sample Responses and Blog

I made up answers to the questions and fed them into ChatGPT to give you a sample. I used the prompt above and customized it for “Mike’s Fitness” in Cleveland, a gym that serves professionals aged 35 to 55.

Here’s the brief Q&A that goes below the prompt:

What are you trying to accomplish in the gym?

I want to lose 20 lb. and feel better about myself.

Have you ever worked out at a gym before, and how did you feel about joining a new gym?

I worked out at a gym 10 years ago, but I fell off the wagon and gained some weight. I was very nervous about starting at a new gym. I was embarrassed that I had gained weight, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to make progress now that I’m older.

What is it like to work out at this gym?

It’s a very welcoming environment with great trainers. Everyone is very friendly, and the staff members are true pros. They correct your form all the time, check in with you in every workout, and make sure you’re doing things properly and having fun. The gym is clean and spacious, and it has lots of well-maintained equipment. The other members are super friendly, too!

What are your favorite parts of our service?

I love the quarterly consultations to ensure that I’m staying on track with my goals.

Why did you feel comfortable starting to work out with us?

The free intro process allowed me to talk to a coach who asked me all about my goals and exercise history. I felt like she was really invested in me. I was nervous about starting at a gym, so I loved the chance to ask a ton of questions. When I left the consultation, I felt very confident about joining the gym even though I had never worked out before. I also knew exactly who to ask for help and how I could contact staff members whenever I needed anything.

Have you accomplished your goals or made progress toward them since you started working out at the gym?

I’m not at my goal of 20-lb. weight loss yet, but I’m halfway there! And I set a new goal of deadlifting 100 lb. I can do 75 already!

What would you say to someone who is thinking about working out here?

You should book a free consultation. You have nothing to lose! Head to the gym, talk to a coach and explain what you want to accomplish. Then ask any questions you have. The coach will provide answers and then give you a plan to accomplish your goals. If you like the plan and the coach, consider signing up. You won’t regret it. But start by booking that free consultation!

AI-Generated Testimonial: “What It’s Like to Work Out at Mike’s Fitness”

Hey there, Clevelanders! Let’s chat about something many of us have on our minds but often find daunting: getting back into shape. Now, I’m not here to give you the hard sell on joining a gym. Instead, I want to share my own journey and experience at Mike’s Fitness, right here in our bustling city.

You know how life gets, right? Between juggling work, family, and everything in between, finding the time and motivation to focus on ourselves can feel like a tall order. I was there, too. About a decade ago, I was a gym regular. Fast forward, life happened, and well, let’s just say the gym became a distant memory. A few extra pounds crept in, and the idea of stepping back into a gym, especially as someone in their mid-40s, felt intimidating.

Enter Mike’s Fitness.

Walking into Mike’s, I was immediately greeted by a vibe that felt different—a warm, welcoming atmosphere where the staff genuinely seemed to care. The trainers weren’t just there to count reps. They were invested in ensuring I got the most out of each session, correcting my form, and ensuring I was not only working hard but working smart.

One of the standout features? Those quarterly consultations. Trust me, they’re not just a check-in. They’re a testament to the gym’s commitment to helping members like me stay aligned with our goals, adjusting as we go.

Now, you might wonder, what broke my initial hesitation? It was the free intro process. Sitting down with a coach, discussing my goals, and sharing my previous experience was like mapping out a journey with a trusted guide. I asked questions—lots of them. And every answer, every assurance, just made it clearer: Mike’s Fitness was where I wanted to restart my fitness journey.

Progress? Absolutely. While I’m still on my path to shedding those 20 pounds, I’m already halfway there! And guess what? I’ve even set new milestones, like deadlifting—yes, deadlifting!—and I’m already lifting 75 pounds.

To my fellow Clevelanders pondering whether to take that step: Consider starting with a free consultation. It’s not about signing up on the spot but about understanding your potential journey. Sit down, chat with a coach, lay out your aspirations, and clear those lingering doubts. Whether or not you decide to join, you’ll walk away with clarity and perhaps, like me, a newfound excitement for the possibilities ahead.

In closing, if you’re looking for a place that’s more than just treadmills and weights—if you’re seeking a community, support, and a bit of that Cleveland camaraderie—give Mike’s Fitness a closer look. And hey, if our paths cross there, don’t hesitate to say hi. After all, we’re all in this together, right?

Refine as Needed

If you don’t think the tone fits the person, you can ask for an adjustment—like this: “Please rewrite the blog with a more subdued tone. It should be less effusive.” Or try this and prepare for “spilling the tea” and “my gym sitch”: “Create a variation with slang and colloquialisms a 20-year-old might use.”

Create Some Testimonials!

Is this the only way to create a testimonial?

No.

But if you’re struggling to obtain social proof, you might use this strategy to make the process quick and easy.

Whatever you do, make sure you ask your current clients to help you find more clients just like them.

The post Easy-Button AI Testimonials for Gym Owners appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Boost Productivity and Avoid Burnout Using John Briggs’ 3.3 Rule

Chris Cooper (00:03):
John Briggs, welcome back to “Run a Profitable Gym,” man.

John Briggs (00:05):
Thanks for having me.

Chris Cooper (00:06):
Always a pleasure to have you on the show. And today, we’re talking about a different kind of number. We’re talking about productivity. John’s new book is called “The 3.3 Rule.” John, congrats on the new book, man.

John Briggs (00:18):
Thanks. Yeah, and as you know, having written more books than I have, ooh, glad it’s written and being published. It’s a lot of work.

Chris Cooper (00:25):
Yours are three times as good as mine, so even though I’ve written three times as many, we’re even.

John Briggs (00:31):
Okay, fair. It’s very generous of you. Thanks, Coop.

Chris Cooper (00:35):
Yeah, man. Well, let’s start with this. So, this isn’t like a strictly accounting book, right? What inspired you to write the 3.3 rule and then we’ll get into what it means.

John Briggs (00:44):
Yeah, so if people are familiar, I’ve obviously written the book “Profit First for Microgyms.” I’m a big proponent of Profit First, especially in the gym space. Yeah, we want to keep gym owners in business. And so that book is a lot about cash flow and tax strategies. This one is definitely more of a passion project for me. I’ve been in the accounting industry my whole career. I mean, I have a master’s degree in tax. And one thing I learned early in my career, which set me on the path to create the firm that I did, was the way accounting firms mistreat their team members, all for the sake of profitability. It’s just, “How can I squeeze every last ounce of energy out of my team knowing that I’m going to push them out the door, and they’re going to want to find a better solution to life?”

John Briggs (01:32):
So, I actually started this book just as a simple manifesto. I had this idea like, “Man, if accounting companies actually cared about their team members, they wouldn’t do stuff like that.” And I got into some science and some of the ways that I ran my company, and then I started talking to lawyers and engineers and then like literally name the industry, and you have a similar potential issue where companies just expect you to just work and work and work without realizing that you’re going to end up pushing people—well, really the better way to say it: They’re going to—you’re going to snuff out their passion or doing whatever it is that they’re doing. And so, the idea of the book is how do we—the book was really written for people who are burned out, nearly burned out, or on a path that will inevitably lead to burnout—and so how do we avoid that? Because burnout is the killer of, in my opinion, the economy. So that’s kind of where we started with the book.

Chris Cooper (02:34):
That’s kind of a big topic. And obviously, those of us who work with accountants a lot, we see this in accounting right now. Like the only way you can hire an accountant in Canada is basically to buy out their firm, right? Is this part of the reason there are no accountants out there?

John Briggs (02:49):
It is absolutely. Statistically, 60% of accountants will leave the industry within three to five years. Yet, enrollment in accounting programs is down drastically. Because nowadays with social media, things like Glassdoor, and salary.com, and Reddit, people can—actual accountants can express their experience, and a lot of people are saying, like, “Whoa, why would I want to do that? Seems like there might be less painful ways to get to where I want to go in my career.” And so, yeah, that this is definitely one of the reasons. And one of the goals of my book is: Let’s get some information in the accounting industry so that people can change the way they run their firms, and we can keep accountants in the industry longer, but it’s not just accountants. So, I don’t want any of your audience to be like, “Oh, great, we’re going to talk about a book for accountants.” I promise it’s applicable to everybody.

Chris Cooper (03:49):
It’s super applicable to gym owners. And so, once John gets into the basic premise, you’re going to recognize here as a gym owner, like, how the principles are going to apply. I mean, yes, accountants get burned out, but if you’ve ever coached three CrossFit classes in a row, you know exactly what I’m talking about and what John’s talking about here. So, John, can you explain the core concept of the 3.3 Rule and how it’s different from traditional workday structure?

John Briggs (04:15):
Yeah, let me start with the back history, if that’s okay, Coop. So, a lot of people maybe forgot—back in the 1800s, the world was in the industrial age, and they worked 80 to 100 hours a week. And it’s the way life was. They didn’t have anything to compare it to. We have these machines going, and humans were needed to maintain and keep the machines going; therefore, there was constant, like, someone had to be there. Well, if you’re working 80 to 100 hours a week and you do the math, there’s not a lot of time—once you add in sleep—to do anything else. So, come along to the early 1900s when a well-known guy named Henry Ford is trying to sell motorized carriages, right? And, you know who doesn’t want motorized carriages? People who don’t have time to do anything other than go to work and sleep.

John Briggs (05:10):
So he made a decision and was kind of villainized at the time, but he said, “You know what? I’m going to give my team, my employees, two weekend days”—because at the time, they only had one day off—“and I’m going to stop their workday at eight hours”—because at that point there was no cutoff. And you know what happened? People now weren’t burned out by the end of the now-Friday workweek, and they could go somewhere, but they can’t walk because the places they wanted to go were a little bit further away. So, car sales increased and fast forward a hundred years with all the advancements we’ve had as a country, as a world, we’re still working on the same 40-hour workweek that was created effectively because Henry Ford was a genius and wanted to sell more cars. So, there’s a lot of science behind what I’m going to share, but the core message of the 3.3 Rule relates to “let’s use the science and stop looking at it as a Monday through Friday, eight-hour day workweek.” So, the rule states: The most efficient workday is to work up to three hours, followed by a 30% recovery period. So, that’s where you get the three: relates to up to three hours. The 0.3 is the 30% recovery period. And we can obviously go into detail because without the context of the book, some people are like, “I still don’t get it.”

Chris Cooper (06:36):
We’ll get really specific here, but this is obvious to a lot of entrepreneurs that when they started down the track, they quickly realized, like, “Owning a gym is not a nine to five; it’s more of a five to nine.” And if you don’t start taking a break midday, you quickly find that you could be back to that 80-hour workweek. That said, most of us were raised in this school system of like, “You can expect a nine to five career for 40 years and then you get the gold watch.” And so, some people are surprised when you hire them to coach, and they’re working 6 a.m. until 9, and then they have their entire day, and they’re back at 5 p.m. until 8. And it causes some friction in their head. Like, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?” In reality though, this is kind of like the optimal day, right John? Is that where we’re headed?

John Briggs (07:22):
Yeah. Let’s optimize our day instead of putting ourselves in a confinement of when it should be. And especially, I’m glad you brought that up with gym owners. You know, you have the morning section before the rest of the world starts their day because they want to get in their exercise. And then you for sure have a busy time at the end of people’s workday. But then gym owners find themselves doing stuff in the middle of the day. I mean, they’re already up; they’re productive people, right? And so easily without boundaries around maybe how they should be structuring things, we have seen lots of gym owners say like, “Yeah, I’m actually working 80 hours because I just don’t stop. Once I wake up, I just keep going.” You know, “On a scale of one to 10, how happy are you?” The number wasn’t too high.

Chris Cooper (08:05):
Do we have to use an integer? Can it be like—it could be minus one, I guess, but that’s the thing, right? It’s because we’ve been framed to, or we’ve been taught, like: You get to work, and you stay at work until you are done with work. We perceive that somehow, we’re getting ripped off even though we’ve got like six hours in the middle of the day that’s open. But let’s get back to the basic premise here. So, you said that we should be working up to three hours and then taking a 30% break. Let’s get into the science and the math a little bit.

John Briggs (08:35):
Okay. I won’t get into all of it that’s in the book because it’s a lot. And you know, we don’t have a lot of—all the time in the world. The two main ones I think that relate: There’s a study done in the U.K. that people have been referencing ever since. Now that is: The average worker is productive for two hours and 53 minutes a day. So, you’re paying for eight hours, but they’re actually saying, “I’m only giving my employer two hours and 53 minutes.” And that’ll make sense. It makes sense to me after seeing all the science. The other one—and this is the foundational element of the 3.3 Rule—there’s a guy from the University of Illinois Champaign; his name is Alejandro Lleras. And he did this study, and at the time, he was interested in this idea of attention span.

John Briggs (09:30):
People were coming out with studies saying like, “How long is someone’s attention span? How long does it last?” And he had the contrarian idea that there’s no such thing as attention span because our attention is always on something; it just might not be what we should be spending—like having our attention on. Right? Like, if I’m daydreaming and someone says, “Well you’re not paying attention.” I am paying attention—to my daydream. Right. So, it’s like, “Okay, so how—let me see how—how would I confirm that there’s no such thing as attention span?” And that kind of went into this idea. He came across a study that talked about physical stimulus. If our body has a constant stimulus physically, it will neutralize that. Consider the clothes that we’re wearing right now. We put them on this morning, and because the constant pressure of the fabric has been on our skin, our brain stopped registering that sensation.

John Briggs (10:30):
But as we’re talking about it, you probably are maybe wiggling a little bit more, and you can actually feel the fabric physically provide some sort of stimulus. He’s like, “Ah, I wonder if the same thing exists with the way our attention works.” So, he did some studies, and sure enough concluded that if we have maintained focus on something that’s a constant stimulus, our brain will eventually neutralize it. And so, we just kind of combined that element with the two hours and 53 minutes of productivity, and that’s where we come up with, “Let’s push ourselves to be focused for up to three hours.” And I say up to three hours because we are all a little bit different. Like, for example, Mike Michalowicz is a good friend of mine. I’m sure your audience is familiar with many of his books.

John Briggs (11:21):
He just had a new book, “All In.” If you guys haven’t heard about it, check out a copy. It’s based on hiring. It’s really great. But he is like, “Yeah, when I’m in my writing season for a book,” he’s like, “I’m about 53, 57 minutes and then I need a 15-minute break.” And it’s so funny that as I was working with him and using him as a mentor for this book, he’s like, “It’s so funny. As I’m reading your book, John, I’m like, this totally supports the way I’m naturally approaching the way I do my own work.” But other people—like you get me and say, “Hey, John, can you do some forecasting for me?” Put an Excel file in front of me and your profit and loss statement. Dude, I can go three hours. I love that stuff. Right? Chris is—

Chris Cooper (12:09):
No, I’m shaking my head. Because I’m like, “Oh, it’s on Instagram”—three minutes in. You know, I don’t even have Instagram. I’m just like, “Let me get a new app.”

John Briggs (12:19):
So, and also for me, writing is harder. I don’t consider myself a professional author. And so, an hour and a half block, man, that’s about the limit I could handle, sitting down and writing and really having good focus time. So, even the different responsibilities that we have throughout the day may require us to change. So, that’s why it’s flexible: up to three hours. And then whatever length of time that was that you did focus, take a 30% recovery of that time. So, if I worked an hour, it’s about a 20-minute break. If I worked two hours, it’s about a 40-minute break. If I do a full three hours, I’m going to take a full hour off.

Chris Cooper (13:00):
So, I’m thinking through this in coaching in my gym. And I know from thinking about it in the past, like, let’s say that I have to coach three classes in a row. My first class I’m going to be about 80% because I’m just not like warmed up and in flow yet. My second class is going to be my best, and my third class I’m going to be down to about 70%. So, attention doesn’t just start off strong, stay strong and then drop off a cliff. Does it? There’s kind of this like wax-and-wane curve to it.

John Briggs (13:29):
Yeah. The Princeton Neurological, I think, Neurological Institute—that was such a hard word to say in the audiobook. They did a study that shows our brain has a natural cycle of focus, distractibility, focus, distractibility. So, absolutely. It’s not just, “I’m 100% focused,” but we do know from science that after three hours, even if you’re at 70%, you’re going to see a steep decline. Like, some studies even showed people’s focus dropped off after like 20 minutes—like a steep decline. And so, part of it too is I wanted it to be more of a framework so people can tweak it and make it work within how they know they need to operate. And as they start practicing it, they’ll realize there’s a natural flow for them as far as like, “Oh, this task, yeah, an hour, I’m good. After that, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

John Briggs (14:22):
Like, you might have some coaches who are great, who are 100%; they can come in 100% in one class, but by the second class, it’s like 50%. To kind of like—you’re going to want to pay attention to the different skill sets and behaviors of your coaches because not all of them are created equal. And I don’t think we need to force someone. It’s like, look, if you coach three classes in a row and the last two classes are terrible, I’d rather you coach a class, take an hour off, coach another class, take an hour. Like whatever that flow needs to be so that our members are getting the best experience.

Chris Cooper (14:57):
That makes a lot of sense, John. And, and I’m just curious—this doesn’t apply specifically to gyms—but do you find that that attention window is affected depending on where you are? So, for example, I think my attention window is probably a little bit longer when I’m here at the Two-Brain workshop than when I’m working from home.

John Briggs (15:15):
One hundred percent. Our environment has so much to do with how we focus. In fact, we talk about, in the book, I have a whole section on remote work that kind of relates to that. Where some people, if you read the article, say, “Remote work is for the devil,” and the others say, “Remote work is the next thing close to godliness”—like complete opposite paradigms. And each of them have their own studies to support it, and they’re both right. It’s because we’re all different. I have team members who have kids at home and maybe a spouse who doesn’t necessarily respect boundaries. And so, when they’re trying to work from home, it’s a disaster. I have others who have a designated spot; their family honors that; they’re really productive; others don’t have any distractions at home. Like when I’m at home, I don’t want to be 100% focused, right? Like even the COVID months when the world was shut down, I worked from home for like three and a half weeks, and I was like, “I can’t handle this. I am not as focused here.” So just driving into the office by myself, I was way more productive here without distractions. And so yeah, 100% percent the environment matters.

Chris Cooper (16:30):
Alright man, I’m going to be sending a card to your wife after the show. But let’s get back to the gym world here. There are definitely days in my past, and I know my coaches are going through this right now where they’ve booked four or five clients in a row. And I don’t want to discourage them from doing that. They’re trying to be available when the clients are available. Like how can they structure their day so that they’re doing like the 3.3 framework?

John Briggs (16:55):
Yeah, if I had four clients in a row, then I would make sure my meetings are not an hour long. Okay? Right. So again, if I am going to work back-to-back-to-back, I still want to make sure that that back-to-back effort is within a three-hour block. Now I think, also, some of your coaches need to recognize: Are they more introverted or more extroverted? Because both can be very successful gym owners, but an introvert likely isn’t going to be able to handle back-to-back client meetings. Whether that’s a No Sweat Intro or whether that’s an actual paying client—just because they’re introverted. Like it takes a lot more out of introverts. I know this because I’m an introvert. They just have to be aware of who they are. And I think there’s that fear. The FOMO comes in.

John Briggs (17:42):
It’s like—I have, for example, a No Sweat Intro, right? Like, “Oh man, they’re available this day, but I’m not. Let me make it work.” You’re on the phone with them; you’re keeping the momentum going. Having it scheduled out the next day, or two days later, or a different time that works for both you and them: I don’t think is going to kill your opportunity to get a new client. I think sometimes it’s okay to honor what works for you because if you don’t, you’re potentially subconsciously saying to the prospects, “I’m going to fit you in knowing that I’m going to give you a less valuable experience because I’m going to be kind of burned out.” I’m going to have less energy going into this meeting where it’s like really, like let’s just be fair to ourselves and the clients. Say, “I want to give you 100%, and this is the day, based on what you just told me, that our schedules match up, and we can do that.”

Chris Cooper (18:38):
I really think, to support you on that, John, there are two big mistakes that I see gym owners making with NSIs. And the first is: They block it in their normal workout time. So, a person walks in the door, of course they’re 10 minutes early, your shirt’s off, you’re sweating all over the place, the Metallica Black Album is just going crazy in the background, and the client is already playing defense before you even sit down with them. The second one is you’re like, “Okay, I’ve got this block; I’ve got two classes and then a break and then another class. I’m going to put them in that break.” And so, of course the client shows up 10 minutes early, it’s loud, there’s 30 strangers running around doing stuff that they don’t understand. You might actually be better to give yourself a 30-minute window, get yourself back into a calmer state, then meet with the client anyway.

Chris Cooper (19:30):
Right? I do see the value of having a break before an NSI. I just did a semi-private session in my gym where I’m a client, and I was talking about this book with the coach Jessica and the other person in my semi-private group today, Lauren. And Lauren’s also an entrepreneur. And I was sharing some of the lessons, but what was interesting was I realized that a semi-private session for a personal trainer is actually a little bit easier on the introvert because Jess would, “How’s it going?” You know, her stuff; she’s the spark plug and then she can back off for five minutes while the other clients are talking. So, you know, maybe that helps a little bit too with breaks, but yeah.

John Briggs (20:09):
Yeah. Good idea.

Chris Cooper (20:10):
Yeah, it’s just a couple of different ideas that I had since reading the book, and that’s the beautiful thing about good books with a simple concept like yours and Michalowicz’s is they’re so easy to understand because you’ve taken a complex topic and made it very simple; I can immediately find application. And that’s what differentiates this book from a lot of other business books about time efficiency and junk like that. Right. John, I want to get into, like, how does technology help? So you mentioned the role of technology and digital tools in optimizing the 3.3 Rule. Like what are some specific tools or technology that you recommend to help gyms specifically adopt this?

John Briggs (20:54):
You know, I wish I had time to create an app.

Chris Cooper (20:57):
Yeah.

John Briggs (20:58):
I thought about that. Like how cool would—even like a little cube box or something where I could have it on one thing, I hit the timer, and then when I’m done, I flip it over, and it automatically calculates the 30% time. There’s probably not one specific thing. Calendaring is really important when it comes to technology and keeping the 3.3 Rule because most people can’t keep their entire workday in their head, right? And so, by using a calendar app, even if it’s simple as Google Calendar, which I use, I can clearly see when I have enough work where it’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s more than three hours. Let me—I need to potentially rearrange that.” Block out an actual break time. And then, like—so visualizing your calendar I think is super important to honor the 3.3 Rule. And then part of the technology stuff too is like there’s a 3.3 Rule and the book goes into the 3.3 System, which is about: Your team’s going to be more productive just with the simplicity of adopting, “Let them work up to three hours; let them take breaks where they’re not doing any work whatsoever.”

John Briggs (21:57):
Like give them permission; give yourself permission to do that. They’re already going to increase productivity that way. But then if you want to go even further—which we want everyone to do, all of our readers to do, for sure: How do I make that focus time even more productive? And so that’s where technology comes into play, where for gym owners that could be actually utilizing the gym software they’re currently paying for, but never looking at all the things that are open, right? A lot of times, “I need this software. I have this problem with keeping track of my members and attendance.” “Cool. Here’s the software that can help.” “Great.” “Oh, by the way, the software actually does a couple other things that could help you. Like maybe let’s take some time to figure out how that can help you be more productive.” It’s the whole sharpening saw idea, right, by Stephen Covey. Let’s take some time to do that. But I don’t have a specific technological, like, app or solution for everyone. I think it’s just, “Let’s just utilize what’s out there to make us more productive.”

Chris Cooper (23:03):
I think the best app I ever saw for this was on a “Harry Potter” movie, and they had like this hourglass and the sand would run faster if the conversation was really boring.

John Briggs (23:11):
Just go to Target and get that.

Chris Cooper (23:13):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I had a question from my coach because this is the topic of conversation in our semi-private session this morning. And she said, “Okay, well I’m going to coach three hours in a row, and then I’m going to jump in the noon group, and we got this really hard workout. That will be my break.” And I said, “I’m not sure that actually counts as a break,” but we wanted to get your opinion.

John Briggs (23:33):
Yeah. As the gym owner, you are always on when you’re in your gym, and there are members present. Yes? So even if you’re trying to, “I want to go work out,” which is a great break thing in general, it may not be the best thing for a gym owner to do if they’re doing it in one of their classes. Now, if the gym owner has the ability to really shut off and just work out, then great, go for it. But my guess is in between their reps, they’re looking at the other members, and they’re making notes like, “Hey, Bob seems like he’s not hinging the right way,” or “His full-depth squat isn’t down there. I wonder if I could meet with him later, and let’s get him some more mobility,” or “This guy seems extra winded; I wonder if maybe we should meet about his nutrition.” Like, I personally don’t think most gym owners are going to be able to shut that off just because they want to serve so much; they can’t help themselves. So, I would recommend doing your workouts probably by yourself still. Now, again, if you’re going to work out with your gym and their classes, that’s great. It’s just not—in my opinion—that’s not a 30% recovery period. That would be considered work.

Chris Cooper (24:51):
That wouldn’t work for me either. I’m always watching like, “How are they doing that?” You know, kind of auditing as we go. It wouldn’t work for me either. John, I’d like to zoom out a little bit here because one of the biggest problems at my gym—and we were locked down for almost two years—but I think a lot of gym owners are hitting this wall right now: How does the 3.3 Rule address things like burnout and work-life imbalance on the bigger picture?

John Briggs (25:18):
Yeah, so good. And I’m so glad you called it work-life imbalance. It’s like we totally know when we’re out of balance, when something’s imbalanced. But the idea of work-life balance—the opposite that people think—it’s a fallacy; it doesn’t exist. Work affects life. Life affects work. So, how does it affect that? If you think about burnout and now you think about this idea that—okay, well I guess let’s put ourselves in that place: What leads to burnout? Working a lot of hours in a row. Usually at some point after working so long, whether that’s days, hours, weeks, years with some gym owners falling on the sword, right? I know you and I preach the same thing: You guys have got to be profitable. Some gym owners don’t pay attention because they feel—you have a natural dopamine and serotonin that happens due to the nature of your job and saving human beings from dying.

John Briggs (26:17):
You have a natural chemical reaction there, so it’s easy to overlook sometimes that you do need profitability to stay open. But what happens is they’ll go that long, and all the endorphins are kicking in; it’s awesome, and they’re saving lives. And then at one point, at some point, they’re going to have that moment—I don’t want to call it an entrepreneurial seizure, like, what’s-his-bucket (Michael Gerber) does, but it’s some sort of seizure, and it’s, “Holy crap, I have nothing to show”—maybe it’s a profitability seizure or lack of—“I have nothing to show for all this hard work I’ve been doing for X amount of time.” That will put up a wall and usually burn out; that’s the moment of burnout, and then closing the doors or making a massive life change happens pretty closely after because you will not be able to get rid of that idea that you’re killing yourself with nothing to show for it.

John Briggs (27:09):
Because human nature is: We want to receive value back for the effort we’re putting into something. It’s just natural. We’re not going to fight it. So, if that’s how burnout usually happens, what do we do to avoid that? We throw in the 3.3 Rule where I work, I give myself a purposeful break, and it’s an actual break. So, my brain resets so that when I come back, I’m just as energized. Because also what happens is as I’m giving myself purposeful breaks, I am allowing my mind to take an opportunity to realize maybe there are some things I need to change about the profitability of what I’m doing. Instead of just go, go, go, go, go, go, go; putting out fires; hoping everything works out. Look, the hope and pray method is really great. I am a Christian; it works for that. It’s not a good business plan. Okay. And so, let’s have rules in place. And that’s what the 3.3 Rule does. It gives us that opportunity to always be rejuvenated and focused. It’s just a great cycle.

Chris Cooper (28:13):
Does it work on a larger scale? I mean, what you just said reminds me of the original Tim Ferriss book where he was telling people that they should have many retirements throughout life. So, for example, is it ever a good idea to work for three months and then take a month off? Or is it—

John Briggs (28:29):
One hundred percent. Yeah. Like, for example, this book has been a lot of effort, and my goal is to take a lot of weeks off when this is over, right? So yeah, it’s minuscule on—like you can focus on the 3.3 Rule on a daily basis, but then you can also look at it as like, “You know what? I have worked three months straight in a row. What’s the harm of taking a week off?” You don’t even have to go anywhere. Like, some of the best time off I have is just I took the time off. Everyone thinks I’m on vacation, but I’m really just hanging out at my house enjoying quiet and, again, refreshing. We’re coming back from the breaks. Right? A lot of people take time off during the holiday break. And I think people can realize when you do that, a lot of good thoughts happen. Thoughts that wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t give your time that space to not focus on anything.

Chris Cooper (29:28):
I think it’s also true in non—I don’t want to say non-thinking jobs—but in more hands-on jobs. I think it’s still true. You know, there’s three builders working on our house right now, and one guy is like, “I want to get my eight hours in and leave.” He works through his lunch; he works through breaks, but he gets far less done than the other two guys who sit down and have a coffee at 10. They have a half an hour for lunch. They sit down and have a coffee at three. And it’s—I never put it together until now that these guys who take breaks are actually getting more stuff done, and they seem to love their job a lot more too.

John Briggs (30:07):
One hundred percent. Think about it: You set up for the day, and you’re in your head like, “I’m going to go eight hours straight.” Well, most people are like, “Oh that sounds terrible.” So, they kind of pitter patter around—because why? “Well, I’m going to put in eight hours.” Versus the other guy who is going to take breaks. And even with the 3.3 Rule, it’ll make it even more defined where you are intentional about taking breaks. So now all of a sudden, it’s like, “I’m going to take a break, and I know that break is going to be sufficient for me. I’m going to go all in right now. I don’t have to pitter patter around because I can be completely focused because I know I’ve been given permission to just do nothing during this other time period. So, there’s no guilt, and I can completely recover.” And especially with physical labor stuff, like you wouldn’t ask—like think of your members, your coaches here. Your audience could be like, “Yeah, we would never ask a member to work out eight hours in a row, even if it’s a low stimulus thing.” Like that’s effectively what a blue-collar job is. Right? You’re at a low, most times, a kind of low stimulus, but physically active for eight straight hours. That sounds terrible.

Chris Cooper (31:17):
Especially in the cold. So, John, like what are some challenges that businesses have? Let’s say the CEO or the owner is all in on this. “Love it; makes total sense. I’m going to implement it.” What are some of the challenges that they have when it is time to actually execute inside their business?

John Briggs (31:35):
The first one is explaining it to your team because a lot of times they don’t—first of all, they’re not going to believe you. And so they might be thinking, “Okay, I’m going to,” like in our firm’s case, “I’m going to do a tax return, and then for my break, I’m going to read emails,” right? And that could be anything. “I’m going to do X, and then I’m going to do emails for my recovery period. Because I don’t want the owner to be mad at me because I don’t believe him.” Emails are part of work. That’s not an appropriate recovery period activity. So, that’s one of the things. The second thing is to let them know, “You’re still clocked in, right? I’m still going to pay you for eight hours, but with this rule, you’re actually only getting six hours of work-focus time. But I believe with the science”—obviously if they’re bought in, they know that they’re going to get more out of their team now, giving them permission to have two hours off basically during the day.

John Briggs (32:30):
So, like if I had an hourly employee, I would include their 30% recovery period as part of what I’m paying them for because I know that it’s just more efficient. Those are the two biggest ones. Some smaller ones: Studies show working through lunch. So, a lot of people are going to want to work through lunch to try to be effective. Like the 3.3 Rule makes it work out very nicely where you can completely check out mentally from work while you do your lunch. Tork, I think, was the name of the company that did a study that showed their team members who just ate lunch during their lunch break were like 70% more effective than their team members who tried to work through lunch.

Chris Cooper (33:13):
It makes a lot of sense, man. And, you know, in Canada, what happened when government agencies started coming back, they started adopting this practice that they called “hoteling.” Now this is despite the Harvard Business Review saying that hoteling is the least productive method of work in the history of humankind. But these agencies, they would come back, and they would be like, “Okay, everybody’s here for eight hours, and your desk changes every day. First come, first serve, and you take breaks whenever you want, but you’ve got to put in your eight hours.” Of course, productivity went way down, and people started doing their work at home because they couldn’t get anything done in the office. This is like the counterpoint to that, which is you stay focused for up to three hours and then you take up to 30% of that time off. And I would bet more and more studies are going to come out just showing how much better this actually is. John, fantastic book. It is like my favorite book of 2023, and it’s just coming up. When is it actually available for people to buy in 2024?

John Briggs (34:14):
So, you can pre-order now, depending on when this release is, but January 15th is the official availability date.

Chris Cooper (34:20):
That is going to be, yeah, so the week this comes out, it’ll be available to you. We’ll post a link right in the show notes. I said it as my favorite book of 2023 because John slid me a PDF version a few weeks ago. Guys, I am so fired up about this book. John, it’s not a surprise that you wrote this, but it’s a surprise that an accountant wrote this, if that makes sense. Thank you for thinking outside the box, man. This is so good.

John Briggs (34:47):
Yeah. Thanks Chris. I appreciate it. I really hope that we can get this in the hands of small business owners because I think whether it’s the Canadian economy or the U.S. economy, it’s on the back of small business owners is the way our economies function, and the Fortune 100s get all the attention, but the reality is, if we lost the Fortune 100 companies, we would be fine economically because we have enough small businesses. If we lost all the small businesses, we wouldn’t be. And the biggest threat to small businesses going out of business isn’t necessarily profitability—it’s a consequence of—but it’s burnout. Obviously if I’m not profitable, that kind of leads to me feeling burnout, but I just want to keep business owners in business. I want to keep them fired up and passionate about why they got into business. And I think this rule really will help them accomplish that.

Chris Cooper (35:40):
Yeah. And that’s why it’s especially important right now. I think the next 12 months are going to see more entrepreneurs just succumb to burnout, close up shop, and nobody wins when that happens. So John, man, thank you for the 3.3 Rule, and we’ll have a link in the show notes for everybody to go out and get it.

The post Boost Productivity and Avoid Burnout Using John Briggs’ 3.3 Rule appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Virtuosity in Business: Killing Tiny Classes

To achieve virtuosity in business, you must do simple things at an elite level.

That’s harder than it sounds. Everyone wants to level up fast and try new things. Fundamentals? Boring!

You’ve seen this in your gym, I’m sure. And I know you’re tempted by distractions all the time because I am, too.

But if you read on, I’ll give you a very simple way to measurably improve your business. If you learn how to use this tactic, you can employ it regularly to improve your gym—and you’ll have it in your toolbox forever.

Only Great Gym Owners Do This

Small group classes are costing you money. You probably sense that.

But I know it because I run the numbers.

Here are the steps:

1. Add up the total revenue you receive from group training each month (your CrossFit groups, your bootcamps, etc.).

2. Divide that by the number of classes you run at your gym per month. That’s the average value of each class.

3. Go back to your total group-training revenue. Divide that by the number of people paying for group training in your gym. That’s your average revenue per group-training client.

4. Divide the number above by average attendance. How many times does the average client attend a group in a month? This will tell you the value of one person attending one group.

5. Pull up your attendance-tracking sheet and look at each group you run. Multiply the average attendance for each group by the average value of a group-training client. That will give you a specific value for each group you run.

6. Compare the average value of a class (from Step 2) against that of each class on your schedule. Which classes are pulling you up and which are pulling you down?

7. Compare the average value for each class against your personal-training rate. Are there any spots where you’d make more money taking a 1:1 client instead of running a small class? What about if you delivered high-value personalized programming to two, three or four people in an hour (we call this “semi-private training”)?

Example:

Stacy has 100 clients and grosses $10,000 per month in group revenue.She runs 40 classes per week, or 172 classes per month (40 x 4.3 weeks per month).Her average revenue per class is $58.14.Stacy’s average client pays $100 per month. Her average client attends 15 times.The average value of a class attendee at Sarah’s gym is $6.67.That means her average group size is about eight or nine people. (Simply divide Stacy’s revenue per group class by the average value of an attendee.)

Here’s where the rubber meets the road:

If Stacy runs a class for eight people, she makes $53.36 an hour. If the class has nine people, she makes $60.03 per hour.Stacy charges $65 per hour for personal training, so she needs to get 10 people in a class to earn $66.70 and beat her PT rate.If fewer than 10 people show up for her class, she’d make more doing a 1:1 session in that time.If 11 or more people show up for a class, Stacy makes more than $73 per hour.

Keep in mind that our annual “State of the Industry” report always reveals that average group-class attendance in microgyms is about 7. It’s never 12.

Data-backed industry fact: Almost no one is consistently running classes with more than 10 attendees all the time.

An important note many gym owners ignore: Building your business on the target of running large classes all day is just not a good idea.

Another data point: Our report shows the average price of a 60-minute PT session is $75. Stacy is undercharging for PT. If she charged $75, she’d need 12 people in class to beat that.

What would you rather do: Acquire and retain 12 group-class members or learn to sell one PT session a week?

Virtuosity: Take It Further

Many gym owners have done this calculation over the years—then done nothing beyond hope more people show up to group classes.

To become a masterful gym owner, you need to act and optimize. A mentor would help you figure out exactly what to do in your unique business, but I’ll lay out a few general options for you here.

1. You could cancel poorly attended classes and sell more PT sessions instead (we give clients a step-by-step plan to acquire more PT clients).

2. You could increase your group rates to ensure each class generates more revenue (we have an exact template for rate increases).

3. You could sell hybrid memberships to increase client value (we have a plan for this, too).

4. You could start using semi-private training to generate more revenue per hour and give clients personalized service (we have instructions and a subject-matter expert who helps owners scale semi-private training fast).

The Master’s Path

This exercise should be repeated regularly.

A poor gym owner will ignore this advice and blindly chase more clients to fill group classes.

A good gym owner will do the calculations and realize there’s a problem.

A great gym owner will run the numbers on a schedule and then take swift, targeted action to improve the business.

If you’re chasing virtuosity in business, you’ll choose the last option.

So what are you going to do today to improve your business?

The post Virtuosity in Business: Killing Tiny Classes appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Virtuosity: Making Excellence Standard Operating Procedure

The towel on the hotel bed in the shape of a swan isn’t an accident.

The scalp massage before your haircut at the top salon? That’s in the playbook.

And there’s a reason you’re handed a steaming cup of great coffee and a high-speed network password when you book vehicle service at the best shop in town.

The world’s best businesses—the ones that clearly stand above the competition—have standard operating procedures (SOPs) that cover absolutely everything.

Excellence is defined in these businesses, and the procedures for achieving it are documented.

Nothing happens by accident, and your experience as a client doesn’t hinge on one amazing staff person who over-delivers. In the top businesses, virtuosity is formalized so every customer receives the same A+ service every time.

I want your gym to be a world-class business people rave about. Guess what? The first step toward that lofty goal is simple and boring but essential: You must create SOPs to define and ensure “10-out-of-10 service.”

Here’s how to do it—with a little help from AI if you need it.

Creating SOPs

We work with a gym owner who spent an excessive amount on cleaning supplies every month. Bottles and jugs were always empty, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Turns out his cleaner was using concentrated products without diluting them, which cost the business a lot of money over many months. He just assumed the cleaner would dilute the chemicals according to the instructions on the label, but the cleaner hadn’t been told anything beyond “clean the gym.”

If you’ve ever worked at McDonald’s, you know the solution: pre-measured packages of cleaning solution and precise instructions, such as “put one packet of solution into the mop bucket and add water until it reaches the line on the side.”

As a gym owner, you might not recommend McDonald’s as the pinnacle of performance nutrition, but you can’t argue with the company’s focus when it comes to consistency and standardization.

So how do you start systemizing your independent gym business? By doing something yourself and documenting every step. Leave deep tracks for others to follow. Go into detail so it’s clear what perfect performance is.

When you follow this plan, you will have to focus on the task to avoid skipping steps that are obvious to you but not to others. Remember, virtuosity requires focusing on the basics.

Here’s an example of an SOP entry with skipped steps: “Create a great atmosphere as clients arrive.” That might get you what you want—by accident.

This is better:

Be completely ready to coach the class 15 minutes before it starts—the workout is on the board, you have completed all set-up activities, and the WOD Assault playlist is on the stereo at volume level 2.Your job for the next 15 minutes is to enthusiastically greet every athlete by name and ask at least one personal question that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no.” Examples: “What happened with that major client you were telling me about?” or “What did your partner think about your huge deadlift PR last class?”  Ensure that you speak to each member at least once. If time allows, ask each member an additional question or facilitate introductions and conversations. Example: “Hey, Tom. I want you to meet Sam. She knows everyone in town and can help you find a mechanic who can fix your truck.”Wrap up conversations in the final minute before class starts, turn off the music and start the class precisely on time with the whiteboard brief.

Does that seem like overkill? It isn’t. It’s precise documentation of procedures and standards. You can—and should—apply the same principles to all the other tasks in your business.

If you do this, new staff members will start on the right page with clarity, and experienced staff members can operate by habit after they’ve learned the SOP. If they start to forget anything, you can reference the SOP in the next performance review.

AI: Your Secret Editor

Maybe SOP writing isn’t your thing. I get it. You can’t skip this basic process entirely—remember, virtuosity involves a focus on fundamentals—but you can expedite it with ChatGPT or another AI platform.

Write down everything you need a staff member to understand, then paste your notes into the AI program of your choice below this text:

“Please simplify the following list into a standard operating procedure. Include major section headings, and use bullet points. Increase clarity and eliminate redundancy or wordiness. Reduce the text to its essential elements so it can be easily understood by anyone. The goal is brevity with maximum clarity. Here is the text:”

All you have to do now is review the AI copy, make sure it’s accurate and paste it into your staff playbook.

Don’t Make Staff Guess

As the business owner, a lot of things are obvious to you. But your staff can’t see inside your head.

To get the results you want, you must document everything, deliver your SOPs and review performance. That’s virtuosity.

If you just assume everyone on your team will figure it out, that’s mediocrity.

Virtuosity in Business is the theme of our annual summit on June 8 and 9 in Chicago. Join us to learn from world-class speakers and grow your gym!

The post Virtuosity: Making Excellence Standard Operating Procedure appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Virtuosity: How to Grow Your Gym by Mastering the Basics

Chris Cooper (00:02):
When I was turning my gym around, my motto was less, better. I simplified our staff playbooks. I redid our contracts. I brought our gym membership options from 70 down to three. I focused on the key staff and made them full-time and worked on improving their basic skills. Now outside the business world, this concept is called virtuosity, which is sticking to the basics, doing them over and over, getting better and better at them, and avoiding distraction—maintaining focus on what matters most. In other words, doing the common uncommonly well. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and today I’m talking about virtuosity in business. It’s the theme of our Summit this year in June, and we’re bringing some pro speakers to help you master the basics, stay focused and grow your gym without distractions. One of the hardest skills for entrepreneurs to practice is virtuosity.

Chris Cooper (00:57):
Virtuosity simply means mastery of the fundamentals instead of trying every new idea that comes along and sucking at it. High-level performers in golf, for example, work on their basic swing for years while novices buy new clubs. This is true in most sports, including cycling, where you know I’m the most guilty in the world. But Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, uses the gymnastics definition of virtuosity, which is performing the common uncommonly well. In business, this means that a gym owner should work to master their skill in selling their program before attempting to flood their gym with marketing. But the siren song of leads, leads, leads is strong enough to distract a lot of gym owners, and so they sign up with a marketing agency, they get 30 people in the door, but they don’t sign them up, or they don’t retain them, and they wind up back where they started again three months later.

Chris Cooper (01:50):
Likewise, a gym owner should develop their staff to make them all 8 out of 10 coaches instead of employing a few 3s and one 9. This requires evaluation and feedback, which are uncomfortable processes that many gym owners forget or ignore. Entrepreneurs in any service business, but especially the fitness industry, should develop the skill of asking for referrals, nurturing leads, and creating content before thinking about TikTok or the next podcast or the next book, but most of us lack the discipline to master the basics because the lure of novelty is so strong. This is why you see gym owners saying, “I’m gonna read 50 books this year” because they’re attracted to novelty instead of sticking to the five or six things that are more important. One of the challenges of mastering the basics is that it gets boring. Who wants to do another sales role-play session when they could shoot an Instagram reel or listen to a different podcast?

Chris Cooper (02:43):
It’s tempting to be the first one to try or talk about a new idea, a new book, be an early adopter or tell your friends how to do the new thing, but this is the curse of the novice. In a letter to coaches around the world, Glassman wrote, “There’s a compelling tendency among novices developing any skill or art, whether learning to play the violin, write poetry or compete in gymnastics, to quickly move past the fundamentals and onto more elaborate, more sophisticated movements skills or techniques. This compulsion is the novice’s curse, the rush to originality and risk.” Greg goes on to describe that the novice’s curse usually manifests as excessive adornment, silly creativity, weak fundamentals, and ultimately a marked lack of virtuosity and delayed mastery. This is equally true in business. Focusing on building a Facebook ads campaign before you have a consistent sales process means a lot of wasted time on cold leads, poor conversion and burnout. Worse, it’s hard to learn to be a better salesperson if the pitch is different every time because the entrepreneur can’t see what’s working with clarity.

Chris Cooper (03:50):

Mastering the essentials: What are some of the basics that every entrepreneur, especially gym owners, should know? How to read a P&L. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a profit and loss statement. You should start there. Getting client referrals; having three or four marketing funnels and tracking their metrics every month; consistent delivery of their service by staff; selling their product; staff evaluations; and content creation. Most entrepreneurs can grow their business faster by improving those seven things than by adding any new strategy or tactic. For example, every entrepreneur should know how to read a profit and loss statement, a P&L. Even basic familiarity with that basic financial document will help the gym owner understand how their business is doing and make decisions that actually matter instead of just having wild guesses all the time. But the pursuit of mastery means asking questions of your bookkeeper, thinking about how you classify your expenses, identifying new opportunities for growth, and putting in lots of reps at reading a P&L. That would grow your business faster than searching for new trends on social media.

Chris Cooper (04:58):
The P&L should create focus for a business owner, which is the first step to growth. And as another example, a business owner who can improve their close rate by 10% will grow their business faster than an owner who doubles their ad spend. Ads take time to ramp up, time to optimize and require constant monitoring. When they begin to slow down, they have to be retooled, and the process begins all over again. Sales, however, is different. Performing better with every lead will multiply the value of all future advertising, but most entrepreneurs skip from platform to platform, or they make little investments in each, or they go to round tables to talk about giving people free trials and free weeks and then move on to the basics because those things just don’t work unless you’ve got a consultative sales process. The basics never go away.

Chris Cooper (05:46):
You know this; you coach fitness. Mastering the basics is more important than learning something new, but the pull of novelty is strong for your clients in your gym, but also for you, the business owner. Of course, we can’t ignore the fun new stuff, but novelty must always come second after the pursuit of virtuosity in the fundamentals. In summary, the aim is to master the basics yourself and systemize them for your staff. Then you optimize those things over time in yourself and in your staff. There’s no surprise that the basics that I just mentioned are part of what we teach in the first few stages of mentorship because I need you to understand what the basics are, learn to use the basics, and then optimize the basics if you’re going to have a gym that’s successful over the long term. In fact, more than ever before, gyms who are finished with Two-Brain, they’ve been with us for a couple years, maybe even five years with a mentor.

Chris Cooper (06:46):
Eventually they become our alumni, and I need them to be successful long term. Whether or not they change their marketing strategy down the road, that’s fine. Things are going to change over the next 30 years, but if you understand how to read a P&L, if you have a consultative sales process, if you know how to build a marketing funnel and measure its efficacy, if you’ve got consistent delivery of your product, if you’re evaluating your staff, and the other basics that I mentioned, you will always be able to grow no matter what new thing comes your way or what changes in your business. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and I really want to see you at our Summit in June in Chicago this year. If you go to twobrainsummit.com, you can get your tickets now before the prices go up. This year, we expect a thousand gym owners and their coaches to be there. Rogue is going to be there, Mayhem is going to be there, Jason Khalipa is going to be there, and a bunch of speakers that we haven’t even announced yet. The goal of this Summit is not to just flood you with information, it’s to connect you with the people who are going to help you grow and take action during the course of the weekend to actually get your gym growing. Hope to see you there.

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Do Less Better: A Critical Lesson for Gym Owners

When I was turning my gym around, my motto was “less, better.”

Outside the business world, this concept is called “virtuosity”—sticking to the basics, getting better and better, and avoiding distractions. In other words, it’s “doing the common uncommonly well,” to quote the gymnastics definition made famous by Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit.

Virtuosity in Business is the theme of our annual summit on June 8 and 9 in Chicago, and we’re bringing some pro speakers to help you master the basics, stay focused and grow your gym without distractions.

The basics are that important.

Boring Basics for the Win

Virtuosity is one of the most difficult skills for entrepreneurs to practice because it’s hard to address the fundamentals for the tenth time. It’s way easier to try every new idea that comes along.

High-level performers in golf, for example, work on their basic swing for years, but novices buy new equipment all the time. This is true in most sports.

A gym example: An owner should work to master selling their program before attempting to “flood their gym” with marketing. But the siren song of “leads, leads, leads!” is strong enough to distract most of them. So they sign up with a marketing agency, get 30 people in the door, don’t close them—or don’t retain them—and wind up back where they started.

Likewise, a gym owner should focus on developing staff to make them all “eight-out-of-10 coaches” instead of employing a few “threes” and one “nine.” This requires evaluations and feedback—a basic but uncomfortable process many gym owners forget or ignore.

Another one: Entrepreneurs in any service business should develop the skill of asking for referrals and nurturing leads before they jump into paid marketing delivered to a cold audience—but most lack the discipline to master the basics because the lure of novelty is so strong.

One of the challenges of mastering the basics is that it gets boring. Who wants to do another sales role-playing exercise when they could shoot an Instagram reel or record a podcast? It’s tempting to be the first to try—and talk about—a new idea, be an early adopter or tell your friends how to do the new thing. This is the “curse of the novice.”

In a letter to coaches around the world, Glassman wrote, “There is a compelling tendency among novices developing any skill or art … to quickly move past the fundamentals and on to more elaborate, more sophisticated movements, skills or techniques. This compulsion is the novice’s curse—the rush to originality and risk.”

He goes on to describe the novice’s curse as “excessive adornment, silly creativity, weak fundamentals and, ultimately, a marked lack of virtuosity and delayed mastery.”

Mastering the Essentials

What are some of the basics every entrepreneur should master?

Reading a profit-and-loss statement (P&L).Getting client referrals.Building three or four marketing funnels and tracking the metrics every month.Ensuring consistent delivery of service by staff.Selling their product.Performing regular staff evaluations.Creating content.

Here’s the critical part: Most entrepreneurs can grow their businesses faster by improving the fundamentals than by adding new strategies or tactics.

For example, every entrepreneur should know how to read a P&L. Even basic familiarity will help an entrepreneur understand how the business is doing.

But the pursuit of mastery—asking questions of the bookkeeper, thinking about classifications, identifying opportunities and putting in lots of reps—will grow the business faster than skimming the P&L and then searching for new trends on social media. The P&L should create focus for a business owner, which is the first step to growth.

As another example, a business owner who can improve close rate by 10 percent will grow the business faster than an owner who increases ad spend. Performing better with every lead will multiply the value of all future advertising, but most entrepreneurs pass on sales mastery to take the easy path of throwing more money into lead generation.

Of course, we can’t ignore the fun, new stuff. Innovation and creative thinking are important. But novelty must always be balanced with the pursuit of virtuosity in the fundamentals. Mastering the basics is more important than learning something new.

To succeed in business, master the basics yourself and systemize them for your staff. If you do, you’ll optimize outcomes over time.

The post Do Less Better: A Critical Lesson for Gym Owners appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Loving the Likes: Are You Addicted to Content Creation?

Are you addicted to content creation as a business owner?

If you feel the need to crank out social posts, blogs and videos without investing any time in the rest of your funnel, the answer is yes.

If you’re obsessed with learning how to use the latest filters and filming hacks but you’re putting off a much-needed rate increase, the answer is yes.

And if you start creating content that gets likes but doesn’t appeal to your client avatar, the answer is also yes.

It’s common for gym owners to struggle to create content.

But other entrepreneurs become addicted to the dopamine hits they get when they open an app and find 1,000 video views or 100 likes.

Attention is really addictive.

According to The Guardian, Dr. Anna Lembke “calls the smartphone the ‘modern-day hypodermic needle’: we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet.”

I know you know what I mean. Tell me you don’t feel a rush when you open an app and see that a ton of people loved your latest post. And I know that talking about apps and likes is making you itch to check your notifications.

But stay with me for three more minutes.

Here’s a scenario:

Gym owner likes producing content.Gym owner gets a bit of traction on social media and spends increasing amounts of time on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.Gym owner focuses on media and ignores operations.Gym owner keeps cranking out content while retention suffers.Gym owner gets lots of attention but struggles to acquire any new clients.

This is a real thing, even if it’s less common than the gym owner who hates producing content (no content is also a problem).

Ask Yourself Hard Questions

Here are eight questions that will give you some insight into your own media habits. If you answer “yes” to any of them, you might have a problem.

Do you check social notifications faster than you respond to leads?Do you spend more time editing videos than practicing sales?Do you produce content to get likes instead of to make sales?Do you make time to publish at the expense of improving business operations?Do you prioritize publishing over booking Goal Review Sessions with current clients?Do you want to start a podcast solely because lots of other entrepreneurs have podcasts?Do you produce increasing amounts of media while revenue numbers drop or stay the same?Do you produce increasing amounts of media without hiring staff to take care of other parts of the business?
A Simple Media Plan

So what’s the right media plan for a gym owner?

Here it is, as simply as I can lay it out:

1. Create your perfect client avatar. This is the person you will create content for—and only this person.

2. Ensure your content is Step 1 in a clearly defined sales funnel. You must be able to show exactly how your content moves people into your business.

3. Create a simple content calendar—one blog, podcast or video and three social posts per week is a good start.

4. Allocate a set amount of time to content creation. Work fast, hit publish and move on. Do not invest extra time to get something “just right.”

5. Track your metrics, and create more content only if your sales funnel is working perfectly and your retention is great.

6. Hire and delegate so you can increase output, but set a new and appropriate time limit for content creation.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6.

Use Your Time Wisely

As smartphones and AI make content creation even easier, you’re going to be tempted to spend more time cranking it out.

But be careful. Unless you’re one of the rare influencers who can monetize content itself, you’re using content to grow your main business: your gym.

Make sure you always remember that. If you do, your gym will grow. If you don’t, you’ll have 10,000 followers and a monthly revenue shortfall.

The post Loving the Likes: Are You Addicted to Content Creation? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

“Simple Stuff” This Gym Owner Did to Become a Top Earner

Mike Warkentin (00:02):
Gym owners who earn between $15,000 and $25,000 a month from their businesses: They’re real, and they come on this show to share their secrets with you. You’re going to see behind the curtain today. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m your host, Mike Warkentin, and please hit “Subscribe” wherever you’re watching or listening, so you don’t miss any of the great stuff from these top gym owners. Now, Two-Brain’s most recent leaderboard tracked net owner benefit for three months. Now that’s salary, dividends and any other little extras that the business contributes, like pays for your cell phone or your car. As I said, the Top 10 ran from 15,000 to $25,000. This isn’t gross revenue; this is actually what the owners took out of their businesses. How do they do it? Well, my guest is going to tell you. His name is Ashley Reese, and he runs Defining Moment Fitness in Charleston, South Carolina with a partner. Ashley, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking time for us.

Ashley Reese (00:48):
Hey, thanks, Mike, for having me.

Mike Warkentin (00:50):
I can’t wait to dig into this, and there’s a thing, I know you said this before the show, so I’m going to dig right into it: You said simple stuff works when it’s done consistently well. Now a ton of gym owners don’t know what that simple stuff is. What are you referring to? Because you managed to do this simple stuff so well that you ended up on our Top 10 leaderboard.

Ashley Reese (01:07):
Yeah, I think I attribute it to just three main points, and there’s a saying that I’ve always kind of held true to: Everything rises and falls on leadership, right? And I think for me it’s number one: I’ve always had the vision for where I wanted to go long term, and I’ve always broken that down into steps, right? So, where I am now, and then ultimately, where do I want to go in the next three to six months? Then what is the strategy behind that? So always keeping the next step relevant and always on the forefront of my mind. And then it really just comes down to two focuses. Number one is the client, right? Like the client, how am I going to service the client in the most high-quality value way, right? Build that relationship, cultivate that relationship for not just the now-results in return, but the long-term sustainability to keep them in-house and let them share that with all their friends.

Ashley Reese (01:58):
Through doing that and building those relationships, it’s going to equate to more clients coming back in, right? So, I’ve always—we could label that client journey. Client journey’s always been the focus with my vision and goals in mind as well. The second part of that is the staffing journey, right? Aligning myself with the people who actually help me fulfill the services. You know, for me, I’ve always wanted the career-oriented trainer. Want the person that just wanted two and three hours a day. Maybe we’ll do this for a couple months. So, I’ve always hired with intention from the get go. And then as I move towards my goals, it’s what is the systems and the operations I need to put in place, but ultimately, like, how do I keep elevating my client journey and my staffing journey to level not just me up as an owner and keep moving, moving forward, but to get us elevated toward moving towards that goal? So, no matter if I add marketing to the equation, retail, or shirts or protein shakes, it always comes back to client journey, the staffing journey. Who’s helping me fulfill these day-to-day operations? And then ultimately, once we hit this next three-to-six-month goal, then what is that next goal after that? But it really just comes down to the simple consistent steps and those three pillars really for me and my success.

Mike Warkentin (03:19):
So, that’s great stuff. So, you’ve got this vision and then you’ve got your goals, and you’ve got steps that are laid out to get to those goals. And that’s a huge one because every gym owner—Chris Cooper has said this many times—needs a goal, a plan and someone to hold them accountable to that plan. So, that’s a really important one. Your focus—you frame all of that with focus on staffing and on the client journey. And those are two huge things because I can tell you this, listeners, you can’t get to a huge net owner benefit by yourself for the most part. There are very few people who run one person shows, and they can do that, but it’s rare. What’s much more common is for gym owners to ascend to a CEO role and build a business where staff members contribute. And that means it’s a different skillset.

Mike Warkentin (03:55):
You’re not coaching squats anymore; you’re building a team. And then the final thing that Ashley mentioned, which is super important, is that client journey. You need to know how clients come into your business, what they do there, why they stay, why they leave when they leave. How can you extend that? How can you serve them better? If you do that, you’re going to increase your average revenue per member. You’re going to increase your length of engagement, lifetime value goes up, and as a result of all of that, you earn more. Have I got that right, Ashley?

Ashley Reese (04:20):
Yeah. 100%. 100%.

Mike Warkentin (04:23):
Yeah. Because you can’t, you just like–but it’s not obvious. Like when I started out my gym, I didn’t see any of this stuff, right? So, it’s these simple things where it’s like goals, plan, steps, focuses, all that makes a lot of sense. But I didn’t see it when I was starting out as a new gym owner. So, if you don’t have those things lined up, start thinking about what are your actual goals, and then make clear steps to get there. And if you don’t know how to do that, a mentor can help. Try that. Book a call. The links are always in the show notes for that. I’ll ask you this: How has your net owner benefit changed over time? Like, where did you guys start, and how did that grow? Was it zero? Mine was zero.

Ashley Reese (04:57):
Yeah. You know, it started with me being a one-man show, and how can I trade what I was good at—training—with the money to pay for the overhead and actually take home some money. So, you know, I had this bare minimum that I had to pay the gym, and I had this bare minimum that I had to bring home, right? I think back in the day it was $3,000 because I live very minimally, right? And so, really for the next year, two years, as I was trying to put these pieces of the pie, really understand like, what do I need to do in order to get here? You know? You know, I really just paid myself the bare minimum. Everything else just went into a bank account. I didn’t know where to spend the extra money if I had any, right?

Ashley Reese (05:38):
And then ultimately build a staff. And then my perspective started changing, right? Like I needed to focus more on the client journey and more on the staffing journey, and then ultimately leading those two entities towards an ultimate goal, which we previously said. But as I did that, I found that there was actually more value in my time in focusing on growing the clientele through those relationships, and then helping my staff gain more revenue for themselves, get a career out of this and, and so on and so forth. And so as those two things rose the vision and the goals became bigger, but I found my paycheck actually increasing as well—not to my own understanding, but a CPA and a financial advisor was like, “Hey, you should really start considering paying yourself more, or the tax man’s going to come get you if you don’t start spending your …”

Ashley Reese (06:30):
So, enter the picture of me now trying to learn financial management. It wasn’t just growing a team, and it wasn’t just trying to get more clients. It was like, what do I do with this extra $2,000 a month? So, in working with a financial advisor, a mentor per se, in a financial sense, they started telling me to elevate my income. They started telling me to put money into a SEP fund for retirement. They started helping me build all these things out. I wasn’t raised financially. I’m financially literate is what I really am. But having that guidance and then ultimately giving myself a $6,000 a month salary, and then creating—instead of my company staying an LLC, we became an S-corp, right? For tax benefits and purposes. Then we had another rise in the amount of clients we were serving and revenue growth.

Ashley Reese (07:19):
And so, I gave myself a $10,000 pay raise, right? But at the end of the day, there’s still net profit that you’ve got to invest back into a SEP. You’ve got to do other investments with it. And then ultimately, as we’ve taken guidance and mentorship from a professional in that area, we’ve ended up being at 15 and 18,000 in net owner benefit per month, which ultimately is still—there’s still money left over at the end of the year to then either give back to staff, other investments, so on and so along the way. So, it’s been one of those gradual things that I’ve had to learn just as much as being a better manager, a better leader, business owner, finances is something that I’ve had to really dive into and wrap my head around differently than the way that I was raised, really.

Mike Warkentin (08:07):
Yeah. Do you remember any of the milestones, like the timelines? How long did it take you to get from, say, 3,000 to 6,000 or 10,000? Do you recall?

Ashley Reese (08:15):
I think 3,000 to 6,000 was about a year-and-a-half, two-year period.

Mike Warkentin (08:19):
So double up in a year and a half to two years?

Ashley Reese (08:22):
Correct. And what that came down to was the amount of clientele and the amount of staffing, and then ultimately being able to focus on those two things growing. Just so happened at the three-year mark, you know, the big term “COVID.” In May of 2020, our lease was coming due actually on our facility. And I was really contemplating not renewing it because of all the things in the world that were happening. But I had the opportunity to grow to an 8,000 square-foot facility while other gyms were shutting down. And I decided to take the jump. We jumped; we moved into an 8,000 square-foot facility. But again, along with that, systems, operations, staffing all increased. Revenue increased. And so there was a different conversation about, “Hey, you need to pay yourself more.” So, I took a jump from 6,000 to the 10,000, and then it’s just ever evolving to where we are today. So.

Mike Warkentin (09:15):
All the stuff you’re saying, Ashley, is not like “how I coach the squat” kind of stuff, which you probably started at as a one person show. You are now talking about CEO-level decisions about getting bigger space, hiring staff, managing people, developing your product and its delivery, and all the things that go into that—marketing, which I know you’re great at. Like, this is CEO-level stuff. So, listeners, if you’re thinking about “How do I get to a greater income?” you can start thinking like a CEO, not just a trainer, because when you open a business, you’re not a trainer anymore. You are the CEO of that business. Ashley, give me the quick rundown. 60 seconds. What are you selling, and what are you doing at your gym? What is the basic deal there?

Ashley Reese (09:49):
Yeah, we do all one-on-one, customized training. So, whether it’s athletic development, golfers, weight loss, weight gain, anything and everything involving the one-on-one aspect, we do a little bit of partner training, but we haven’t really branched into the semi-training market or the group training market. We do have some in-house physical therapy as well, but we’ve always kind of stuck to that one-on-one customized, individualized approach, and it continues to work, and we continue to grow. So, I’m just going to stay and keep it simple.

Mike Warkentin (10:20):
Okay. So basically, you classify it as like a personal training facility of sorts. Okay. So, there you go. That’s a really interesting model. It’s one of many models that works. Chris Cooper has laid out a ton of different ones, but that is one that will work if you do it properly with guidance from a mentor. Net owner benefit strategy. You mentioned a few things. Are there any other details that you have on that? So, some people will just take a straight salary, other people have salary dividends, other people do a whole bunch of different things to pay as much tax as they’re legally required to do so, but not a penny more. What do you do there?

Ashley Reese (10:50):
You know, I seek the advice of a professional. I mean, that is literally—I don’t have a nugget to give you guys. Like quarterly, I’ve got a meeting with my CPA and my financial advisor tomorrow. We are at the end of the year, right? But I always am staying relevant to them, whether it’s through just coffee or lunch once a month, and just kind of letting them know where I am. And we’re always assessing the income levels, the revenue levels, and what pivots do I need to make now in order to best benefit me in the long term and my team, and ultimately just keep things moving and growing, right?

Mike Warkentin (11:26):
If you don’t know, ask an expert. And what you’re buying there is speed because they’re going to tell you from an expert position what you need to know rather than you fumbling with it. I’ve made that mistake way too many times. If you don’t know, you don’t necessarily need to figure it out. You can ask an expert. So again, that’s CEO-level stuff. Hire a financial planner, hire an accountant, get those things done, and then you’re going to save time and speed. The one other thing I want to ask you then next is how does mentorship figure into this? We’re talking about experts. How does the expert guidance from another gym owner—a successful one—how does that help you build your net owner benefit? Have you avoided mistakes? Like what’s happened here?

Ashley Reese (11:59):
You know, I think the biggest thing right now is—what’s the best way for me to answer that question? I think it’s how I allocate my time.

Ashley Reese (12:09):
And this has been something that, you know—I have several mentors. One is for specifically the business. One is more of a personal development. I have another one in finance. But what all three of them are telling me right now is: Where are you spending your time? Because I am quick to make a decision, and then I want to go that way, and I end up just getting busy, right? And so even these three mentors have said, “Hey, slow down. You don’t have to do anything. I need you to do the right thing, right? What is going to bring the most value in, but also going to require the most value from you, right? Don’t just do something to get busy and to just do something, right?” And so, I think where am I spending my time in learning education? Who am I hanging out with?

Ashley Reese (12:58):
What are those networks that I’m involved in? What am I spending my time on, and where am I putting my energy? And again, a great example would be back in the day, it was training because I thought training equaled the result that I was really looking for. No, it was really business ownership and becoming a better leader and a manager. And so vice versa, it’s like now it’s not just doing the things. It’s: What are you doing, and are you doing it with intentionality? So, it’s really about time management, and how am I spending that time?

Mike Warkentin (13:29):
Listeners, this is CEO stuff. Again, time and attention. They’re finite resources. You do not have a lot of it, right? You have a certain amount of time, and you need to invest it in the things that will grow your business. That is not cleaning toilets anymore, as a gym owner; that is hiring someone to clean the toilet so that you can build a marketing strategy or whatever upper-level tasks are out there. Same thing with attention. As an upper-level entrepreneur, you have all these opportunities in front of you. You can’t follow everything. If you do, your business is going to crumble, and you’re going to get distracted. It’s really important that you figure out what to do. A mentor’s job is to tell you exactly what to do right now to grow your business and get the greatest result. Two-Brain specializes in that. You can book a call in the show notes if you want to talk about that. That’s the idea: Invest your time as wisely as you possibly can. Ashley, as we close this guy out, there are some gyms owners out there, they’re not earning much from their gym yet, and they’re looking at this, these numbers, and saying, you know, back maybe where I was, where they’re paying themselves $0—maybe where you were at $3, 000—and they don’t know how they get to the next level. What’s a piece of advice you would give them at their level to get just a little bit further ahead?

Ashley Reese (14:31):
You know, employ the right operations and things that are going to help you get the business to the next level. Spend time when you have time on those things. It’s easy to chase the next session. We can always get more clients to build this hour, but if that one hour that you spend on the business and focusing on growing your business, that one hour could equate to 10 new clients instead of you servicing one for one hour. That took me forever to really get my perspective because I was like, “No, this is what I need now. This is going to get me that solution the quickest possible way.” And then by the time I got around to spending time on my business, I was too exhausted. I didn’t feel like it. The creativity in my brain was gone from having so many conversations and training and motivating groups and so on and so forth.

Ashley Reese (15:25):
But put the systems in the operations and structures into place, even though it may not be staffing right this second, get the things in order that save you time, that allow you to have the time to focus on the growth, even if it’s just a 30-minute cup of coffee at your local Starbucks or a coffee shop—whatever you guys have around the world. Right? But make it a priority to sit down and focus on growth and giving you more time to focus on the business—getting to where you envision it to be in 90 to 120 days.

Mike Warkentin (15:57):
If I would summarize that in a catchy slogan, it would be: “Work on the business, not in the business.” You have to figure out how to grow it as a CEO again, not how to deliver the service that those days are done for all, you know, 99% of successful gym owners, there are those few one person shows, they’re very rare. For the rest of us, it’s staff building, trying to develop the product, all the things that come with it. Tell me again, and it might be the same answer, but talk to someone who’s maybe at that like $6,000 level and is looking to get to that 10 to 15: What’s the big jump there?

Ashley Reese (16:28):
Perspective and priorities. It’s—the gap between the six and the 10, the 10 and the 15, is really: What are you doing with your time? Six to 10? It was—I pulled myself almost completely out of training, and I was not doing any of the fulfillment. I focused on growing revenue, and I focused on developing my staff. When I got to 15 to 20, it wasn’t either one of those. It was just make sure that my top-tier leadership knew what they were doing so that they could develop the rest of the staff. And then ultimately, where am I spending my time on making sure that revenue streams are coming in? Because at that level, it’s about your connectivity to other people, not just the systems and the operations. So now, I am surrounding myself and spending time with other business owners, other people that are running corporate, and we’re doing corporate wellness type things for them. So, then I can sign that up, sign that deal, and then pass it down to my people. So, it’s really more about time allocation. I mean, it really, really seriously is.

Mike Warkentin (17:37):
And that’s visionary level stuff. Like that’s that C-suite kind of upper-level stuff. And again, in the gym world, we aren’t all that corporate necessarily, but that’s visionary stuff where you’re the connector, you’re doing these big level things and, and then you’re passing it off. It’s like, “I made this deal, make it happen.” Staff members, the whole structure, building things. And we have mentorship for this too; that is Tinker level entrepreneurship. That is what we call our upper-level entrepreneurs and gym owners who are expanding into anything they want because they have the time and the freedom. It could be crypto, it could be opening a distillery, it could be sports beverages, it could be another gym, it could be expanding a gym, buying real estate—any of those things. That mentorship does exist. Ashley, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. This is really great basic tactical stuff that can be used by low-level entrepreneurs like me or people who are at that elite level where you’re at. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Ashley Reese (18:25):
Absolutely, Mike, thank you for having me.

Mike Warkentin (18:27):
My pleasure. That was Ashley Reese. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” This is where the best gym owners in the world, they come on the show, and they tell you what they’re doing so that you can have the same success. Please subscribe for more episodes on your way out. And now, here’s the final message from Chris Cooper.

Chris Cooper (18:40):
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.

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