Chris Cooper's Blog, page 63

Calling all Gym Owners: Our 2023 State of the Industry Survey

Chris Cooper (00:00):
When you’re looking to grow your gym, it’s really easy to find advice. You can find it online, you can find it on podcasts, in books like mine, and generally there are three types of advice that you find. First, there’s bad advice, then there’s useless advice, and then there’s good advice. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and today I’m gonna tell you how to figure out which advice is good, which is bad, and which is just useless—to waste your time. Obviously, bad advice is something that you want to avoid because that can hurt your business, but useless advice is also something that you want to avoid because you consume it, and it takes up your time—time that could be spent spending working on things that are actually good advice, that will move the needle. And good advice, of course, is what you want because it helps you grow your business with clear, actionable steps.

Chris Cooper (00:53):
Look, there’s a lot of bad advice out there, and it could be something that’s being sold to you, or more often it’s somebody who means well, but their ego won’t let them admit when they’ve made a mistake, and so they’ll recommend the wrong path to you. It could also be that the advice you’re being given worked well for somebody else, but it won’t really work well for you. Useless advice is vague and it’s not actionable or it’s not obvious. Let me give you an example here. This is why it’s not helpful. For example, when I was trying to start a CrossFit gym back in 2007, I already had a good personal-training studio, but I knew my CrossFit gym would run differently than that, so I sought out advice on the CrossFit message boards. Maybe you remember those if you’re kind of an OG. I would read stuff there like, “hey, get your L3 cert and your business will grow” or “just be the best trainer in town and your business will grow.”

Chris Cooper (01:48):
Or “hey, clean your bathrooms and your business will grow” or “just care more than anybody else and your business will grow” or “just have a clean and safe gym and your business will grow.” Now, obviously these are necessary, but they’re insufficient conditions for for success. None of them will actually grow your gym. Okay? This is a good example of useless advice. Duh. You should have a clean and safe gym, but that won’t grow it. Good advice looks like a step-by-step checklist of simple actions that you can take to actually grow your business. It’s supported by proof. You can look at people’s numbers, you can see their data, and you know that it actually works. And if you’ve downloaded any of our free guides from gymownersunited.com, then you know what good advice looks like. The problem is knowing that there’s bad advice, useless advice and good advice out there.

Chris Cooper (02:40):
How do you tell the difference? Well, you tell the difference with numbers. Numbers will prove that something worked or didn’t work. Numbers will tell you if something will work in your case and whether it will work in your situation. Right now, numbers will tell you if something used to work but doesn’t work anymore, and numbers will tell you which thing works best. Numbers let us answer the questions “is this true and is this the most important thing for me right now?” For the last five years, we’ve been putting these numbers together in our “State of the Industry” guide. No one else has been able to do this. Yeah, there are many companies out there who, after seeing our “State of the Industry,” they wanted to do something themselves. The problem is that they don’t understand the difference between giving out a survey and actually collecting meaningful data, and so they’ll publish a guide that has people’s opinions instead of actual proven facts, and that produces interesting but useless data.

Chris Cooper (03:40):
Or sometimes they’ll produce a guide that’s set out to obviously just promote the publisher, or else maybe there’s a strong bias or the sample size is so small that it’s practically irrelevant, and basically the guide just exists to give you information about the publisher, right? We don’t do any of that. When we say that your results are anonymous, we mean it. We don’t connect your answers to your person. Even though this is the largest data set in the fitness industry, we don’t correlate your answer on one question to your answer on another. We do this on purpose because I wanna protect your privacy and your anonymity. I want you to own your information and the broad information dataset that we’re giving you for free. So when we approach our partners like Wodify, PushPress, Kilo, TeamUp, we make that anonymity a condition.

Chris Cooper (04:31):
We don’t sell your email address to them. They don’t sell your email address to us. Some other players out there would agree to partner with us only if we agreed to turn over all of your information so they could market to you, and we turned them down even though we’d love to add another 3,000 gyms to our sample through their booking and billing platform. We turned it down because your privacy is the most important thing to me. We don’t sell your information. That’s my own ax to grind. The relevant question to you is why should you participate in the “State of the Industry”? Why should you do our “State of the Industry” survey even though there are others out there? Why should you do this in addition to theirs or instead of theirs? I know CrossFit HQ is even trying to do one with Zen Planner now, but here’s why I want you to do this one.

Chris Cooper (05:20):
First, you get the data. It costs me about a quarter of a million to put this whole thing together and publish it and mail it out and hire an external analyst. It costs you about six minutes of your time. This is the data set that every gym owner needs to run a business without making random guesses. Look, we all think that we’re just smart enough to eventually figure it out. I certainly did, but the truth is that separately we’re all just a bunch of unconnected islands out there. If we don’t have data, we can’t learn from anybody else’s mistakes, and so we all have to learn from our own mistakes independently, which takes a ton of time and a ton of money and costs the downfall of a lot of gyms because you just can’t figure it out fast enough. So why not just skip over all that crap and find out what other people are doing that actually works instead of what the chest-beating dude says is working on Facebook. Or, conversely, if what that chest-beating dude says is actually true, then we wanna know that, too, without risking your money on it to find out every time. So I make this “State of the Industry” guide available to you for free except for the investment of six or seven minutes every year. The second reason you should do it is we wanna make our free stuff that we give you as good as we possibly can. I’m not just saying that. If you’ve ever downloaded any of our free guides or joined gymownersunited.com, then you know that we’re not just running some kind of marketing funnel here. We’re actually producing meaningful guides, instructions, webinars, seminars and podcasts that will literally help you do things better.

Chris Cooper (06:52):
More than 95% of the stuff that I write and produce we give away for free, and that stuff is accurate. It’s true. The reason that it’s accurate is because other gym owners have taken the time to put in their data and do our “State of the Industry” surveys. I don’t wanna put any guilt on you to do this, but the reality is I really feel like it’s our duty, each of us, every gym owner, to participate in this. If I were listening to this podcast, I would feel that it’s my duty to be part of the conversation, have my data represented, be part of this movement. Now you can just put your numbers in so that the rest of the community grows from that knowledge, and don’t worry about how you’re doing. The people who are doing the best and the people who are doing the worst actually have the most interesting data.

Chris Cooper (07:41):
If you think you’re not doing well, that’s fine. Please participate in this anyway. The third reason that I want you to do it is it’s important to have an independent voice so that we don’t get biased data. Look, if you’re doing somebody’s survey who stands to benefit from your positive responses, then they’re only gonna report the positive stuff. This all started, this whole “State of the Industry” movement, because I approached CrossFit HQ to do it back in 2017. They said ” no.” I got sad, and then I decided I had to do it myself because it’s too important not to do it. But now I’m glad they said no because I want gym owners, whether they’re CrossFit affiliates or not, to know how the brand is actually doing. And the same is true for F45 gyms and Fit Body Boot Camps and Orangetheories and 9rounds and independents.

Chris Cooper (08:28):
And I sometimes say “we work for affiliates not for HQ,” and that’s because we purposely maintain our objective perspective. And, of course, that’s true for the franchises and true for the independents, too. If the best thing that you can do to grow your business is to go get your CrossFit L3 or your advanced black-belt yoga instructor credential, then we will say that because we don’t have a vested interest in that either way. And if it’s not the best thing for your business, then we can say that, too, because we’re independent. We even hire an independent analyst to go through the numbers so I don’t inadvertently place my own biases on what we publish. Finally, I want you to participate in this because the gym and fitness industry is really run by about a half a dozen big chains. These are the franchises with hundreds of locations.

Chris Cooper (09:15):
They have a seat at the table because they can pay the lobbies, and that’s why they got bailout money during COVID lockdowns and the small microgyms mostly didn’t. But what puts us at the table is collective action. Individually, every tiny, little microgym is kind of this silent voice in the wilderness, but collectively we are a massive force for influence and for change, both in our culture, in our countries and our laws, and also in the clients and the populace that we represent. So joining gymownersunited.com is a good place to start. You can join that group. It’s free, and its members are growing faster than the industry average, and that’s pulling the whole industry up. The next step is to participate in collective activities, like the “State of the Union,” so that we have real data to support our case—and it’s already proving to advance the industry.

Chris Cooper (10:11):
We have requests from Fitness Industry Canada and IHRSA to quote this guide, our data. These are the largest fitness lobbies in North America, and our data is better than theirs is. Now, you’re also gonna see some hacks reading our guide on their YouTube channel and just not showing the cover. So they’ll be like this: “Okay, the average online coach makes $181.” You’ll also see some hacks reading our guide on their YouTube channel or their podcast and not showing the cover, right? They want you to think that they came up with it. So they’ll have the guide open like this and they’ll say, “Okay, the average price for nutrition coaching is $145.” And it’s coming straight outta the “State of the Industry,” so you know it’s true, and that’s fine, right? I don’t care who gets the credit.I just want you to get the help.

Chris Cooper (10:57):
This is the “State of the Industry” guide. It’s your industry. This is your guide. I hope you participate in this, and you can click the link below to get started. Invest six or seven minutes and be a part of something. Now I wanna talk about business metrics: why you should track them and why you should always be taking steps to improve them. Every day, I’m in at least 50 chat conversations in Two-Brain Business private groups and in the Gym Owners United free public group. And these conversations start usually with “hey, how’s the gym? How are things going?” And nine times outta 10 the response that I get back is “oh, it’s okay. We’re doing fine.” But is it really okay? If you don’t know how the average gym is doing, then you don’t know if you’re doing okay or even what okay means.

Chris Cooper (11:46):
And if you don’t know how the best gyms are doing, you have nothing to compare your progress against. You need a business scorecard—something more than just your daily bank account balance—to tell you if you’re on pace with everybody else or ahead of the curve or losing ground as an entrepreneur. So every year we publish this “State of the Industry” guide. This is the largest set of numbers in the industry. Nothing else is even close. This will tell you how gyms are doing, and you can compare yourself against the rest. You need to build yourself a scoreboard so that you can track your progress without guessing and wasting time and wasting money by operating in the dark. Two-Brain gyms already have this scoreboard built in as part of our program. So there are really six primary metrics that you need to track every single month that will let you know how you’re doing.

Chris Cooper (12:38):
First is ARM, the average revenue per member, which is what the average client is paying you in the average month. You need to know that. Second is clients, how many clients you have. Third is length of engagement, LEG, how long the average client stays in your gym. Hey, sidebar here. I know some software companies are gonna say “just track churn,” but churn is not an accurate measure of the impact that you’re having on people’s lives. Length of engagement is if somebody stays at your gym for two years, you’ve changed their life. If you’re tracking that your churn is about 3%, you have no idea if your program is actually changing lives out there. Okay, I’ll get off my high horse now. The next metric is EHR, your effective hourly rate, the value of your time. The fifth metric you need to track is ROI, return on investment.

Chris Cooper (13:24):
The value that you’re getting from the stuff that you pay for, like your equipment, your space and the time of your staff. And six, the last metric, is NOB, net owner benefit, what you take home from your gym business. Now, there are others, but the six keys are ARM, client headcount, length of engagement, ROI, effective hourly rate and net owner benefit. Some other metrics you might track are marketing metrics like set rate, show rate and close rate. But starting with these big six will let you see your progress, and you should see your progress. Whether you’re improving or failing, you need to know, and then you can do better. Every month we publish leaderboards in each one of these six categories. We do this to tell you how the best gyms in the world are doing in these six different metrics.

Chris Cooper (14:10):
And then we can take their lessons and share them with you again for free. We put them on the podcast or run webinars or publish articles. We charge nothing for this, even though it makes Two-Brain no money and costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. We run seminars in gymownersunited.com, which is our free group to help gym owners. If you wanna participate in this, just get these numbers and benchmark them yourself, it costs you no money. All you have to do is take about six minutes and click the link below and you can participate in our “State of the Industry.” You can share all your numbers anonymously. You can get the report mailed to you if you want, or you can download it. And then you’ve got a measuring stick. So now you’ve got your scoreboard, how you’re doing, and then you’ve got your measuring stick of how everybody else is doing, and you’ve got all of the steps they’re taking to get to where they are from where you are right now.

Chris Cooper (15:02):
All of us need this. I use it for my gym, but none of us could do this ourselves. None of us could do it alone. Your entries into the “State of the Industry” add value to gym owners around the world. So if you don’t wanna do it for yourself, do it for everybody else. Just click the link below and be part of the greatest movement of gym owners in history. Thanks! This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m Chris Cooper, and I know I’ve spent an entire episode talking about the importance of data in the “State of the Industry” guide. Well, maybe you’d rather be listening to marketing advice, but the reason that we’re able to give valuable marketing advice is because we know what works. And the reason that we know what works is because of data. We have this data because of the “State of the Industry” guide. I hope that you’ll participate. Thanks for your service!

The post Calling all Gym Owners: Our 2023 State of the Industry Survey appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Why We Publish the “State of the Industry”—and Why We Want Your Help

When you’re looking to grow your gym, it’s easy to find advice.

Generally, there are three types of advice.

First, you obviously want to avoid bad advice. It can hurt your business. But useless advice is also something you want to avoid because you waste time consuming it, and it doesn’t actually help you get anywhere.

Good advice, of course, is what you want: It helps you grow your business with clear, actionable steps.

But how do you tell good advice from bad?

With numbers.

Numbers will prove that something worked or didn’t work. Numbers will tell you if something will work in your situation right now. Numbers will tell you if something used to work but no longer works. And numbers will tell you which thing works best. Numbers let us answer these critical questions: “is it true?” and “is this the most important thing for me right now?”

For the last five years, we’ve been collecting numbers so gym owners get good advice. No one else has. We publish these numbers in our annual “State of the Industry” report.

We’re collecting data right now, and I’d like to invite you to spend about six minutes entering your numbers: 2023 State of the Industry Survey.

Many companies, after seeing our “State of the Industry” report, wanted to do something themselves. CrossFit HQ is even trying to do something with Zen Planner now.

The problem is that many groups confuse giving a survey with actually collecting meaningful data, so they’ll publish a guide that has opinions instead of actual, proven facts. Or they’ll produce something that is obviously designed to promote the publisher.

Or their bias is so strong or the sample size so small that the report is practically irrelevant. Or it basically exists only to funnel your information to the publisher.

We don’t do any of that.

When we say that your results are anonymous, we mean it. We don’t connect your answers to you. Even though this is the largest data set in the fitness industry. We cannot correlate your answer on one question to your answer on another. We do this on purpose because I want you to stay anonymous; I want you to own your information.

When we approach our partners—Wodify, PushPress, Kilo, TeamUp—we make anonymity a condition of participation. We don’t sell your email address to them, and they don’t give your email address to us.

Some other players would partner with us only if they would get all your information. We turned them down even though we’d love to add another 3,000 gyms to our sample. Your privacy is critical to me, and we don’t sell your information.

But that’s my own axe to grind.

The relevant question for you is this: Why should you participate? Why should you do our “State of the Industry” survey instead of one of the others out there?

Read on to find out.

You Get all the Data

First, you get the data. It costs me about a quarter of a million to put this whole thing together and publish it with the help of an external analyst. This is the data set that every gym owner needs to run a business without making random guesses. And it only costs you about six minutes to enter your data and contribute.

Look, we all think we’re smart enough to figure it out. But the truth is that separately we’re all just a bunch of unconnected islands. If we don’t have data, we can’t learn from anybody else’s mistakes. So we have to learn from our own mistakes, which takes a ton of time and a ton of money.

Why not just skip over all that crap and find out what’s actually working instead of relying on what the chest-beating “guru” is screaming about on Facebook? Or, conversely, if the guru actually knows what works, you’ll want to know that without risking your money to find out.

So I make the “State of the Industry” report available to you for free—except for the investment of about six to seven minutes of your time.

Your Input Helps Others

Second, we want to make our free content as good as we possibly can. I’m not just saying that. If you’ve ever downloaded any of our free guides, you know that we’re not just running some kind of marketing funnel here. We’re actually producing meaningful guides, instructions, webinars, seminars and podcasts that will actually help you do things better.

We give away more than 95 percent of the stuff that I write and produce, and that stuff is accurate and precise. The reason is because other gym owners have taken the time to put in their data to do this survey.

I don’t want to guilt you to participate. But the reality is I really feel like it’s your duty.

If I were interested in obtaining the info and insight in this report as a gym owner, I would consider it my duty to participate and have my own data represented. If you enter your numbers, the rest of the community will grow, and we’ll all perform better.

And don’t worry about how you’re doing: The people who are doing the best and the people who are doing the worst have the best data. Every bit helps. If you think you’re not doing well right now, that’s fine. Please participate anyway!

Bias-Free Data

Third, it’s important to be independent. We don’t want biased reports.

If you’re doing a survey for someone who stands to benefit from a positive response, they’re only going to report the positive stuff.

Our “State of the Industry” project started because I suggested CrossFit HQ do it in 2018. They said “no.” I was disheartened but then decided I had to do it myself—because the project is too important.

But now I’m glad HQ said no because I want gym owners—affiliates or not—to know how the brand is really doing. And the same is true for F45 gyms and Fit Body Boot Camps and Orangetheorys and 9Rounds and independents.

I sometimes say “we work for affiliates, not for HQ,” and that’s because we purposely maintain our objective perspective. If the best thing you can do to grow your business is to go get your CrossFit L3 credential, we’ll say that—we have no vested interest either way. If it’s not the best thing you can do for your business, we’ll say that, too.

We even hire an independent analyst to go through the data we collect so I don’t inadvertently place my own bias on what we publish.

The Power of Gym Owners

Finally, the gym industry is really run by a half-dozen big chains. These are the franchisors or chains with hundreds of locations. They have a seat at the table because they can pay to lobby. That’s why they got bailout money during COVID lockdowns and the small microgym didn’t.

What puts us at that table is collective action. Gymownersunited.com is a good place to start—join that group. It’s free, it contains 7,700-plus members, and it’s growing at a faster-than-average rate. That’s pulling the industry up.

The next step is participating in collective activities like “State of the Industry” so that we have real data to support our case when we need to make it.

And our data is already being used: We have requests from Fitness Industry Canada and IHRSA to quote this guide. These are the largest fitness lobbies in North America, and our data is better than theirs is.

You can also see some instances where people read our guide on their media channels without showing the cover or saying where the data came from. That’s OK—it just shows how valuable the report is. And I don’t care who gets the credit, I just want you to get the help you need to grow your business.

To increase the collective strength of microgym owners, take some time to enter your metrics. We’ll use them to move the fitness industry forward.

Participate Today!

This is your industry, and this is your guide. I hope you participate by completing our survey. We’ll publish our analysis in November.

Here’s the link one more time: 2023 State of the Industry Survey.

Thank you for your time—and for leading our industry forward!

The post Why We Publish the “State of the Industry”—and Why We Want Your Help appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How I Made My Gym’s Staff Playbook Completely Useless

My staff playbook was done, and I was thrilled.

I had forced myself to document everything in our gym, collected all the SOPs in a binder and delivered the book to my staff members.

I felt a great sense of accomplishment—like I had taken a big step forward as a gym owner.

And then I made a huge mistake that made my staff playbook worthless.

Here’s the step I missed after I completed my playbook:

I didn’t set dates to audit and upgrade it.

Getting the playbook done in the first place was a huge deal. I had created a system: It formalized many aspects of my business and got mountains of procedures out of my head so I could delegate tasks.

But instead of riding that wave, I killed all my momentum by just assuming the playbook was perfect.

It definitely wasn’t.

My book of SOPs was a good start, but I had missed a few things, including a section on marketing, sales and procedures for handling inquiries. That was a huge “oops.”

As staff members used the systems I had created, they found improvements that could be made, but those changes never made it into the playbook. So the playbook didn’t reflect actual practices, and when I brought a new person on board, we had a gap between the written SOPs and what actually happened in the gym.

Finally, as the business evolved, additions should have been made to govern new aspects of the business—such as when we added a program for kids. But that didn’t happen, either.

So I put in a ton of work creating a document that was current and useful for about three or five months.

Don’t make the same mistake. Make sure your playbook is a living document that’s updated regularly.

Create, Optimize, Audit

In the Two-Brain blog this week, Chris Cooper has been talking about creating business systems. You need them if you ever want to become a CEO, delegate tasks and take time off.

To become a great gym owner, you must create systems and SOPs. It’s not optional.

But don’t miss the next steps, which are equally important: You must optimize and then periodically audit the systems. If you don’t, your business won’t improve.

The final steps in creating a staff playbook:

Set dates for review and optimization in consultation with the staff members who are operating in the systems (you might attach this task to regular staff performance reviews). Set another date—repeated annually at minimum—for a focused audit of your systems. What’s broken? What’s missing? What needs an upgrade?

If you have a playbook, I’ll give you something to test right now to prove my point:

Get a friend your staff members don’t know to contact your gym and ask for info on how to become a member. Document exactly what happens. If the person receives a prompt, professional response according to the standards set out in your playbook, your intake system is holding up.

If the person doesn’t receive the response you’d like—or doesn’t receive a response at all—you’ve got a problem that’s costing you a lot of money.

That’s just one example of an audit. I’m sure you can think of many more.

But don’t just think about auditing your business and improving your playbook. Actually do it—regularly and according to a precise schedule.

If you do, your playbook will become the backbone of a strong business. If you don’t, your playbook will be a helpful document for about five months.

The post How I Made My Gym’s Staff Playbook Completely Useless appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Build and Test Gym Systems So You Can Finally Take a Vacation

Chris Cooper (00:00):
The real reason our 2023 Summit for Two-Brain was such an enormous success with over 700 gym owners and coaches in attendance was because I got food poisoning. I’m Chris Cooper, and this is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and today I’m gonna tell you how to test your systems without eating the pink chicken. Years ago, 2019, we were hosting our biggest summit event to date. We had rented the Crowne Plaza just outside O’Hare Airport for the first time. And I was spending for the first time over a hundred thousand dollars to put the event on. And as our team was getting ready to board the flight to go to Chicago a few days early, I woke up sick as a dog. I won’t go into details. You know what food poisoning is like, but you cannot get up off your bed. And so I canceled my flight.

Chris Cooper (00:46):
My team went on without me. They were there for about two days. And when I finally recovered enough strength to board an airplane and fly to Chicago, the summit had already begun. And so I arrived as check-ins were going on, and there was this big carnival atmosphere, and the room was all set up and people were super excited, shaking hands, you know, high-fiving each other. And I looked around and I said, “This isn’t just as good as it would’ve been if I was here. This is better.” The reason it happened that way is because we had systemized setup for the summit in 2019 before we even got there. And so when my staff arrived, they knew exactly what to do, what went where, how to set up, what the timeline and the schedule were to be, who the other speakers were to be. They had a backup in place for my speaking spot.

Chris Cooper (01:36):
And let’s face it, a lot of the mentors were chipping in, greeting people, shaking hands, hugging. I didn’t even need to be there. In fact, one of the funniest things that happened that weekend was such great proof that my systems were working. I was walking through the lobby and there were about 300 Two-Brain gym owners registered for the summit that year. And somebody was just signing in and getting their room and stuff, and they saw me coming outta the elevator and they went, “Oh my goodness!” And they put their hands up like they’re gonna run towards me and hug me, right? And they’re running, running, and I’m like, “Hey!” And they ran right past me and they’re like, “Oh my God. It’s Ashley Haun, and I can’t believe it.” And they were hugging Ashley, one of their mentors, right at that moment.

Chris Cooper (02:19):
I knew that the power of Two-Brain was far greater than anything that I had planned, that the power of the mentorship team was far greater than I could be as a mentor, and that the power of systems were what was growing Two-Brain to be greater than it ever could. A lot of people after the summit in 2023 came up and said like, “I am really impressed at how you just step back and let your team run everything.” And my answer is always “they’re better than me.” So if you wanna build a gym business, you have to start with systems. And I talked about that on the podcast earlier this week. First, you systemize everything, then you optimize everything. Now, you don’t always have to be the one to optimize everything. If you have a scientific mind like I do, it really helps because you can control variables.

Chris Cooper (03:03):
You can test one little thing at a time. But the reality is that if your staff are really good and they’re really fluent in your systems, they can make tiny tweaks that build on your systems over and over. And this is what’s happened in Two-Brain year after year. When I started mentoring gyms in 2012, I was just teaching like what I had done to fix my gym. And so it was all based on n-equals-one experience, right? And it was me—the number of people in my sample size. Then after I was mentoring maybe 20, 30 gyms, I started tracking their metrics and seeing what was working for everybody. Instead of taking this approach that every single gym needs a completely revamped system, I learned that there are common principles that will grow every gym, and each one has to be tailored a little bit.

Chris Cooper (03:51):
And that’s where the one-on-one mentorship comes in. And so over time, we started producing gyms that actually did better than my gym. And then those gym owners became mentors to other people, and they taught my systems with their optimizations to the next generation. And those mentors did even better. And so now that we’re on the fifth or sixth generation of mentors at Two-Brain, the gyms that are being run by the mentors and the clients are far exceeding anything that I’d ever even hoped for for my own gym in my wildest dreams. That is the key to the optimization cycle that I’m gonna share with you today. So how do you do that in your own gym? How do you set up the gym to be more successful than you could make it? How do you produce coaches who are better than you? How do you promote produce sales staff who are better than you, marketing staff who are better than you, cleaners who are way better than you?

Chris Cooper (04:45):
The key is starting from systems. You need to establish your baseline. So here’s the first exercise I want you to do tonight. You are going to clean your gym top to bottom. You’re going to get it exactly the way that you want it. You’re going to take a picture so that you don’t have to explain what “clean” looks like. Sometimes there’s a generational or a language gap there, where our definition of “clean”is not their definition of clean. I wanna take a picture. Then I want you to write down step by step exactly what you did. And I want you to be very specific, okay? You’re gonna be more specific than you think you have to be, as if you’re writing “Cleaning My Gym for Dummies.” You’re going to go step by step. You’re not insulting anybody’s intelligence, right? If they think, “Duh, Chris, that’s common sense, that’s fine.”

Chris Cooper (05:31):
But you’re better to have your cleaner think that than to miss a step. So, for example, when I wrote my first cleaning SOP, I wrote down all the steps in order. I was very, very specific, but I forgot to write”put the soap in the mop bucket.” And so the first two nights that our cleaner was at our gym, he mopped the floor with hot water and no soap because I forgot that step. Okay? It seems like common sense, but you have to write this down. So you write down your cleaning SOP. Then what you’re going to do–and you’ve got your picture of done—you’re gonna hire a cleaner, you’re gonna pay somebody else to do the cleaning, and then you’re going to just let them clean for a week. If you don’t see any obvious problems, you’re going to do a review with the cleaner at the end of the week.

Chris Cooper (06:16):
This is where the optimization process begins. So you’ve systemized it by writing the SOP. Now we optimize it by walking through the gym with the cleaner. And you go through the checklist. “Hey, How’s this going? How’s it going? How’s it going now?” Because the cleaner is probably already better than you at cleaning or becoming better than you at cleaning, you ask them “is there a way we could make this process better?” Now you’ve got context that they don’t, especially after a week. So they might suggest something like “yeah, we should buy a floor scrubber,” right? And you know you’re not gonna go do that, but if there’s anything else that you can do, then you can use that to optimize the process. So they might say something like, “I could be filling the mop bucket while I am dusting the front desk.”

Chris Cooper (06:59):
And you say, “That’s great. Let’s move those around in our SOP. And then you let them go for a longer term. So they might go three months next time. And by a year, after you’ve done a few reviews and you’ve optimized your process, you’re basically letting them run with it. And when they come back to you and say “we really need a floor scrubber,” now you’re gonna be open to it because they are the expert, right? They should be better than you at cleaning, and they’re going to be telling you what to do. Alright? I’m gonna give you another example. Now, let’s say that you’re running a group-coaching class and you start off by saying “here’s exactly how I want this run.” You write an SOP: “Class starts precisely on time. First we have a general warmup lasting four minutes, then we have a specific warmup lasting five minutes, then we move into the strength portion. We spend six minutes on developing the skill and—”et cetera, right? You break it down. You also write in key things. Like “every client gets one minute of one-on-one attention minimum per class,” et cetera. And you write all that down, and you give it to the coach when you’re training your coaches. So they’ve gone off and they’ve gotten their fitness certification in CrossFit, yoga, Pilates, bootcamp, kettlebells, weightlifting, whatever it is. But now you’re giving them the SOP on how to actually run a class at your gym. Then before they’re allowed to just run a class, you actually shadow them. And this is the optimization process. So you start off with “can they follow the system?” If they can, wonderful. At least you know that they’re being consistent.

Chris Cooper (08:27):
And your clients can expect a B+ level of service all the time. Then after they’ve run it for a while, you look for little places where they introduce their own flare. Like, “Heythey high-five everybody on the way into class. Hey, they start the class with a joke every day. Hey, they like to make the warmup extra fun.” Or whatever that is. And when you find something that’s really working, you make that standard operating procedure for everybody. So, for example, let’s say that you have a coach who likes to start every class with a joke. My gym doesn’t do this right now, but what we find over time is that people get really engaged, people show up on time, people give that coach way better reviews, the adherence level in that class is higher. You know, there’s different metrics we can look at.

Chris Cooper (09:13):
And so we say, “This is really working. Let’s apply this to all of our classes.” And so now you start every class with a joke. The key here, though, is that you had to start with a basic system. Then you let the coach add things to the system to optimize it, and then you made that part of the basic system again. And this is how we continually ratchet up our level of excellence at our gym or with anything else. So there’s a few ways that we test these systems, and this is part of the optimization process. The first thing, of course, is to get them out of your head, okay? Don’t worry about making them perfect. Just get everything operating at a B+ level and you’ll continually make it better over time. The second thing that we do is we teach your staff to operate at system level.

Chris Cooper (09:54):
Okay? So they, they have to be able to deliver on that SOP 10 times outta 10. If they can’t, then you’ve got the wrong staff person. It doesn’t mean the SOP is wrong. Next, after the person has demonstrated that they can deliver a 10 outta 10 to the level of your standard operating procedure, they can deliver on the system 10 times outta 10, that is when you ask them for feedback on how the system might be improved. This is really mentorship. You might add one thing, you might test one thing, and then you see if it’s better. And if it’s better, then you measure that outcome and you upgrade the system. Over time, the system becomes better than what you could have done yourself, and you elevate the delivery of your team again and again and again through iteration. And it all comes back to this process of systemize, optimize and then audit.

Chris Cooper (10:43):
You know, you gotta check to make sure it is actually working better. Now, if you’re not using any metrics in your business, it’s gonna be really hard to tell if something’s working better. And you know, if you’re not measuring like adherence rates in class, for example, you might have to go off, feel—like “does this feel better?” And that introduces all kinds of bias. So use metrics to measure and audit as often as you possibly can. Now, this sounds like a lot, right? But remember, your job is not to be a fitness coach after you open a gym. Your job is to be the owner of a gym. And so having systems and metrics and units of measurement are what helps you make a better gym over time because that’s your job as the CEO. There is another way to test, and we do this at the end of our RampUp Program.

Chris Cooper (11:25):
And this is kind of like a do-or-die, jump-outta-the-airplane test, right? What you’re going to do at the end of our RampUp Program is you’re gonna take three days away from your gym without contact. So you’re gonna put all your systems in place, you’re gonna teach your systems to your staff, and then you’re gonna walk away, and you’re not gonna have your phone and you’re not gonna check your email. They’re gonna have your phone number in case of emergencies, but they’re not gonna text you. They’re not gonna DM you on Slack. You’re just gonna walk away. Three days later, you’re going to come back and you’re gonna do an after-action review. What that means is that you’re going to go through all the processes and all the metrics from while you were away: how many leads came in, how many of those set up an appointment, how many of those showed up for an appointment?

Chris Cooper (12:09):
How many of those appointments were actually sold? How many people canceled their membership? How many goal reviews happened without you? How many social-media posts happened without you? Did the ad still run? All of those measurable things. You wanna find places where your system’s cracked. And if they did crack, that’s good because now you know what you can improve. So, for example, if people came in and they were like, “Tell us about your gym,” and nobody knew how to book a No Sweat Intro for them, well then now you fix that and you add that to your SOPs and you teach it to your staff. If people came in and did an NSI, but they didn’t sign up, then you have a problem with your sales process. You’ve identified it, and now you can train your staff better on NSIs over time. This can come to to be a blessing to you.

Chris Cooper (12:58):
I know for me, like when my gym was struggling, I never wanted to take time away from the gym because God, what if somebody comes in to sign up and my staff doesn’t know how to process their credit card? But what you have to understand is you’re playing a long game here. You’re playing a 30-year game, maybe even an infinite game if you wanna keep your gym forever. And that means that these constant cycles of iterate, evaluate and upgrade are what’s gonna constantly make your gym better over time. Your gym is never going to be perfect to the point where you can walk away and it’s even better without you. What actually has to happen is that over time you have to systemize and then optimize so that it does get better on its own. So coming back from the 2023 summit this year, it was an amazing success.

Chris Cooper (13:44):
I did almost nothing. I gave a 20-minute speech. I couldn’t even earn myself a spot on stage. But I shook hands and I met people, and over and over they said, “How’d you do this? How is it that this movement has its own momentum now that you’re just stepping outta the way and letting it grow and letting the mentors emerge and letting the people help each other?” And part of that is this systemize, optimize and then audit strategy. So the last step is an after-action review. And after we came back from summit this year, I sat with my team, our events coordinator, our client success team, everybody who was involved in putting the event on, and I asked each one of them, “What could we improve? What broke? What do we have to optimize?”

Chris Cooper (14:31):
And that list had 83 items on it. And now these are not things that you probably would’ve noticed, right? Like the music was too loud during the meet and greet on Friday night. But these are things that we can do to improve next time. And so we went through this list. Outta the 83 ideas, we adopted probably 26 of ’em for next year. And next year will be even better. And it’s better than I would’ve done on my own because the team started with a system: Here’s the the minimum standard we wanna deliver at. Then they became the experts and began optimizing, and now they’re delivering at a level way beyond me. I couldn’t even dream of doing this, but you can set this up in your gym. You can set this up in any business. You start with systemize, then you go to optimize, and then you go to audit, and then you systemize the upgrades, et cetera.

Chris Cooper (15:16):
All of our curriculum at Two-Brain goes through this every single year. We upgrade our content based on metrics. What is the average ROI that people are getting? What can we help ’em do more of? What can we help ’em do less of, to do more of the stuff that’s working? What can we help ’em do faster? We do this in our Growth Stage every year. What is getting people to a $100,000 net owner benefit? And how can we get them there faster? What do we not need anymore? What do we need to add? We do this in our Tinker Stage. What is actually getting gym owners to a million dollars in net worth? How can we get them there faster? What can they avoid? What can we double down on? And it’s this process that makes us better and better all the time, creates its own momentum, and makes Two-Brain way more than I ever dreamed it could have been and way better than I am myself. I hope this helps. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” Remember, don’t just abdicate, delegate, and then audit and keep growing your gym forever. If you want more discussion on this, go to gymownersunited.com. Happy to answer any questions there. And there’s such a supportive group of over 7,000 gym owners worldwide. We just want you to win. See you there!

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Gym Automation Manual, Part 3: Avoid Abdication

You can only automate your gym after you’ve completed these two steps: systemize and optimize.

Once you’ve built a system anyone can follow and then improved that system to the point where it’s maximized, then you can hand it off.

That’s called “delegation.”

If you pass off a subpar system and expect staff to succeed with it, that’s called “abdication”—and when you abdicate, you’ll often find yourself sliding back into roles you’ve tried to offload.

How to Avoid Sliding Back Into a Role

We’ll continue with the sales example I’ve been using throughout this series.

The best salespeople in the fitness industry follow this process:

They write sales scripts for their staff.They role-play (practice) the scripts every day.They track everyone’s sales metrics (set, show and close rates).They record everyone’s sales conversations. They use software like Gong to pick up key phrases and words in the conversation.They edit their sales scripts.They role-play their new sales scripts.They test the new sales scripts and compare against previous metrics.They record and test again.

Now, you’re probably not going to go to that level of detail—but the Two-Brain gyms with the top close rates actually do go to that level of detail.

You probably don’t even want to spend all your time focusing on sales. I don’t!

But you must focus on the metrics of any system. Metrics reveal the efficacy of your systems. And your systems are your business.

To level up as an entrepreneur, you must offload duties so you can focus on higher-value tasks.

Resource: “The Value Ladder”

But here’s the secret:

If you don’t systemize everything first, you’ll always end up back where you started: doing things yourself. Or the jobs won’t get done at all, and your business will suffer.

For example, if you don’t teach your client success manager exactly how to renew memberships, you’ll have to do it yourself—or you’ll lose members.

If you don’t tell your coaches exactly how the gym should look when they leave for the night, you’ll be rearranging equipment in a rage the next morning.

If you don’t know how to build a marketing funnel to acquire new members, you might get taken by “sales gurus” who promise to solve your problems but can’t deliver.

Systemize, optimize, then automate what you can.

That process ensures you delegate—and never abdicate—responsibility for different areas of your business.

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Gym Automation Manual, Part 2: Perform, Perfect, Pass Off

Should you replace yourself in your gym business by using software, virtual assistants, AI and other people?

You can—but not yet.

You must first perfect performance of each task yourself, teach someone else to do each task at the exact same level, and improve the process so it’s optimal. Only then should you automate tasks.

I love putting the right people in the right seats. In the previous post in this series, I told you about the first step to getting work off your plate: systemization. Write down exactly how you want things done, teach your staff how to do it that way, and hold them to the standard.

Here, I’ll tell you how to make your staff better than you.

Optimization: Making It Better

I’ll stick with the salesperson example from the previous post:

After you do 20 sales meetings yourself, write the exact process down with detailed steps and teach it to your staff members. Drill them and fully pass off intro duties when their close rates are equal to yours—not before.

Then make them better than you are in the sales office—perhaps by doing role playing, recording and analyzing their sales meetings, or getting them a sales coach.

Whatever you do, carefully change only one thing at a time so you can see the true effects of the adjustment.

For example, try handing a client a cold bottle of water at the No Sweat Intro (NSI). Don’t change anything else. After 10 NSIs with the cold bottle of water, you measure: Did your close rate improve? If so, the water becomes part of your system. If there was no effect, you drop the “water welcome” and try something else.

This is how you optimize your system.

It’s true that any system is better than no system. But before you hand over a system to a staff member, take the time to optimize it. Make it a good system.

And don’t hand the care of your clients over to robots and strangers without clear parameters. It’s now common to “outsource” lead nurture, emails, direct messaging, media creation and other services to bots or software or virtual assistants or AI. Those things can work—but only if you have a system in place for them to follow.

If you want to build a self-driving car, you have to write the algorithm and then test the algorithm before you put it out on the street.

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The Automated Gym, Part 2: Perform, Perfect, Pass Off

Should you replace yourself in your gym business by using software, virtual assistants, AI and other people?

You can—but not yet.

You must first perfect performance of each task yourself, teach someone else to do each task at the exact same level, and improve the process so it’s optimal. Only then should you automate tasks.

I love putting the right people in the right seats. In the previous post in this series, I told you about the first step to getting work off your plate: systemization. Write down exactly how you want things done, teach your staff how to do it that way, and hold them to the standard.

Here, I’ll tell you how to make your staff better than you.

Optimization: Making It Better

I’ll stick with the salesperson example from the previous post:

After you do 20 sales meetings yourself, write the exact process down with detailed steps and teach it to your staff members. Drill them and fully pass off intro duties when their close rates are equal to yours—not before.

Then make them better than you are in the sales office—perhaps by doing role playing, recording and analyzing their sales meetings, or getting them a sales coach.

Whatever you do, carefully change only one thing at a time so you can see the true effects of the adjustment.

For example, try handing a client a cold bottle of water at the No Sweat Intro (NSI). Don’t change anything else. After 10 NSIs with the cold bottle of water, you measure: Did your close rate improve? If so, the water becomes part of your system. If there was no effect, you drop the “water welcome” and try something else.

This is how you optimize your system.

It’s true that any system is better than no system. But before you hand over a system to a staff member, take the time to optimize it. Make it a good system.

And don’t hand the care of your clients over to robots and strangers without clear parameters. It’s now common to “outsource” lead nurture, emails, direct messaging, media creation and other services to bots or software or virtual assistants or AI. Those things can work—but only if you have a system in place for them to follow.

If you want to build a self-driving car, you have to write the algorithm and then test the algorithm before you put it out on the street.

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How to Make Your Gym Run Itself (Without Falling Apart)

Chris Cooper (00:00):
If you want it to, your gym can run itself. You don’t have to do the hard parts forever. You can hire someone to replace you in marketing or sales or social media or cleaning—even coaching. It’s possible. But if you wanna get any part of your business off your plate, you have to do it the right way. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and today I’m gonna tell you how to systemize, optimize and then automate every function in your gym. You don’t rise to the level of your marketing; you sink to the level of your systems. For example, if you hire someone to run your Facebook ads and you don’t understand Facebook advertising yourself, you will be screwed when the ads stop working or when Facebook changes the algorithm or when you’re locked out of your account due to an iOS update or when the ads need updating.

Chris Cooper (00:49):
So today I want to give you the steps to first systemizing and then optimizing and then automating your business if you want to. The first step in automating any part of your business is to do it yourself. We call Two-Brain mentorship a done-with-you system because I want you to learn how to do things properly and then how to teach it to your staff so that they know how to do it properly without you. For example, let’s say that you hate sales and you want a staff person to take over that role. Well, first you need to do 20 sales meetings yourself so that you can learn the process, and then you need to tweak the process a few times to make it feel natural to you. Then you need to teach your staff the exact same process that you use. And finally, you need to support them in sales.

Chris Cooper (01:36):
You need to run role-playing sessions and track their numbers and provide them with sales coaching. This is the difference between delegation and abdication. Delegation means walking the path yourself first, leaving deep tracks for others to follow, and then making sure that they’re staying on the track. Abdication is saying “I don’t have time for this” or “I hate this” and then handing full responsibility to others without giving them a plan or knowing their plan. No matter how smart your staff members are, no matter how bad they want it, they aren’t gonna just figure it out. You need to give them systems to follow. So here’s some questions that I get from gym owners all the time. “Should I buy that new software to help with lead nurture? Should I hire a virtual assistant to do my billing for me? Should I replace myself in the morning classes?”

Chris Cooper (02:29):
And the answer is always, “Yes you can, but don’t do it yet.” You must perfect performance of each task yourself. Teach someone else to do each task at the exact same level that you do it and continually improve the process so that it’s optimal. Only then should you outsource or automate a task or delegate it even. I’m a huge fan of putting the right people in the right seats. And so for the last 10 years, I’ve been telling you the first step to getting work off your plate is systemization. And that means writing down exactly how you want things done, teaching your staff how to do it that way, and then holding them to that standard. So today I’m gonna actually tell you how to make your staff better than you. Solet’s stick with the salesperson example from what I mentioned a moment ago.

Chris Cooper (03:19):
So after you do 20 No Sweat Intros, NSIs yourself, you wanna write the process down step by step and then teach it to somebody else on your staff. Drill your staff and hand over NSI duties when their close rates are equal to yours—not before. Then drill to make them better than you are at sales. You can get them a sales coach, you can sign them up for Two-Brain, you can let them do role play with our team, you can let them do role play with somebody else in Two-Brain, you can record their NSIs and walk through the recordings with them and so on. And then as you see opportunities to improve, you carefully change one little thing at a time so that you can see the true effects of that change. For example, you try handing a client a cold bottle of water when they show up at their No Sweat Intro and you see if your close rate improves, and you don’t try anything else for the next 10 NSIs.

Chris Cooper (04:13):
And then you measure: did the close rate go up? And if so, the water becomes part of your system. If there was no effect, then you drop the water welcome and you try something else. And this is how you optimize your system. Any system is better than no system, but before you hand a system over entirely to somebody else, take the time to optimize it, know what works best, and then give them a step-by-step checklist, instructions, playbook to follow so that they can deliver at the same level of excellence that you can. What you don’t wanna do is just hand over the care of your clients to a robot or some AI software or a stranger, because the only thing worse than doing something badly is doing it wrong. It’s really common now to outsource lead-nurture or emails or direct messaging and other services to bots or software or virtual assistance.

Chris Cooper (05:06):
And those things can work. They’re better than nothing until they’re worse than nothing, but they only work if you have a system in place for them to follow. If you wanna build a self-driving car, you have to write the algorithm, and then you have to test the algorithm before you put it out on the street. So coming back to the question: “Should you hire a virtual assistant? Should you sign up for that email automation service or that CRM? Should you outsource your lead nurture to a VA?” The answer is no. Not until you’ve completed the first two steps to automating those processes, which is to systemize it, do it yourself 20 times, then optimize it, try a few tweaks. And then you can look to automate it. When you’ve built a system that anybody can follow and then you’ve improved that system to the point where it’s maximized, that’s when you can hand it off to somebody else, and that’s delegation.

Chris Cooper (05:57):
If you hand off a subpar system and you expect staff to succeed with it, that’s abdication. Now I wanna talk about how to avoid sliding back into a role. So you’ve systemized something, or maybe you haven’t, and you’ve handed it off to somebody else, and they don’t do as well as you do, and you’re constantly looking over their shoulder like, “Why aren’t you doing better?” So I’ll keep the sales example that I’ve been using so far. The best salespeople in the fitness industry follow this process. They write sales scripts for their staff. They role-play and practice the scripts every day. They track everybody’s sales metrics. There are set-show-close rates. They record everyone’s sales conversations. They use software like Gong to pick up key phrases and words in the conversations, and then they edit their sales scripts, and then they role-play the new sales scripts, and then they test the new sales scripts and compare against previous metrics, and then they record and they test it again.

Chris Cooper (06:55):
Now, you’re probably not going to go to that level of detail, but the Two-Brain gyms with the top close rates in the world actually do go to that level of detail. You probably don’t even wanna spend all your time focusing on sales. I don’t, and I used to hate even talking about sales, but you must focus on the metrics of any system to determine whether it’s working or not. Metrics measure the efficacy of systems, and your systems are your business. To level up as an entrepreneur, you must offload duties so that you can focus on higher-value tasks. But here’s the secret: If you don’t systemize everything first, you’ll always wind up doing things yourself or they won’t get done. For example, if you don’t teach your coaches exactly how to coach classes to your standard of excellence, you’ll always wind up coaching classes again, because you’ll be irreplaceable.

Chris Cooper (07:48):
If you don’t measure the cleanliness of your bathrooms against a standard, you’ll always be cleaning the bathrooms on Sunday morning. If you don’t know how to build an ads funnel, you’ll always be looking for the next marketing guru and falling for their big promises of a million leads. Systemize, optimize and then automate what you can. Delegate responsibility for different areas of your business, but never just hand over responsibility without a system to follow and a process for optimizing that system over time. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” If you have questions about this episode, you wanna talk about mentorship or you just want to talk about any of these systems, go to gymownersunited.com. That’s a free group that I run with our team of over 60 mentors worldwide. We’re just there to help gym owners. We’ve got 7,500 of the best gym owners, the mostpolite, tactful, least sarcastic on the planet. It’s just waiting for you. It’s absolutely free. Gymowners united.com. I will see you in there!

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Gym Automation Manual, Part I: Do It Yourself Then Delegate

Your gym can run itself if that’s what you want.

It’s absolutely possible for owner-operators to hire people to replace them in marketing, sales, social media, cleaning—even coaching.

It can be done. But if you want to offload any role—even the “simple ones”—you must follow a precise plan or the job will land right back in your lap in short order.

For example, if you hire a salesperson and just say “sell more memberships,” you’re going to have problems.

But if you train a salesperson to use a precise plan that’s been tested and optimized, you’ll offload a job and ensure your gym keeps acquiring new members.

The Steps

The first step in automating your gym: Do the job you want to offload yourself.

We call Two-Brain mentorship a “done-with-you system” because I want you to learn how to do things properly, then how to teach your staff how to do them properly without you.

For example, let’s say you’re offloading sales.

First, you must do 20 sales meetings yourself so you understand the process.

Then you need to adjust the process so it produces the best results for your business.

Then you need to teach a staff member to use the exact process you learned, tested and optimized.

Finally, you as CEO must support the salesperson: run role-playing sessions, track numbers and provide sales coaching.

You can use a variation of this process to assign other roles—such as coaching classes—but don’t miss the key parts: Do it yourself, optimize the process, train a staff member to use the process, then support that staff member.

This process is everything: It is the difference between delegation and abdication.

Delegation means you walk the path first, leave deep tracks for others and then make sure they stay on the path.

If you just say “I don’t have time for this!” and hand responsibility off to others without giving them a plan, that’s abdication—and you’ll have problems.

No matter how smart your staff members are, no matter how bad they “want it,” they aren’t going to just “figure it out” or do it exactly the way you want it done.

If you want to successfully automate any part of your business, you must give staff members clear systems to follow.

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Do Your Clients Have a Hot Clue What You’re Actually Saying?

Is jargon preventing you from connecting with current and prospective clients?

I bet it is—but you might not know it.

Here’s a definition of jargon: “words used by a particular group that are difficult for others to understand.”

And here’s how it shows up in gyms: “Welcome to your first class! Put your stuff in the cubbies, grab some PVC and mobilize your delts before the Oly WOD.”

Another example: “So you want to improve body composition. I’d recommend a habits-based approach instead of macro tracking.”

At best, stuff like that is mystifying if you aren’t a gym owner or coach.

At worst, it says, “You don’t really belong here.”

The CEO of T2Bs and WODs?

In the gym world, some people try to use jargon to increase their stature.

Imagine the coach who wants everyone to know how smart he is: “This stimulus is really going to challenge the glycolytic pathway.”

Mentor and gym owner Brian Bott made this point at the recent Two-Brain Summit: Why say “self-myofascial release” when you could just say “foam rolling”?

Other coaches just use jargon because they’re careless and assume everyone knows gym language—even the person who joined a week ago and hasn’t a clue what “T2Bs” are.

Regardless of why it’s used, jargon results in a lack of connection.

Those who don’t understand your words have three options:

1. Pretend they understand and guess.
2. Remain silent and start frantically looking for clues to avoid shame.
3. Ask for clarification.

Option 3 is the best—but it’s the least common. I try to force myself to use this approach, but I’m not always successful. If you’re feeling nervous or out of place already, it can be really hard to say “I don’t understand” to someone who’s accidentally suggesting you should know what’s going on.

Have you ever been confronted with jargon when you’re out of your element? Perhaps recall your last trip to the auto shop or hardware store: “You need Phillips self-tapping truss-head screws.”

Or maybe think about watching a sport you’ve never seen before, like Formula 1 racing: “He tried to pass at the apex of the left-hander following the chicane.”

How about web or tech stuff? “The algorithm might have flagged that carousel as spam and shadow-banned you.”

How do you feel when confronted with jargon? Not great, I’m sure.

So imagine how people in your gym feel when you use it. They feel out of place, confused, embarrassed—even stupid.

None of that is good for retention or sales.

Jargon Be Gone

Building a gym requires building relationships, and you can’t do that if your words confuse people or tell them “you don’t fit in.”

So do this:

1. Review your sales scripts and ask yourself, “Are any terms confusing to a prospective client?” Even better, show your script to someone who knows nothing about gyms and ask, “Are there any words you don’t understand?” If the answer is yes in either case, make some simple changes.

2. Review your communication for jargon and then work on weeding it out of your everyday vocabulary. Reread your last five blogs and social-media posts and watch for words that confuse. Film yourself coaching a class or running a staff meeting to see if you’re taking any shortcuts that leave important people behind. Supply definitions for terms when speaking to new people and ask if they understand.

You might not be able to directly tie clear communication to a measurable increase in retention. And you might not sell five platinum packages just because you stopped using the word “stimulus.”

But I guarantee you will build stronger relationships faster if you tailor your communication to the people you’re trying to connect with. And if you become better at making connections, you’ll add more clients and keep them longer.

The post Do Your Clients Have a Hot Clue What You’re Actually Saying? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.