Chris Cooper's Blog, page 82
December 21, 2022
State of the Industry 2022: Owners
You started your gym to save lives. I know, because I did, too.
But here’s the reality: Gyms don’t close because the coaches are bad at coaching. They close because the owners aren’t earning enough or they’re burned out.
And when a gym closes, it’s a catastrophe: Their clients stop exercising, their staff members leave the industry, and their owners spend years recovering their lost time and money.
My mission is to make gyms successful so the owners can keep saving lives. And that means the owners have to be fed, rested and happy.
Our data shows we’re accomplishing this goal with Two-Brain clients. So what’s happening in the broader industry? What do owners of gyms, studios, affiliates, and strength and conditioning facilities earn?
Here’s the good news: Gym owners are earning more than ever.
The bad news? It’s still not enough.
Net Owner Benefit Stats for Gym Owners
Comparing the average net owner benefit (NOB) of most gym owners to what they would make working elsewhere shows that most make around 50 percent of their city’s average personal income. That’s double what they were earning five years ago, so we’re on a good trajectory. But it’s still not enough.
According to our data, the median income for gym owners is $3,787 per month. Yes, improving fitness is a passion, but ownership isn’t a hobby. Keeping gyms around long term will change more lives, build more careers, and create intergenerational legacies in both health and wealth. We need to keep doing better.
The great news? Two-Brain created 26 millionaires in 2022. They are pushing the envelope and attracting better entrepreneurs, making fitness a viable career, and paving the way for the rest of us.
When I went out looking for examples of success in the fitness business in 2008, I found people who were “famous” but poor. That’s fine if you’re under 23. But eventually, you have to get paid what you’re worth. Now I have dozens of people in Two-Brain that I can call up anytime and ask, “How’d you do that?”
A Gym Owner’s Time
How do gym and studio owners spend their time?
The measure of your efficacy as a gym owner is called effective hourly rate (EHR). You should be able to earn more, per hour, as an owner than you do as a coach. Right?
The best gym owners prioritize working on their businesses over working in their businesses. That means they delegate low-value work to others and spend their time working on marketing, media and sales.
When we use State of the Industry data to calculate the average owner’s pay against time, the EHR is $30.
For comparison, the average Twob-Brain client’s EHR is $49. That means gym owners who work with one of our mentors are doing one of three things:
They’re making more money in the same amount of time as the average gym owner.They’re making the same amount of money as the average gym owner, but they’re doing it in less time.They’re making more money than the average gym owner and doing it in less time.Where Do Gym Owners Spend Money?
Where do fitness business owners spend money—and how much do they spend?
The average rent in a coaching gym is $4,972. Access-only gyms paid more because their businesses require more space.
This rent number can vary dramatically depending on where you live, but your rates should always rise with higher rent, regardless of which city you’re in. Unfortunately, many gym owners pay for high-value space but charge low-value rates.
Another challenge is staffing. While it’s normal for a coaching business to employ one or two full-time staff members, many gyms have more than 12 part-timers. Part-time staff members are great for adding some excitement and variety, but every staff person makes the business more complex. You need a balance of full- and part-time workers.
The most important question you can ask whenever you spend money isn’t “how much does this cost?” but “what is my potential return on this investment?” Ask that question before you rent more space, buy more equipment, paint graffiti on your walls or hire more staff.
Want to see where else owners are spending their money? Download “State of the Industry” for free.
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December 20, 2022
State of the Industry 2022: Clients
Which gyms have the most clients?
How long are those clients staying?
What are those clients worth?
At Two-Brain, our mentorship program finds the best practices for getting more clients, keeping those clients around as long as possible and maximizing their value to a gym.
That quest starts with knowing the industry averages. We publish these averages (calculated from data from over 10,000 gyms worldwide) every year in our “State of the Industry” report.
Client Headcount
The average gym has 154 clients, according to our friends at PushPress.
This number hasn’t changed much since we started publishing this guide in 2020. But it’s a really interesting number for other reasons.
In various anthropological and historical studies, the number 150 appears over and over with regard to tribes and units of human groups. We naturally organize in groups of 15, 50 and 150.
When you reach 150 gym members, you’ll need a different plan to scale up. But building your gym plan with a target of 150 amazing clients is a fantastic way to start.
A gym with 150 clients can:
Pay the gym owner $100,000 per year.Employ a full-time coach or two.Deliver life-changing service to clients.
For three detailed paths to earning $100,000 from a gym, get our free guide here: “How to Make $100,000 Per Year With 150 Clients.”
Client Value
Most of us run a coaching business. That means we offer a personalized service (sometimes in a group setting). This is a high-value service—as long as you don’t try to industrialize your operations with free trials, big groups, streamlined intake that doesn’t include goal setting, and cookie-cutter plans that don’t help individuals accomplish specific goals.
The average gym in our State of the Industry data set is charging around $160 per month for an “unlimited” membership. But client value at the best gyms is rising dramatically: Average revenue per member (ARM) in Two-Brain gyms is over $185 now, with the top gyms all over $300 per client per month.
Imagine every client at your gym paying you $25 more every month—what difference would that make? And what if that number doubled? Could you afford to spend more time with every client? Could you actually deliver the level of service you dream of delivering?
Gym owners have many ways to increase ARM. Surprisingly, our data shows nutrition coaching isn’t moving the needle as much as it should: While 70 percent of gyms now offer the service, it accounts for only five percent of gross revenue, on average. All that work should produce a better return.
Read more about this and other surprises in the report—it’s available here.
Client Retention
If you can’t keep them around, you can’t change their lives.
The average client retention in coaching businesses, not the big chain gyms, is only 7.8 months. That’s not enough time to change a life.
In contrast, the average Two-Brain gym’s retention has risen from 13 months in 2020 to 18.8 months in 2022. As a group, we’re getting closer to two-year retention. That’s important: At the 24-month mark, most clients who quit a gym don’t quit fitness. They just do something else, which means they keep moving and improving their health. That’s a huge win.
Here’s a great stat: Clients who stick around to the 18-month mark are more than 70 percent likely to make it to the 24-month mark.
Strategies like the No Sweat Intro are critical to keeping clients around this long. Clear planning by the gym owner and coach is key, too. We teach gym owners to improve retention with great emphasis (and using the latest research) in our RampUp and Growth programs.
Get More Data to Improve Your Gym
I’ve just touched on a few highlights here. The full guide goes much deeper: It has more than 50 pages of metrics you can use to grow your fitness business and serve your clients better.
Download the report here!
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December 19, 2022
State of the Industry 2022: Data and Proof
Which gyms have the most clients?
Which gyms have the highest revenue per client?
Who keeps clients longest?
Who’s getting the most from the expenses they carry?
Who leverages their biggest investment—their team—better than anyone else?
What do great gym owners earn?
And finally, how do we know for sure?
After all, the media is always negative, the people who say they’re going to “flood our gyms in 30 days!” on Facebook are obviously frauds, and even many industry “experts” are just making guesses with their advice.
Making evidence-based decisions is one of the core value of Two-Brain Business. That means we want proof. Data cuts through the crap.
My mission with our annual “State of the Industry” report is to give you proof: real numbers you can use to make decisions, measure your progress and track the industry.
We built this guide with our partners at Wodify, PushPress and TeamUp, and a host of gym owners provided data for an independent analyst to review. We do this for free: you can download your copy here.
Use Our Report to Grow Your Business
There’s a lot of data in our 56-page report. What do the numbers mean?
Let’s start with the fundamentals: You have six broad strategies to grow your business:
Within these strategies, specific tactics work—and many don’t. In this series, I’m going to share what’s working—with data to prove it.
In the second post in this series, I’ll talk about client-side metrics: how many clients gyms have, what those clients are worth and how long those clients are staying.
After that, I’ll talk about owner-side metrics: how much owners are earning from their gyms, how hard they’re working and where they’re spending their money.
This is the most valuable publication in the fitness industry every year. We create it as part of our mission to make gyms successful, and you can have it for free. Use it to guide your decisions in 2023. Grow your gym and save more lives!
The post State of the Industry 2022: Data and Proof appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 16, 2022
2023 Profit Plan: Use Our Data to Grow Your Gym Fast
Gym owners, we’re going to generate some additional profit for your business today.
This isn’t an exaggeration. If you keep reading and take action, your business will grow.
And don’t worry: I’ll provide hard data so you know I’m not blowing smoke.
Two-Brain’s 2022 “State of the Industry” report is now out. It’s packed with all the data you need to improve your business dramatically. You can get the report for free here.
Key stat: In gyms that offer nutrition coaching, this revenue stream provides an average of 5 percent of total revenue.
Takeaway 1: If you don’t offer nutrition coaching at your gym, you could expect to add about 5 percent to your gross revenue if you start offering the service. If you pay the coach 4/9ths of program revenue, you will ensure that all costs are more than covered, and your profit will increase.
Takeaway 2: If your nutrition program is only contributing 5 percent to your gross revenue, you’re leaving money on the table. Remember: 5 percent is an average. Some gyms are generating way more than 5 percent.
More data:
In our survey, 6 percent of gym owners who offer nutrition coaching use their programs to generate 15 percent or more of gross revenue.18 percent of gyms use nutrition coaching to generate 10 percent or more of revenue.45 percent of gyms use nutrition coaching to generate 5 percent or more of revenue.
Additional details:
Everything you’ve just read is backed by data. But I see the same ads you see on Facebook. They’re full of nonsense, empty promises and BS. I know you’re skeptical.
So here’s more proof.
Watch the video below (or listen to this podcast). You’ll hear a real Two-Brain gym owner explain exactly how he uses simple but very effective nutrition coaching to generate about $8,000 a month for his business. You won’t get fluff or cryptic references to proprietary secrets. You’ll get actual data and insight from a real gym owner who is using Two-Brain tactics to run a profitable gym.
We Have Way More Data
Given the info above, I’d suggest you could use nutrition coaching to measurably increase your revenue and profit in 90 days or so. That timeline can be compressed significantly if you use Two-Brain’s templates and market the program correctly (we can help with that, too).
That’s a big deal—and I’ve only dug into a single stat from our 56-page report.
You can use our data-packed “State of the Industry” ebook to completely transform your business and make more money. If you don’t have it, you need it. It’s available for free here.
And if you want to hit the “easy button” and get access to guidance, complete plug-and-play revenue-generation plans, done-for-you resources and community support, book a call to talk about working with a mentor in 2023.
The post 2023 Profit Plan: Use Our Data to Grow Your Gym Fast appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 15, 2022
What Happens on a Call With a Gym Mentor?
Mike Warkentin: (00:01)
What does a gym owner talk about with a mentor? Feelings? The big game, perhaps? I’m Mike Warkentin and this is Run a Profitable Gym. And today you’re gonna find out exactly how a call with a mentor goes and why it’s so helpful. If you’ve ever wondered what one-on-one mentorship is all about, you’ll find out today, but you won’t find out from me. With me today is Nate Boley. He is the owner of Strength Warehouse in Bend, Oregon. In our private Facebook group, Nate’s been posting all kinds of great bright spots like this one. We are on top of our game when it comes to taking action. As we all know, action is the only thing that gets results. So Nate’s here to explain what he gets out of his talks with his mentor, how his mentor helps take action, and how he grows his gym. So Nate, welcome from Oregon. How you doing today?
Nate Boley: (00:46)
Mike, thanks a lot for having me on the show. I’m doing great. It’s a beautiful day here in Bend.
Mike Warkentin: (00:52)
I’m sure. I’m on the verge of a snowstorm that’s gonna start, I think as soon as this podcast ends. We’ll try and get through it before it comes down.
Nate Boley: (01:00)
. Nice. We had a little snowstorm and then it became like perfect blue skies with cold snow on the ground, so it was just awesome.
Mike Warkentin: (01:07)
I’m gonna drop in at your gym tomorrow then.
Nate Boley: (01:09)
Mike Warkentin: (01:10)
Let’s start with the result. I like to ask the big questions to get right to the meat of the bone right away. After a call with a mentor, how do you feel and what do you do when that ends?
Nate Boley: (01:19)
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, depending on what’s going on in the call, I can feel anywhere from just like super inspired to maybe a little bit overwhelmed. And this last call that I had, I was a little uncomfortable and I’ll kinda go into a little bit more of that stuff. But basically the biggest thing that I like to take away from this question is, I just feel like there’s somebody that has my back and that’s gonna hold me accountable to the things that we talked about, the action items that we’ve got.
Mike Warkentin: (01:51)
So action items are a big deal. So you leave a call and you’ve got stuff to do. Homework, as it were.
Nate Boley: (01:56)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Mike Warkentin: (01:57)
Okay. So let’s dig in a little bit to what you said there. So talk to me about some of the feelings that you have there saying, okay, overwhelmed. So what’s going on there and how does a mentor help you work through that?
Nate Boley: (02:06)
Yeah, so basically, like the first one, some of the calls we’ve had feeling overwhelmed is a lot of things to do, and a short period of time to get them all done. So, they try not to overwhelm you too much. They go, okay, if this is too much, I could set these action items into like a, we need to take care of this first, second, third, fourth. But sometimes you can leave the call just being like, oh no, I’ve got a bunch of things to do on top of everything else that I’m supposed to do. . Right? So, as we know, being a gym owner, you do a lot of things. And then they add that on top of it.
Mike Warkentin: (02:44)
Would it be accurate to say that that’s challenged? Do you feel challenged?
Nate Boley: (02:47)
Absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: (02:48)
Yeah. So here’s the question, because some people listening will say, okay, so if I feel overwhelmed already, am I gonna feel more overwhelmed after a call? Let me ask you this, is it a specific list of things that you need to work on or is it just this giant pile of jumbled stuff where you kind of have to figure it out on your own? Where do you go from there?
Nate Boley: (03:06)
Yeah, totally. So it’s actually a very formulated action plan of the things that we need to take care of. And specifically the mentor I have right now, we call ’em the Nate Blinders, so I don’t focus on anything else except for what we’ve listed out in the order that we’ve listed them out in. So we try not to get super overwhelmed. It’s like one step at a time and if we are overwhelmed, like I said, they can take those steps and put ’em into categories. Like we need to take care of this one first, second. And then if they have any other questions or whatever, we can always email them or message them or whatever.
Mike Warkentin: (03:44)
Who’s your current mentor? Who are you working with right now?
Nate Boley: (03:47)
I’m gonna mess her name up cause I always do it. Taryn.
Mike Warkentin: (03:50)
Yep, we gotcha. So this is great. So she works specifically with you and she’s got Nate Blinders for you. So I’m guessing you’re a guy that tends to, much like me, are you a person who tends to just like look at all the stuff you could do and just get frazzled and kinda spin the tires a little bit?
Nate Boley: (04:05)
Yes, yes. That’s definitely like “paralysis by analysis” type thing. You look at the big picture and then you can’t take any action because you don’t know which way to go.
Mike Warkentin: (04:16)
So how does she help you? You said she gives you a plan. How does she help you? Like, ’cause there’s a million things that you could do as a gym owner, right? You could work on your marketing, you could improve your coaches, you could hire a general manager, you could do your retention, a billion things that you could do. How does she figure out exactly what Nate needs to work on today, this month?
Nate Boley: (04:34)
Yeah, that’s a great question again. She really is a data driven mentor, which is, I’m totally a data driven person as well. So she looks at the data and through the metrics that we’ve provided them and then we talk through what’s going on, like currently this last month we had a lot of cancellations going on and a lot of No-Sweats going on. So basically, she uses the data to really hone in on the exact items that we should take care of in the next 30 days.
Mike Warkentin: (05:05)
So looking at your numbers, so it’s based around metrics and you enter those monthly, are you a guy who does that religiously for the app?
Nate Boley: (05:13)
I have mine done on the first. Yeah. Of every single month.
Mike Warkentin: (05:16)
Okay. Cause I know some people don’t do that and it challenges the mentors because we are based on metrics, right? If we don’t know what the metrics are, we can’t figure things out. So she looks at what you’ve got going on, figures out which areas you need to work on, and then gives you a plan based on exactly where your greatest challenges or opportunities are.
Nate Boley: (05:35)
Absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: (05:36)
Okay. So do you ever bring problems to her and sometimes it’s like, holy crap, I am just freaking out here about something , do you do that or is it always the other way around with metrics and figuring it out?
Nate Boley: (05:47)
So currently, we’ve had a couple different mentors. And one I remember specifically we called actually had a, we were seeming to be losing a bunch of clients right away and I was freaking out and so we just messaged our mentor and said, Hey, can we move our mentor call up? Because we have a pressing issue that needs to be taken care of right now. And they said, yes, here’s my schedule. And then right away, we didn’t even go into anything else. It’s like, what’s on your mind? I was like, this is a problem. I don’t even remember what it was. That’s how significant it was. Right. ,
Mike Warkentin: (06:23)
Must have been solved, then.
Nate Boley: (06:23)
It was solved. Yes, it was solved right away. But yeah, I was like, this is my problem, I’m freaking out about it. And then they just go, okay, hold on, step back, let’s look at the big picture. You’re not gonna go bankrupt overnight, let’s find out where the hole is or the procedure breakdowns or what’s going on. And we worked through it for sure.
Mike Warkentin: (06:45)
Okay. So it’s a combination of having the mentor analyze data and say, here are some things that we wanna work on or things that we could do. Big opportunities or things where you’re lagging behind, like say retention isn’t great, we wanna focus on that to grow the business. In other cases you’re bringing problems in and saying, Hey, I’ve got this thing I’m freaking out about, or it’s just like, ah, this is bugging me. And then you get a plan, right?
Nate Boley: (07:05)
Sure. Yep.
Mike Warkentin: (07:05)
So after a call, what happens then? So you said you feel like, okay, I got some stuff to do in addition to all the other things going on in my business. Yeah. But why do you choose to take action on those things when you could work on all the other stuff that’s going on?
Nate Boley: (07:20)
Well, just because, I don’t know. So in my fitness history and business history, I’ve always just kind of done it my own way. And so when I joined Two-Brain, I sat down with my wife, cause my wife and I were both running the gym, and we just looked at each other and we were like, we’re gonna do exactly what they tell us to do. And that is it. and that has worked. Yeah. Like, I mean it has worked. We were literally on the verge of closing the gym before we started with Two-Brain, really. And yeah, we were about one month away from locking the door up, and it wasn’t because we were not making any money, it was just ’cause it was so stressful and I was both working a full time career and coaching and taking care of our two daughters. And of course my wife was doing a lot of that as well, but we were just like, we’ve had our hands up, we don’t know what to do. And so, yeah.
Mike Warkentin: (08:16)
So tell me about those early stages, what happened? How did you go from 30 days away from closing your gym to where you are now and saying things have turned around? How did you do that? How did a mentor help you do that?
Nate Boley: (08:29)
So basically ,our first mentor, we went through the Onramp process or the Rampup process. And we weren’t in financial dire need to close, but it wasn’t making any money, it was just sustaining. And so it was like, ok. It was taking up our time and I was just like, literally working from five in the morning till 9 at night. I was so burned out and I was just like, we’ve done this for three years, we actually started post-Covid, I guess. February of 21. But, so we basically just set up a ton. We had no policies and procedures, no SOPs, we had nothing, we had no structure of the gym at all. And so that’s where we basically started out. And then once we got those, it just kind of snowball effect. Then we were like, okay, now we can hire our first coach. And then it just snowballed from there. Just having that foundation you could actually build upon. And if we didn’t have the foundation, it was like building on quicksand, ’cause nobody knew what was going on.
Mike Warkentin: (09:31)
So listeners, RampUp is the introductory mentorship program, and it is a targeted program that is designed to get your business in tip top shape with foundations exactly what Nate said. Roles, responsibilities, procedures and so forth. You’re gonna put out a few fires, but there is a curriculum you can move through quite quickly. A lot of people do that, and find that on the other side, they add a ton of revenue to the business. And then after that you can enter into the Growth stage. The Growth stage is less of a curriculum. It’s got a big giant toolkit where a mentor will look specifically at your exact metrics, figure out where your opportunities and challenges are, talk to you about your problems, and then prescribe targeted tools from that toolkit that you can use to take action between calls. So you are in that stage now, Nate. So what is something you talked about with your mentor on your last call? What are you working on right now?
Nate Boley: (10:17)
So currently right now, we are working on retention and figuring out, yeah, it’s a big one. We’ve had a bunch of people we worked on, the previous one we worked on advertising and that kinda stuff. And we got just a ton of new leads and a ton of new members. And then they started falling off. And so we’re figuring out, at what points are these members leaving? And what can we do to implement new touchpoints and systems to try to prohibit that or curtail that a little bit? And the next action item really is mentoring our staff to be able to have them do more and be better.
Mike Warkentin: (10:57)
So what stuff in the toolkit has Taryn pointed you towards? Are there any resources that you’re working through in there?
Nate Boley: (11:02)
Yeah, actually. So last time, our last meeting, we worked on the annual plan. So we’re really digging deep into that and I’m making a bunch of spreadsheets and stuff like that, which I’m not super good at either. So now I’m learning a new skill set, and really diving deep into, how do we know or how can we plan for the revenue that we want in our gym throughout the year? And that really, you have to have a plan. If you are trying to drive to Chicago and you just get in your car and start going down the road versus having your Google maps up, you know? How fast are you gonna get there if you don’t have the map?
Mike Warkentin: (11:42)
I literally put Chicago in Google Maps this year for the Two-Brain Summit and I’ll do it again next year. If you’re listening guys, and you are heading to Chicago, make sure you program that in properly. Don’t want to end up in the wrong spot. And hope to see all you guys there at the Summit. 2023 is gonna be an amazing one. So we have this huge pile of stuff. Like, no one except for Chris Cooper himself knows exactly what is in the toolkit because there’s just piles of stuff all over the place. And so the mentors figure out where it is and so forth. The idea is that every possible resource that a gym owner could need is in there, but if we dump all of them on you, it would be exactly what Nate said. Total and complete overwhelm, and you would not get anything done. So what the idea is, is targeted stuff where the mentor figures out exactly what you need right now. And this is a one-on-one conversation. You said Nate, that you worked with different mentors through your process with Two-Brain. Talk to me about some of the different styles. Maybe compare Taryn to your previous mentor.
Nate Boley: (12:36)
Yeah, so, my previous mentor was great. We actually didn’t pick him. One of our mentors had left for I guess some medical leave or something like that. So we got put onto his plate. Yep. And his approach, we didn’t get a ton of different calls with him. There were some scheduling issues and stuff, but he was super great at getting me to think about my mindset and think about different things differently. And he was really good about that and he also gave Megan and I some books to read that were gonna help us just have that. He’s worked with us a lot on sales and he also worked with us a lot on creating a Dream Team staff, which-I have now an onboarding process that he helped me build that is working very well.
Mike Warkentin: (13:28)
Yeah, so the idea, again, we have this whole team of mentors, you can work with different ones and there are different specialists in different areas. It helps to have a different perspective from time to time. At our gym, my wife handles all of the business and so forth. She’s worked with four or five different mentors. The reason we’re working with our current one, Ashley Mak, is that he knows online business pretty well and he’s helping us really well dig through that stuff because he does a similar thing. Previously, we’ve worked with other people who have had different areas of specialty and there are times when our mentor will say, I want you to book a call with this person because he or she has this special skill that you’re gonna get some benefit from. So it’s like having a new PT session with a different trainer once in a while. Between calls- no, go ahead.
Nate Boley: (14:06)
We’re actually doing that currently. We’re working with not only Taryn, but four other mentors in specific areas that we want to grow in. So just like you said, it’s like a small skill session, one hour coaching thing, and they provide you with emails and email support and stuff like that. So that’s been absolutely huge.
Mike Warkentin: (14:28)
Ah, you anticipated my next question. It was gonna be, what happens between calls? Are you on your own, lost in the wilderness, being overwhelmed for 30 days?
Nate Boley: (14:35)
No, definitely not. Never. So, most of the time we email back and forth. Sometimes a mentor will give you access to their cell phone or something, but I try not to overuse that, you know? Yeah. So unless it’s an extreme emergency, I’m like, please read my email right away, . But yeah, you just email ’em like, currently we got through one of the action items for the next 30 days and I just sent it over to Taryn and I said, Hey, can you take a look at this and make sure that I’m at least on the right track so we don’t have to go 30 days before we can revisit that same thing? And she’s more than happy to look at it. But yeah, if there’s anything that needs to be taken care of right away, you can just email them and they’ll get back to you with some type of action plan. Or maybe they just need to calm you down and tell you to put on your Nate Blinders , just continue to do what you’re doing .
Mike Warkentin: (15:26)
Yeah. Just take your earphones, headphones, put ’em over your eyes and you’re good.
Nate Boley: (15:29)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Mike Warkentin: (15:30)
How valuable is that hour to you? Do you look forward to it? Is it something that you’re like, wow, I’m gonna make some progress today?
Nate Boley: (15:35)
Absolutely, man, I can’t even imagine going back and not having it. We look forward to it. I get fired up just going into the week knowing that that call’s gonna happen and all the cool things that we’re gonna accomplish after the next call. So I would say yeah, it’s probably the best day of the month for sure.
Mike Warkentin: (15:56)
Would you take as much action as you’re taking right now without the accountability of someone checking in on you and giving you tasks?
Nate Boley: (16:02)
Nope. I definitely would not.
Mike Warkentin: (16:04)
Yeah, me neither.
Nate Boley: (16:05)
I would not. Yeah. That’s why I also hired myself a fitness coach because I think coaches need coaches, right? Yeah. It’s like I don’t do the stuff I need to do, mobility-wise or whatever. And it’s the same thing with your gym. Like you could easily forget or just put it away because you got something more pressing right away. And a lot of times it’s like, hey, those little pressing things will still be here, but you have to do the stuff that you don’t wanna do to grow forward.
Mike Warkentin: (16:32)
Do you feel like the mentorship is tailored toward exactly your business? And this is a question I ask because a lot of people say, oh, you know, all gyms are the same or whatever, or my gym’s different, some people will think it is a special snowflake and so forth. Do you feel like the mentorship is tailored to exactly what you need at the time?
Nate Boley: (16:48)
So I guess I think the mentorship program as a whole is just catered to all different types of specialty-type gyms. I think when you really start working with individual mentors, the first call is like, Hey, what do you guys do? What are you about? And how do you guys run your business? And they try to learn, like the No-Sweat Intro process, right? It’s like they try to get to know you and what you’re about, and what you’re really needing. So then it can be catered more towards you. I think, if that answers your question correctly.
Mike Warkentin: (17:19)
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a learning curve there for sure because for example, some gyms will come in to Rampup and they’re very new, right? So there’s someone who’s like three months gym owner, three months. May have no systems, may have no procedures, may have no experience, and it’s kind of a different path than, say, a gym owner who comes in after eight years and 12 staff members in two locations or something like that. Yeah. That second gym owner may still have exactly the same problems sometimes, but you get the idea. So it’s a little bit different. So you’re right, feeling-out process and then making sure there’s a giant foundation for this base in the pyramid. And then targeted sniping here and there and picking, like, retention this month, client acquisition next month, sales and marketing, all that kind of stuff.
Nate Boley: (17:59)
Yep.
Mike Warkentin: (18:00)
What’s next for you? What do you go to work? You said retention is the big deal right now. Yeah. Have you got some notes on a pad there for the call, like coming up in however many days it is, that you’re gonna throw at Taryn next?
Nate Boley: (18:09)
Yeah, so I was just gonna say that my wife and I both are tasked to do different things. So that’s another thing that a mentor can do. It’s not only like, so if you have a single gym owner versus double, like my wife and I are two gym owners, basically. But coming up, we have notepads in our phone and if something comes up during the month, and it’s not pressing, we just write it down. We wanna talk about this next time. So we go into our hour with the maximum ROI on it. It’s not like, Hey, what’s going on? Oh yeah, I forgot about that thing that I thought about three weeks ago or whatever. We have the actual list that we wanna talk about. And most of the time, we get through all of it. This last time we didn’t, because we found one that was really pressing and where it’s like, okay, we’re gonna put the blinders on, we’re gonna just attack this. At least until you get that task done and then we can revisit the other stuff.
Mike Warkentin: (18:59)
Do you feel like, well, I mean it’s funny ’cause some people need blinders exactly like that. Other people need a kick in the pants to say, you know, do something. Like fired up motivation. Different styles for different people. For you, is it always a focusing kind of thing or do you ever need that motivation kick in the pants? Or what else do you need from a mentor that’s maybe not just focus?
Nate Boley: (19:21)
Yeah, definitely I do, I definitely need motivation and accountability I think is my biggest problem. Because like I said, things start going on. I mean, you’re doing something in the computer and maybe a staff employee comes in and starts talking to me or something like, ah, I gotta get this done. So I think those are the biggest things, you know, the accountability, the motivation to keep going. And then the focus part is fairly recent just because I’m starting to get to the point where I feel like I’m really close to the Tinker level. And so I’m starting to look at different things and all of a sudden, now I’m in a business group and we’re talking about doing Airbnb’s, we’re talking about doing this, I’m like, now my focusers on because it’s too general, too broad.
Mike Warkentin: (20:08)
That’s great. I didn’t actually realize that you were that close to the Tinker level, which for listeners, that is when you’ve got a stable business and you might be looking to do something else. And that could be expand that business to a second location. It could be get into something completely different like start a beverage company. We have a guy who’s doing that. You could start a distillery, someone else is doing that. You could rent Airbnbs, you could get into crypto investing, all these other things. We have a group that will help you do that. Most of them are gym owners, not all of them are. All of them are entrepreneurs who are willing to support each other. And it’s led by Chris Cooper, Jeff Smith, and a lot of experts from outside the fitness industry. So you’ve got the whole progression here. You’ve got Rampup, Growth and Tinker. The whole thing is tailored mentorship one-on-one at every stage. And in that Tinker group you’ve got the freedom and finance to do in-person meetups regularly, hang out with some cool people in a room full of people and learn about upper-level entrepreneur stuff. Is that an aspiration of yours, Nate?
Nate Boley: (20:59)
Absolutely, yeah. It’s been, since we got out of the RampUp program into the Growth and I started, I mean I knew there was Tinker ’cause I read the book, so I knew that was a level. But once I got kind of into probably three or four months into Growth, we really started to just take off. And I was like, that’s the goal right there. So that’s the next step for me, I think. And I’ve already had a discovery call with Jeff and Chris and they’re both just like, yeah man, you’re there. So if you wanna do it, go for it. You know, if you don’t, you gotta think about it, that’s fine too.
Mike Warkentin: (21:35)
So it’s a cool story. So you told me at the beginning, 30 days away from shutting down your gym, leaving the fitness industry and doing whatever else, and obviously not being able to serve the people that you serve now, to being at the stage where your gym is almost at that level where you can now start thinking about what else can I do? Pretty cool.
Nate Boley: (21:51)
Yeah, absolutely. No, I’m super stoked.
Mike Warkentin: (21:54)
What do you think, I’ll ask you to take the Nate Blinders off for my last question. What do you think that next thing might be when you’re out in the Tinker program? What do you think you’re looking at?
Nate Boley: (22:01)
Yeah, so currently right now, I’d really like to do some Airbnb type stuff. Also would really love to own our own commercial building for our gym. And so, those are the two things that I’m trying to, I’d love to do, but I don’t wanna do too much if that makes sense. But those two things are definitely in our scope.
Mike Warkentin: (22:21)
We’ll put the blinders back on now. You finish off your last Growth work and then we’ll head on to Tinker and we’ll find a way. We’ll catch up with you again. Nate, thanks so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
Nate Boley: (22:29)
Absolutely, man. Thank you for having me on.
Mike Warkentin: (22:33)
When Nate runs his Airbnb in Oregon, you should be sure to book a night there and visit the place. That was Nate Boley and this is Run a Profitable Gym. That is what we teach you how to do on this podcast. So please subscribe on the way out. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. We’re gonna help you out here. Hit subscribe. And now here’s a final note from Chris Cooper, Two-Brain founder.
Chris Cooper: (22:51)
Hey, it’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. The Gym Owners United Facebook group has more than 5,600 members, and it’s growing daily. If you aren’t benefiting from the free tips and tactics and resources that I post daily in that group, what are you waiting for? Get in there and grow your business. That’s Gym Owners United on Facebook, or www.GymOwnersUnited.com. Join today.
The post What Happens on a Call With a Gym Mentor? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 12, 2022
When to Listen to Your Clients (and When Not To)
Chris Cooper: (00:02)
Is the customer always right? No way. Is the customer always wrong? No. I’m Chris Cooper. I’m the founder of Two-Brain Business, and today I’m gonna talk about when you should listen to your clients and when you don’t have to. If this episode is helpful to you or if you have questions or you want to discuss it, go to GymOwnersUnited.com. That will lead you to our free public Facebook group just for gym owners where we talk about these things and everything else that goes into running a gym every single day.
Chris Cooper: (00:32)
So today we want to talk about your clients and when you should listen to them, when you don’t need to, and when it’s time to just take your own advice. Your clients want you to be successful, they feel very close to you, and they feel close to your staff and to your brand. And sometimes they’re going to give you advice. Sometimes they’ll try to fix the problems that they see in your business. This can sound like they’re complaining sometimes, but usually you’ll want to consider their ideas because they’re your valuable client, but should you consider their ideas? And likewise, your staff members want to help. They want you to think that they’re important. So sometimes they’ll approach you with ideas and they’ll hope that you will listen. And when that doesn’t work, then they’ll bring you some concerns. And if they still don’t feel important, they might even amplify their fears by saying, Hey Chris, a lot of customers are complaining about X.
Chris Cooper: (01:27)
Or, Hey, I think a bunch of clients are talking about quitting. Now, as a leader, you must appear open to feedback, and the best ideas do sometimes come from your clients or from your team. But how do you tell the difference? Today, I’m gonna help you identify whose advice you should take. Then I’m gonna tell you whose advice you should never take. And finally, I’m gonna tell you how to use precise questions to grow your business instead of using horrible client surveys or town hall meetings. So we’re gonna do an exercise quickly called seed clients. And so you’re gonna need a blank sheet of paper, your gym management software, and about 20 minutes without a distraction. If you’re listening to this while you’re mowing your lawn or driving your car, you can just kind of take mental notes and do the exercise later when you’ve got a little bit of time.
Chris Cooper: (02:14)
So you’re gonna take out your blank sheet of paper, you’re gonna divide the sheet into two halves. You’re gonna draw a vertical line straight down the middle. Now, at the top of the page, at one side of the line, you’re going to draw a smiley face. On the other side of the line, you’re gonna draw a dollar sign. So your page should look like this, held vertically. One vertical line down the middle. Smiley face on the top left, dollar sign at the top right. You should have two columns, one column under the smiley face, one column under the dollar sign. Under the dollar sign, I want you to write down the name of the 10 clients who pay you the most money every month. These might be your personal training clients, they might be group clients who buy additional services, whatever. The highest value clients by dollars.
Chris Cooper: (03:01)
Don’t worry about how you feel about these clients right now. Now on the left side, I want you to write down the clients who make you the happiest. Not just the smile, fly under the radar, the easiest clients, but the clients who actually give you energy and pump you up when they show up to your gym. Okay? These are the people who are not just the easiest to tolerate, but these are the people who make owning a gym worthwhile. Now, if you look at the two columns, the people who make you happy and the people who pay you the most money, they might mostly be different people, but you should notice a few names that appear in both columns. These are your seed clients. These are the best clients that we want to plant in the ground and duplicate over and over.
Chris Cooper: (03:46)
They’re gonna grow the next generation of clients. They’re the people who bring in the most money and bring out your best. So most of your clients will follow your lead, but you should follow these people. And so I want you to book a coffee date with each one of them individually. And on that coffee date, you’re gonna ask them these three questions. First, what led you to my gym in the first place? Second, what did you try in the past that you didn’t like before you tried my gym? And third, what is your biggest challenge in life outside my gym? Their answers will tell you what you should be saying or doing more to attract clients just like them. And you’ll also know what you can say less or just skip altogether. For example, if none of your seed clients are on TikTok, you probably don’t have to spend a lot of time building up your TikTok audience right now.
Chris Cooper: (04:35)
Second, they will also tell you what turns potential great clients away. So if you ask them, what did you do in the past that you didn’t like? You can stop doing those things and turning off the people that you want to attract. And third, if you ask them, what’s your greatest challenge outside my gym? They will tell you how you can serve them more and create more value for them and grow your business. You have a client-centric business. Over time, your service will gradually shift as your clients’ needs change. You probably opened your gym to maybe unconsciously service your own needs. You bought all the equipment that you needed to train, or that you like to train. And over time you’ll find that there’s a bit of an evolution. Your best clients, the clients that you like the best and are paying you the most, need different things. They might need different space, different equipment, different staff, different levels of professionalism, different prices, different location even.
Chris Cooper: (05:27)
And your business will evolve to serve them best. The key is to follow the lead of your best clients, adjust your service to give them what they need, and allow the rest of your audience to evolve to be more like your best. When should you ignore clients? Well, the client isn’t always right. So I just told you which clients are likely to give you good advice, but now I’m gonna tell you which clients’ advice you can avoid. We call these the loud minority. These are the people who, even when things are amazing, they’re complaining. And it’s really, really easy to focus on these problem areas because you and I are problem solvers. Our brains are wired to detect flaws and provide the right answer or the solution or solve the problem. But we also often get these false positives from our clients. These are feedback cues that seem to knock all the good stuff off the table.
Chris Cooper: (06:22)
We could have a hundred people getting amazing results. One person leaves us a one star review on Facebook. What do we tell our wife about that night? It’s the one star review. We fixate on the problem that has to be solved instead of the ones that have already been solved. Because we’re problem solvers, we fixate on negative feedback, even when that doesn’t represent the average client. And when someone says they don’t like a certain class time on our client surveys, we just wanna smash the whole puzzle and start from scratch, right? Yeah. See, I know you, I’m like you too. I feel the same way. Even worse, sometimes your staff will report that some of the members had problems with some of the services or some of the class times. This feedback is always super hard to pin down. Which members are have problems, what exactly do they say?
Chris Cooper: (07:14)
And these problems are aggravating because they’re completely unsolvable. The reality is that your staff might be exaggerating the complaints that they hear because they want to help you or they want to feel important or they just want to feel seen. And so they’ll keep bringing this stuff up until you acknowledge them, when really there might not be a big problem. In a moment, I’m going to give you a key to tell the difference on whether you actually have a really big problem, or whether it’s a staff person just looking to be heard and seen. Okay? But what I always tell my team is this: A small minority of people will always complain about everything. For example, they will complain because you didn’t include a weightlift class in your unlimited membership. Or they will complain because now you’re going to charge for your new nutrition advice, or they will complain because you don’t have enough classes, or they will complain because you’re just too expensive.
Chris Cooper: (08:08)
And while we want to listen to everyone, we only act according to our vision for the gym. And we don’t let the loud minority sway us because we understand that they don’t see the big picture. And we do. So when I hear everyone who’s complaining or “Chris, everybody thinks X”, then I know that “everyone” is not everyone. It’s just the loud minority. The members of the loud minority, while welcome at Catalyst, are not our perfect clients. And if we wavered on our position for every little complaint, we would have no direction. We would have a hundred different programs at a hundred different price points and a hundred concessions for each one. Every single interaction would become a negotiation and it would hurt our best clients. So we don’t do that. We deliver an amazing service and experience. Those who appreciate that service and benefit from that experience will stay and members of the loud minority will leave eventually.
Chris Cooper: (09:13)
Focus is a simple filter. Our mission at Catalyst is to meaningfully extend the lives of 7,000 people in Sault St. Marie. That means over 60,000 people in our city will not be a perfect fit for our gym. And that very few people will be a perfect fit forever. We will be polite and caring and tactful, but we will not sacrifice the standard to satisfy the very few. And some of our future best clients are not ready to be our best clients. Yet. Some of our former best clients are no longer our best clients because they have changed, but we have not. The lesson is to focus on your best clients. What I’ve learned is that following the minority is a disservice to the majority. Just as it’s important to train your strengths in the gym, it’s important to focus on your happy clients most of the time.
Chris Cooper: (10:05)
Perfect is the enemy of good. It’s impossible to please everyone. And some will like everything that you do. That’s fine. Your best clients will thank you for your consistency, for giving them what they love if you work hard to serve them. And your worst clients won’t be around to complain for long as the gym owner. You must always be tactful. You must always be polite. You must always be open to suggestion and criticism, but you don’t always have to act on it. Now, I want to tell you why we don’t ever use surveys or town hall meetings. You are building a client-centric business, but it is not a democracy. Your job as a coach is to understand what your clients need and give it to them. They don’t really know what they need, which is why they elected to pay you. They are voting with their wallets.
Chris Cooper: (10:59)
You don’t need to keep asking them what they want next. So client surveys and town hall meetings and even advisory boards are a horrible way to run a small business. In the darkest days of my gym, Catalyst, I was tempted to turn the gym into a co-op. Not because I thought my clients had better ideas than I did, but simply because I wanted somebody else to share the responsibility for the gym’s success. Or if I’m being honest, to share the blame when the gym failed. But you can’t make decisions by committee and hope to get anywhere. If you chase customer feedback, ideas, and complaints, you will be directionless. Your job as the CEO is to set the direction, not to be pulled off track every time somebody brings things up to you. Here’s an example. A few years ago, gym owners liked to use surveys.
Chris Cooper: (11:48)
So they would send out a survey to everybody in their gym, and all of the members essentially got an equal vote when responding. So who would respond? The complainers and the helpers. People with axes to grind and people who actually wanted to help. But as I explained earlier, these helpers exaggerate their feedback so that they can feel important. And the complainers exaggerate their feedback just to make things suit their own needs to a greater degree. Even though most of the people in the gym have no complaints, the squeakiest wheels tend to get the grease and the gym owner can be led astray in surveys. Complainers say things like this, I want you to change that. I don’t like this coach. We need more open gym hours. We need five more classes per week. And if you dropped your rate a little, you would get more clients.
Chris Cooper: (12:40)
So the gym owner makes changes in response to the complainers. They think they have to solve this problem because they’re a problem solver. And then two months later, she’ll call Two-Brain and say, Hey, I’m running these extra classes. Nobody’s showing up. I’m spending more time, but I’m not making any more money. This was a mistake. How do I fix it? Or the, “if you dropped your rates a little, you’d get more clients”. I mean, most of your clients only have experience as a consumer, not as a business owner. So meanwhile, while you’re hearing and acting on these complaints, most of your other clients had no problem with the previous schedule or the coaching or the rates. And even more often, gym owners will recognize that survey feedback as bad advice. And so they won’t make the changes. But the clients who gave their feedback will expect some kind of action.
Chris Cooper: (13:27)
And when no action is taken, they think, well, why are you asking for my feedback and then not taking it? Obviously, this coach doesn’t take me seriously. And then they amplify their demands by threatening to quit or complaining to other clients, Hey, I told him we needed five more classes a week. Hey, I told him he should be dropping his rates. Hey, I’ve been complaining that we needed more open gym for six months. The answer: don’t do surveys. Surveys are a no-win strategy. Your best clients will not give you anything actionable in a survey because they’re happy with how things are. Your worst clients will complain and expect you to take action whether you realize their complaints are valid or not. Worst, surveys make it easy to confuse the squeaky wheels with the people who are really driving the train. So instead of surveys, identify your best clients.
Chris Cooper: (14:19)
Right? Go back to the start of this podcast, take them for coffee, listen carefully. And while they won’t give you good advice on how to run your business, because that’s your job or a mentor’s job, they will tell you how to serve them more and how to find more people like them. The seed client exercise is a core part of our curriculum for a reason. Forget about building client avatars. Forget about trying to draw the picture of your perfect client. You already have perfect clients. After you identify them, you can let them lead you to finding more people like them. Growing your gym the right way, stress free and avoiding the squeaky wheels. Hope it helps. If this podcast was useful to you and you wanna chat more about it or chat with me and my team, just go to GymOwnersUnited.com. Join the free Facebook group, behave like a good human, ask all your questions and we’ll answer them with tact and diplomacy and courtesy. All of the bad apples have been removed from that group. It is full of people that I would love to help. And so if you go to GymOwnersUnited.com, that’s where we talk about this thing, and all these things about owning a gym. See you there.
The post When to Listen to Your Clients (and When Not To) appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 9, 2022
Poorly Attended Classes Are Costing You a Lot of Money
Ever offered personal training at 85 percent off by accident?
I have.
It happened to me regularly when a single member showed up for a “group class.”
The client got great service, which isn’t a bad thing. But my gym received about $7 for the hour, and I lost money on the session.
You don’t have to make the same mistakes I did. Two-Brain’s 2022 “State of the Industry Report” is now out, and it can help you get paid what you deserve.
To get the complete 56-page report, click here.
I’ll dig into just one part of it here: class size.
According to data supplied by PushPress, the average group class has 6.6 attendees.Wodify data shows that 71 percent of gyms in its system average one to four participants per class.
This data suggests large classes are somewhat rare.
Here’s what Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper had to say about the stats:
“Almost no one in the data set is consistently running classes with more than 10 attendees all the time. Building your business on the target of running large classes all day is just not a good idea.”
Yet I chased large classes for years. In fact, I thought they were the key to making my business profitable. So I needed more and more members to fill an every-growing number of slots.
I had made another flimsy assumption: Adding class times would give me access to a sea of prospective clients who hadn’t joined my gym solely because its schedule didn’t work for them.
Example: “I bet a ton of parents and shift workers would join if I added a 9:30-a.m. slot.”
That mistake caused me to add class times with the if-you-build-it-they-will-come mentality, and the effects of the error compounded because I was terrified to cancel unpopular classes and perhaps lose the few clients who attended them. So I lost money instead. And a lot of sleep.
Run Your Numbers
Here’s an exercise Coop lays out in our new report. It’s based on the average group-class rate of $160, as reported by our survey respondents, and 6.6 attendees per class (PushPress data):
“If the average gym is charging $160 for an unlimited membership and the average client attends 3.4x per week (with 4.3 weeks per month), then the gym is only grossing $10.94 per attendee or $72.20 per class.”
So what if a class only has three attendees? Well, the gross is then $32.82. With the cost of staffing (about $22, according to our survey respondents), utilities, rent, software and consumables figured in, a three-person class might break even. It certainly isn’t a pillar of profit.
More from Chris: “For your gym, you might want to do the same calculation
for any class with fewer than six attendees on average. Once you have that number, you can decide if it’s wise to keep the class or do something else with that time.”
Here’s how to do it:
Figure out your average monthly price for group classes.Assume the average client attends 3.4 times a week, with 4.3 weeks in a month—so divide average membership price by 14.62. (You can use your actual average monthly attendance if you have the stat.) This gives you gross revenue per class attendee.Multiply the average attendance in any time slot by your gross revenue per attendee.
Example:
What to Do Instead?
I was utterly lost when I considered what to do instead of continuing to run a poorly attended group class. Now, at least one solution is clear: Work with a personal-training client at $74 an hour—our survey respondents’ average cost of a 60-minute one-on-one session.
Instead of trying to find six or seven people to fill the hour and generate $70 of revenue, you could just find one and offer a high-value service.
And that’s just one thing you could do with that hour. Here are three other ideas that will generate a return on your time investment:
You could also spend an hour improving retention—that has a monstrous effect on profitability. You could create and market a high-value specialty program to generate new revenue. You could plan a bring-a-friend marketing event to help current clients connect you with very warm leads who would benefit from your services.
Any of those suggestions would be better than losing money in an hour.
Had I realized all this in 2012, I’d be tens of thousands of dollars ahead. Thankfully, info like this is now readily available, and it will help you run a profitable gym, PT studio, affiliate or access gym.
To get our 56-page “State of the Industry” report, click here.
And if you want help figuring out exactly how to use the info in our report to improve your business fast, consider working with a Two-Brain mentor.
The post Poorly Attended Classes Are Costing You a Lot of Money appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 8, 2022
Her Gym Grossed $6k Per Month. Now It Pays Her $6k Per Month.
Ashley Kates: (00:02)
Hi, my name is Ashley Kates. I am the owner of Mom+me Strong in Lexington, South Carolina. And through the Two-Brain RampUp program, I went from grossing less than $6,000 a month to paying myself $6,000 a month.
Mike Warkentin: (00:15)
Wow. Ashley, will you tell us the story of exactly how that happens so other listeners can have the same success?
Ashley Kates: (00:22)
Well, the bottom line is policies and procedures. It’s getting all of the backend completely organized, knowing my mission, my vision, and then implementing everything with bravery.
Mike Warkentin: (00:32)
Okay, we’re gonna dig into that in just a second. Listeners, this is Run a Profitable Gym. We’re gonna teach you how to do exactly that, and Ashley is gonna help today. Please hit subscribe wherever you are watching or listening. Now, Ashley, that’s a huge number. You told me before the show that you had some other really, really big numbers. Can you tell me about your client growth and your average revenue per member from April to October in our RampUp program?
Ashley Kates: (00:57)
Yeah, so my member stats, I had roughly less than 20 and it was an in and out sort of situation. We were losing just as much as we were gaining per month. And now we’re right around 50 and my goal was to hit 40 members by the end of the year. And I did that before October.
Mike Warkentin: (01:14)
Wow. And average revenue, how did that change?
Ashley Kates: (01:16)
Oh man. My average revenue per client was roughly around $150 per member. And now we’re upwards of $300 per member.
Mike Warkentin: (01:24)
So, doubled.
Ashley Kates: (01:25)
Yeah, doubled in less than six months. May, June, July, August, yeah.
Mike Warkentin: (01:30)
Okay. So these are huge stats and listeners, you gotta know that it’s not a numbers game with members. There are gyms with 400, 500, a thousand members that are not profitable. You can make a great living from a much smaller number of members if you charge the right amount and provide the right amount of value. So Ashley has done that, where she’s now taking a solid wage from her gym with a small number of members who see incredible value in her service. We’re gonna talk about how she put that in place in RampUp. RampUp is, if you don’t know already, that is Two-Brain’s introductory program. It’s a 12 week accelerated mentorship sprint. It’s designed to help you build a profitable, stable business. In RampUp, you’re gonna work with a mentor to figure out what to offer, who you want in your gym, what you should charge, how you should get clients, how to keep those clients for years, how to pay your staff, all the stuff, the basics that you need to run a profitable gym. After that, you can graduate into our Growth program where you work one-on-one with a mentor to target very specific things to grow the business further. But RampUp is that first step. Ashley did that and had great success. So you talked a little bit in the intro about some of the things that happened. Tell me the very, you start up RampUp, your gym is not doing what you want it to do. What are the first things that happened?
Ashley Kates: (02:41)
It was a lot of behind the scenes work. It was analyzing the systems that I have. I think the biggest thing that made the hugest impact initially was understanding the client journey and building out, what does it look like for a person to join my studio from their perspective? What’s their experience gonna be from the very first contact we make til their 90th day with us? But also, what does that look like on the back end? What has to happen as far as lead nurturing, which is a phrase I didn’t even consider before. What happens with touches, with policies? What contracts do they need to sign? What policies do I need to have in place that protect them and protect me and run smoothly?
Mike Warkentin: (03:25)
I bet you’re a great coach. I’ll put you on the spot. You’re a pretty good fitness coach.
Ashley Kates: (03:28)
I would say so, yeah.
Mike Warkentin: (03:29)
Yeah. And most gym owners are, they’re passionate about their craft. They know what they’re doing. I put myself in the same category. However, I did not know how to run a business. So when you’re talking about the client journey, I had no idea. I thought the client journey was someone Googles something, shows up at my door, I throw that person into a free class, we sweat together, maybe throw up, and then that person either signs up or leaves. And I didn’t think about what happened in between. I didn’t think about the systems behind that, any of the structures. So you started with the RampUp program and looked at your client journey, put those things in place to now figure out how exactly do I get the right people in my door? And then how do I help them give them the best chance to stay for the longest period ever? Did you see your retention of members change as a result of looking at that client journey?
Ashley Kates: (04:11)
Oh my gosh, completely. And one of the biggest holes I noticed is I did exactly what you did. I let people try classes for free and then we maybe did or did not get a chance to schedule an appointment to talk. And there were so many holes for people to fall out of. Now it’s like a 70% chance if you come into the studio and you meet with me, you’re gonna join. Whereas before, it was maybe 1% of the people that came in.
Mike Warkentin: (04:35)
So people who come in, you get to meet them and they sign up far more often than they ever did before. Which means you’re solving a problem of acquiring clients and your retention is better because we know for a fact at Two-Brain that this introductory program and a No-Sweat Intro to start, a free consultation, a plan, 90 day check-ins, all of a stuff in the client journey, we know for a fact it improves retention, which means you don’t need to find as many members and if they’re high value members, you’re multiplying everything because you have great members who pay a lot and stay a long time. That’s the basis of a solid business. Right. Did you use the No-Sweat Intro free consultation process as well?
Ashley Kates: (05:11)
I did. Well, not before Two-Brain, but that is mandatory now.
Mike Warkentin: (05:15)
And what happened when you put it in?
Ashley Kates: (05:18)
Oh, it was a game changer. First of all, people were signing up, but it was because they knew what to expect and we were able to communicate that effectively and clearly with them. And they felt heard. They felt that their experience here was gonna be exactly what they needed and not something from a big box. But also it allowed me to sell something that costs more money instead of just paying a regular membership. We were now selling personal training. We were selling nutrition accountability, nutrition coaching. So instead of someone joining and paying just $39 per week and where they maybe did or did not actually stay, now I’m taking in up front 5, 7, 8, and a thousand dollars. Wow.
Mike Warkentin: (06:03)
So you can tell me from ground level, when you put a No-Sweat Intro process in place, your average revenue per member improved.
Ashley Kates: (06:11)
Oh yes. Exponentially.
Mike Warkentin: (06:14)
And that is backed up by data. I knew the answer to that question because we’ve seen it every single time we talk to a gym owner who’s put in a No-Sweat Intro process. That’s a free consultation where you ask the client, what do you wanna accomplish? Here’s the plan, sign up, here’s the price. Every single gym owner who does that, average revenue per member goes up. So we’ve solved a couple of problems very quickly. You’ve talked about how you’re selling more average revenue per member. You’ve got some retention in place. How do you find clients now? Did RampUp help you acquire, find clients out there in the world?
Ashley Kates: (06:44)
What is very strange, I think it’s more of a law of attraction thing is, once I got my stuff together, I feel like because we were more prepared and capable of helping people in a more well rounded way, they just started coming. So typically we just do Facebook and Instagram posts. We weren’t even doing paid ads. I didn’t start paid social media promotion until last month. So it was all word of mouth and just regular old Facebook posts.
Mike Warkentin: (07:12)
And the interesting part about that is that you do not need to spend money on advertising if you’re acquiring the right number of high value clients. Why spend money on ads if you have the clients you want? I’m gonna guess that if your gym is named Mom+Me Strong, you have a pretty good idea of who you serve. Did RampUp help you exactly figure out your ideal client and how to make that client happiest?
Ashley Kates: (07:31)
Yeah, I think 100% it helped me put the idea, which was, I think a lot of us as business owners, we have the ideas in our heads and we don’t put it to paper. ‘Cause I would say my skill set is ideas, not the organizational piece. So what RampUp did is it helped me put it together in a way like I shared earlier, where it could be clearly communicated with people so they knew what to expect and more specifically address the issues that mothers, women tend to deal with.
Mike Warkentin: (07:58)
So we’re coaches, we like to coach and deal with people and do all the fun stuff in the gym. Some of us don’t like to do the back end stuff. And you said that maybe that’s not your favorite part of things. So how did you feel going into RampUp knowing that that was gonna be the focus and, you know, was it worth the investment to focus on these procedures and policies and things that maybe you didn’t want to?
Ashley Kates: (08:17)
Short answer: 100%. It was worth it 100%. I knew it was what I was gonna have to do, but I also knew enough about myself to know that what Two-Brain was gonna teach me are all the things that I am not good at. And that’s why I’m paying for you guys. I got myself to grossing six grand a month from nothing from Covid, but if I wanna go to the next level, I have to hire people that are experts. And your stats didn’t lie. And so I just trusted the process and allowed myself to be uncomfortable.
Mike Warkentin: (08:49)
So I’m gonna throw two stats at you from our website. And this is, listeners, RampUp, 93% of students add enough revenue by the end of the 12 weeks to fully pay for the program and 97% would recommend it to another gym owner. Ashley, do you agree with those numbers?
Ashley Kates: (09:03)
Yes. In fact, the program costs roughly about $10,000. And I took in gross $15,000 before I finished RampUp. And I did recommend Two-Brain to another gym owner on the other side of town who also signed up with Two-Brain.
Mike Warkentin: (09:19)
And it’s cool that you’re working with someone local to improve the market down there. Like, how cool is that?
Ashley Kates: (09:23)
It’s amazing.
Mike Warkentin: (09:25)
Let’s fill a little bit of background for listeners. Describe your business to me. What’s kind of the nuts and bolts of your gym? Who do you serve? How do you serve them?
Ashley Kates: (09:34)
So we’re a private training studio specifically for women. We’re not a bootcamp facility, we’re not a gym. So we offer personal training, small group classes. And the classes are never more than 10 women. So we can maintain a lot of intimacy and personalization to everything. We also do nutrition coaching, but we tend to digress from calorie counting and macros. We wanna create healthy relationships with food. So we focus more on intuitive eating, not “eat cupcake ’cause you want it”, but more like, what are the triggers behind your choices? Why are you making these decisions? And then working towards healing that relationship. And then one thing that’s very, very unique to us is we also offer a core and pelvic floor program that I created about six years ago called Heal and Seal for diastasis recti and the pelvic floor.
Mike Warkentin: (10:18)
So you’ve got your market dialed in, your service packages, you’ve got them all together. If I would come into your gym, and again, I’m not the right gender for it, but if I came into your gym and I said, Hey, I want to make changes to my entire life, fitness, health, everything. I want your best package. Tell me what your best package holds. What’s in there.
Ashley Kates: (10:36)
Yeah. So let’s dive into that. The best package, especially for a woman who deals with anything core, pelvic floor related, you would do heal and seal. Specifically, you’d do one on one with me. That’s $400. Our classes are $45 per week, but I’d probably tell you to do personal training, and we all know that twice a week and once a week doesn’t get you where you wanna be. So three times a week is where you would go. We’d also do nutrition coaching and that would be a 90 day process as well. It all would be a 90 day journey. So you’re looking at roughly spending 3200 dollars.
Mike Warkentin: (11:08)
For a 90 day journey that includes a combination of nutrition, personal training, group stuff, and specific pelvic floor work.
Ashley Kates: (11:15)
Yep.
Mike Warkentin: (11:16)
Okay. So $3,200 over 90 days, that is a pretty solid chunk of revenue. What happens at the end of that 90 days?
Ashley Kates: (11:24)
We do what’s called a goal review. So we sit down with, well, so we have check-ins along the way because it’s very important that you’re making sure as you’re walking through the journey, that they’re getting what they’re expecting, that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. So these little check-ins along the way are important. We do that at 30 days, 60 days and then the 90 day goal review. And we’ll basically take all the measurements that we took from the first, second, third check-in and we’ll compare them. How do you feel about your progress? Where do you wanna go from here? And then then we do a prescription. Where do I as your professional and your leader think that we should be focusing on next? And they agree or they disagree. Most of the time they agree. And then we tend to continue along a very similar path with the training. Nutrition, most of our women feel very comfortable and confident navigating that on their own. I’d say about 95%.
Mike Warkentin: (12:15)
Ok. If you’re listening to this show, if you do not have a 90 day goal review session in place, and it can be earlier, this could be sooner, shouldn’t be later than that. If you don’t have some sort of contact in place, you are leaving money on the table because members are going to leave. This is a retention tool. And at these meetings, as Ashley said, a significant portion of members are going to upgrade their services, which gives you an opportunity to sell them more stuff. We’re not selling it as a slimy, oh yeah. You want the cup holders and the automatic windows and stuff like that. You are selling them things that will help them accomplish their fitness goals. Right. I’d like to make faster progress. Sign up for our nutrition program. Has that been your experience? Like a lot of gym owners say, ah, selling, I hated it, slimy. Has that been your experience in this process with the prescriptive model? That it’s not a slimy thing, it’s a “help first” quote unquote perspective.
Ashley Kates: (13:04)
Yeah, I would say before Two-Brain I always felt like I was being a salesperson by pitching things to them. But now it makes sense because of the way that they have a script for doing the No-Sweat Intro after reading it, studying it, and then applying it with women, having just a conversation about it. It’s very, very natural. You’re having these problems. These are the programs we have that can and will solve those problems, and this is what it’s gonna cost. What fits your budget and what time commitment are you willing to make? And then we sign and it moves forward.
Mike Warkentin: (13:37)
All the stuff, if you’re listening, is laid out in a specific plan. It’s not just, you need to put a prescriptive process in place. It is described step by step. You can take the stuff that we have, tailor it to your specific business, follow the framework, make the adjustments. Obviously if you’re looking at moms, you’re gonna do some slightly different things as opposed to if you’re looking at power lifters or whatever other fitness niche you are looking at. But the stuff is all there in front of you. So is it fair to say in RampUp that you have accomplished everything that you wanted to through the program?
Ashley Kates: (14:07)
More than that, yes. I am blown away. And I just wanna preface for people who are listening who may have the disbelief like I did, that it was possible to happen to me. I am shocked that I am at a $20,000 month, that my husband was able to quit his job and be a stay at home father. These are things that I never thought were gonna happen to me or if they were to happen, it would probably take me 10 years to get there. And in less than six months I’ve accomplished all of this and it’s because of the structure and coaching that Two-Brain has put together and I am obscenely grateful for this.
Mike Warkentin: (14:41)
Oh, that is amazing. What’s next now? So you’re going onto the Growth program and what are your goals now? So you’ve gone through RampUp, put the structure in place and in the Growth stage, mentors still work one on one, but there’s this gigantic toolkit of stuff. You don’t have to use all of it. You use specific things that a mentor will tell you, right now you need this. So what are you working on right now to take your business further?
Ashley Kates: (15:03)
Right now I’m creating extra programs that are gonna bring in more revenue, that don’t require more effort from me. So we’re gonna do a deadlift clinic, we’re doing some kid classes and these are extra opportunities for my coaches to make money too. And we’re specifically setting the goal to expand our facility by June of next year. In fact, next week for Thanksgiving, my dad is coming up from New Orleans and we’re gonna be knocking down one of the offices to make space for a personal training area.
Mike Warkentin: (15:31)
He’s handy.
Ashley Kates: (15:32)
Yeah.
Mike Warkentin: (15:33)
. Ok, that’s good. That’s nice to have that in the family. Listeners, here’s an idea. If you have a gym and specifically if you serve mothers, if you don’t have a kids program, you’re leaving money on the table. Pretty obvious one, but a lot of us don’t realize things like that. When I decided to put a kids program in my gym, and it was just a general gym that served everyone, all I did was start the program and parents signed their kids up. I didn’t market it, I didn’t advertise, I didn’t do anything other than tell them. Kids program, obvious one. Ashley, tell me how you create a program like that and give it to a staff member without creating a major headache and more work for you. How do you delegate that to a staff member?
Ashley Kates: (16:12)
Oh man. SOPs, this is something that Taryn says all the time, standard operating procedure. Like you literally type out everything the exact way you want it done and you communicate, you problem solve with them, troubleshoot. So I just met with the girl who’s teaching our kids class and we went through what is it gonna look like, what’s the structure, what’s the goal, what are we accomplishing, how do people sign up, what’s the step one to step 10? And then I just pass it off and then she has the opportunity to come to me when she has questions. But I think a big key is hiring the right person. Not hiring someone out of desperation, but hiring someone for a specific role. And so that’s made a big difference too.
Mike Warkentin: (16:51)
And laying out exactly what the expectations are, what the roles and responsibilities are, and then if you pay them in a certain way, the coach, we call it the four ninth model, 44% to the coach. That’s a great wage. And if the coach generates more income, the coach makes more, the gym makes more. And the best part is that the owner doesn’t have to do the work. All you have to do is put the roles and responsibilities in place. They can then be cut and pasted for all sorts of different programs. Use that structure. So for example, if you decided to do a deadlift program, like you suggest or maybe you decided I’m gonna do a pull up program or something like that, the whole thing just copies and then from there you got coaches making great wages. So you went from, just to put an exclamation point on it. You went from not being able to make a great wage yourself to doing that now, having your husband quit his job and getting coaches who are now working for you and making great wages.
Ashley Kates: (17:39)
Yeah, so I was pulling in maybe $2,000 a month and that was hit or miss, and now my minimum intake is $6,000 per month. I was working 50 to 60 hours per week. Now I work about 25. I had two team members and they were not very into the mission at all. And now I just signed on two new coaches. So I have a team of five women and they are bought in. They’re actually getting to our January jumpstart program with just the team. So we’re all gonna start together next month and they’re all bought in. So yes, like everything is just 180 since starting two grand.
Mike Warkentin: (18:16)
Wow. I’m not gonna yak a whole lot longer because listeners, I want you to go and click the link in the show notes, check out the RampUp program. You can verify, Ashley has laid out exactly what’s in there. You can take a look at what we offer and it can change your gym. This is Run a Profitable Gym, that’s the name of the show and we teach you how to do that. RampUp, Growth, Tinker. There’s a progression. Two-Brain can take you through it. Ashley, close it out for me. What would you say to someone right now who’s looking at this and saying, this sounds too good to be true. I don’t think this works, I don’t know about mentorship. What would you say to that person?
Ashley Kates: (18:45)
First of all, the stats don’t lie. That was the very first question I asked my introductory call person. What’s the return on investment? And when he said, on average it was right around $600 per month, I said, great, I’m signed up. ‘Cause if you know that number right off the bat, then there’s no lies, no hidden things. Secondly, what are you gonna do if you don’t do this? Like, where are you gonna be in six, seven months? It’s worth it. All you have to do is pull your bootstraps up. It is hard work and that’s what it’s supposed to be, especially in the beginning. But if you can just buckle down and follow the step by step, it’s all laid out. You can just follow the steps. You will see growth, you will get to where you wanna be, as long as you’re willing to commit the time and let go of your limiting beliefs and what you think should be done.
Mike Warkentin: (19:28)
Ashley, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re gonna help a lot of gym members.
Ashley Kates: (19:31)
I hope so.
Mike Warkentin: (19:34)
This is Run a Profitable Gym. Please hit subscribe on your way out, wherever you’re watching or listening. Now, here is Chris Cooper with a final note.
Chris Cooper: (19:43)
Hey, it’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. The Gym Owners United Facebook group has more than 5,600 members and it’s growing daily. If you aren’t benefiting from the free tips and tactics and resources that I post daily in that group, what are you waiting for? Get in there and grow your business. That’s Gym Owners United on Facebook, or www.GymOwnersUnited.com. Join today.
The post Her Gym Grossed $6k Per Month. Now It Pays Her $6k Per Month. appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 5, 2022
How to Build a Referral Network for Your Gym
Chris Cooper: (00:01)
The key to exponential growth in your gym is to have your clients bring you more clients. I’m Chris Cooper. I’m the founder of Two-Brain Business. And if this episode is helpful or you want to get more tips and tactics, go to GymOwnersUnited.com. It’s a free public group with over 6,000 other caring, empathetic, tactful, and thoughtful gym owners. And you can ask your questions in there about any aspect of gym ownership. Today I want to talk to you about building a referral culture. And the number one reason that gym owners don’t get enough referrals is that they don’t have referrals baked into their process. And also because their clients aren’t expecting to generate referrals, they’re not expecting to be asked about their friends or family. Today I’m gonna talk about building that referral culture in your gym. Now, this isn’t a passive process.
Chris Cooper: (00:50)
You want your clients to bring you more clients, but you can’t just sit back and wait for it to happen. Your clients are not salespeople, they’re not evangelists. They probably love you, but unless somebody asks, who’s your coach? Or how did you lose all that weight? They’re probably not going to talk about you. So today, I’m gonna tell you how we’ve built a referral system at my gym and hundreds of other gyms worldwide. While we do occasionally run Facebook ads, around once a quarter, most of our clients come from direct referrals. Yes, of course you have to do a good job. Yes, of course you have to get people results, but that’s not why we get referrals. We get referrals because we’ve built a culture of referral instead of a culture of secrecy. In the first 90 days that they’re with your gym, a client is very likely to refer a friend.
Chris Cooper: (01:42)
So that’s where we’re gonna start. If you’re in the Two-Brain family, pull out your client journey from the Growth Toolkit and start taking notes. So here are the steps. Number one, prepare your client to refer their friends. At your first meeting with a client, say this: if I do a great job and you’re happy with your progress in 90 days, I’m going to ask you for the name of one other person who could benefit from this service. Okay? That’s it. Step two, do an excellent job and get the client some results. And you’re already great at this part. Step three, ask for a referral at your 90 day goal review. Measure the client’s progress, record the client’s story, and then say, you have made amazing progress. You’ve probably noticed how warm and friendly everybody is here. We curate our membership by working only with amazing people.
Chris Cooper: (02:36)
Who in your life would fit into this group? And then you make sure that you get that person’s name and their contact information. Then you ask, How would you feel about calling them right now while I’ve got you here? Now, this is a 50/50. Some clients won’t feel comfortable, and that’s fine. But if the client agrees, call that new lead and say, Hey Alan, I’m sitting here with Joan and we were just talking about you. She would like to invite you in to work out with her. What do you say? If the client would rather not have you cold call their friend, you could email instead, right? Just cc your client on the email for credibility. So your subject line is, like, your client’s name, Joan Lichowitz. And the text is like, Hey Alan, I was just chatting with Joan here and we agreed that we’d love to have you in for a partner workout.
Chris Cooper: (03:27)
Joan’s next appointment will be May the 3rd at three o’clock. Can you make it? This type of direct referral works best with low hanging fruit, right? Your client’s best referral, like their spouse or their sister, who’s probably pre-qualified and ready to try something new. These conversations will result in a new client 37% of the time. So what that means is that you can take 10 clients, put them through a goal review and come out with 14. And the beautiful part is that it’s gonna be 14 good matches who aren’t price shopping, who fit into the same demographic as your current clients, et cetera. Now, I want to talk about extending that process out over the first year. Your newest clients are the most excited about your service. And in his book, “Never Lose a Customer Again”, Joey Coleman says that evangelism is most likely to happen around that 90 day mark.
Chris Cooper: (04:21)
So I just told you what to say on day zero and what to say on day 90. And if you’re in Two-Brain, you can pull out your client journey map because I’m gonna share another referral strategy for the rest of the client’s first year. So to recap. Day zero, you set the expectation that you’re going to ask them a referral if you get them results. Day 90, you’re going to ask for the client’s most likely good referral. Okay? Now let’s talk about the rest of the year. Every 90 days you wanna book a goal review session with your client. So I’ve already said what to say on day 90. This is Day 180. Okay? They’ve been with you now for six months. You can grab the cheat sheet from our Affinity marketing guide if you’re in Two-Brain. Go to the toolkit under Affinity Marketing and grab the cheat sheet.
Chris Cooper: (05:05)
But what you wanna do is, basically before you sit down with your client for their goal review session, you ask yourself a few questions. Who does that client live with? Who do they work with? Who do they hang around with? And that should give you at least three opportunities for referrals right away, or three ideas for referrals. But you wanna put actual names on the sheet. So if you don’t know enough about your client to know who they live with or where they work or who they hang out with, then use that first goal review session to learn more about them. Instead of asking for a referral, solidify your relationship first. Get it on solid ground and then try to expand it. Looking at the client’s relationships though, decide which person would be the most likely to need your service, then practice help first.
Chris Cooper: (05:52)
So ask yourself, how can your service help this new lead get to their goals? And then when you meet with the client, make an offer to help that connection. I wrote an entire book about this with dozens of specific examples for gym owners. But here’s one. Mary, I know that your husband Bill likes to golf. What does he do to stay in shape in the off season? And then you can invite Bill in to do a personal training session with Mary. It’s not a free personal training session, it’s just an explicit invitation to join Mary for the workout that she already has scheduled. Day 270. So their third goal review, meet with the client for another goal review session. Now, even if your last session didn’t result in a referral, you should ask again, but try somebody else in their life. So remember, even if only 30% of your referral requests result in a new client, that’s a 30% return on every client you have.
Chris Cooper: (06:49)
That is, by definition, exponential growth. If you invested a hundred dollars in the market and you earned a 5% return for 30 years, you’d have $433. Imagine if you add a 30% return on your current client headcount every single year. That is exponential growth. So do another goal review. Go through the Affinity Marketing cheat sheet, you know, pinpoint one other connection and ask how you can help. That’s it. Day 360, they’ve been with you for a year. This is when you invite a client’s friends or family or coworkers in for an event. So you could do a Bring a Friend Friday, you could do a wine and WOD or a corporate challenge, or a Ninja Warrior challenge for kids, or even a birthday party or an invitation to watch them do a workout in the CrossFit Open. All of these can result in amazing referrals.
Chris Cooper: (07:39)
So here are some approaches to try. Hey Mary, we’re doing our quarterly “Bring a Friend Friday” next week. Who would you like to invite to do a partner workout with you? Mary, we’re hosting a women’s-only workout on Friday. I’m gonna bring in some wine. Who would you like to invite from your friend’s list? Mary, I know this time of year is stressful at work. What if we invited your team in on Friday night for a fun little workout challenge to blow off some steam? I’ll bring the snacks, you bring them. Mary, I know your daughter’s baseball team is nearing the end of their season. What if we brought them in for a team party on Saturday? I’ll set up a little Ninja Warrior challenge. You can bring in a snack and we’ll just let them have fun for an hour. How about it? Hey, Bill, I’m sure Mary’s been talking to you about the CrossFit Open at home.
Chris Cooper: (08:25)
She’s nervous, but she’s gonna do amazing. I’d love to have you join us. Lots of spouses and families come in to watch. Make it a surprise if you want to. The event is Thursday at 6:00 PM and I can save you a seat. Can you make it? Now of course, getting a body into the gym isn’t the same as signing the person up, but it’s a great way to start that conversation while you’re chatting to that new lead. Your goal is to get the person to book a No-Sweat Intro. The key is to look for ways to meet the people who surround your clients. My first three clients at Catalyst were teen athletes. My next 30 were their friends and their parents because I showed up at their events. Sometimes I even took a tent. And so now I’m gonna tell you how to set up a referral network in your town.
Chris Cooper: (09:11)
The way that I’ve done it, nobody refers to their competition, right? Everybody refers to their friends. If the people in your town know you, like you and trust you, they will refer to you even if they don’t use the service themselves. Catalyst is a very successful gym in a very poor town that is now in its 19th year. And while we do run Facebook ads once a quarter, we always have a constant stream of new clients from referrals. This is because we actively ask for referrals. We practice help first and we tactfully ask clients how we can help their friends. But we don’t offer discounts for referring friends. We don’t offer bribes for referring friends. We don’t run contests to see who can refer the most friends. And we don’t trade free membership for new contracts. I just don’t feel good about any of those tactics, and I don’t need them and neither do you.
Chris Cooper: (10:04)
So here’s how we do it. Number one, we earn the trust of healthcare professionals. When new clients sign up, we ask them, are you seeing a physiotherapist or a chiropractor outside the gym? And if they say yes, then we ask for permission to send their workouts to the healthcare provider just to be on the safe side. Now, most healthcare providers know way less about fitness than you do, and you don’t need their permission. But set your ego aside for five minutes, and that’s all it takes to build an amazing bridge. So you just email the healthcare professional and say, Hey, Dr. Roberts, it’s Chris here from Catalyst. Your patient Mary Green has just started at my gym. I’m really excited to help her improve her fitness. My plan for the first 90 days looks like this. And you can just give a really quick summary. You say, I can send you the specifics if you like, but as always, if you have any fears or known contraindications, just reply to this email.
Chris Cooper: (10:59)
Have a great day. Now, I’ve been sending those emails for about 17 years, and the referrals that they’ve earned me have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve had doctors and therapists sign up for my gym, and some of them have even stayed for 10 years. But not once has a single professional responded with, That’s a bad plan, or I would do something different. Most of them are absolutely thrilled that you even included them in the conversation. One quick note, if physical therapists see you doing “therapy” in quotation marks at your gym, or any healthcare pros see you trying to act outside of your scope of practice, your domain of expertise, they will never ever refer to you. So in a previous podcast, I said, you gotta get the therapy out of your gym and form a web instead of trying to fix every problem yourself.
Chris Cooper: (11:47)
Here’s my second note. Avoid forming a formal referral agreement with any one provider. I’ve tempted to do this many times, but you’re better to keep lines open with everybody. You’ll probably be the only coach in town following this strategy. You’ll earn the trust of nearly everyone. It’s better to keep that trust than to try and go deep with one chiropractor or doctor who might refer you three people a year for 20 bucks each time. All right, so step one was earn the trust of healthcare professionals. Step two is publish a lot. Nothing builds trust like media. So you need to use that superpower for good by sharing free information with your community, right? You don’t sell information, you sell coaching. You give your information away for free. This isn’t just a marketing strategy, it’s a nurture strategy. It’s a retention strategy. It’s a recapture client strategy. Overall, it’s a trust building strategy.
Chris Cooper: (12:42)
I often tell my coaches, teach our clients to know more about fitness than any other coach in town. Now for Two-Brain clients, we have a huge bank of blog content that you can just swipe and use in the Growth toolkit, right? Use that. There’s more than a year’s worth of stuff in there that you can just copy-paste. The third strategy is to show up everywhere. Bring a banner, bring a tent, be bright. Like, the catalyst colors are black and silver and bright green because that shade of green is visible from a greater distance than any other color. Forget the artistic ads. Forget the t-shirts. They don’t count. Get your plain logo out to the public. A catchy phrase or even your logo won’t attract any new clients. But we all have recency bias. We think that the brand that we see the most often must be the best.
Chris Cooper: (13:33)
So earlier I said that my first three clients were teen athletes, and my next 30 clients were their parents and teammates. That’s because I used to show up at track meets carrying a tent in a big green banner. My clients would show up at the tent to stretch with me before their races or their games. Their friends would see them and I’d often tell them like, Hey, it’s okay to bring in your friend to stretch with you. I would give them warmups to do and stuff like that. Did I ask permission to show up with a tent? Never. But I was never told to go away. Either parents would point me out to other parents, Oh, that’s Janine’s coach. I used to come home from these events with two or three new clients every time, and I would call them the following day and sign them up.
Chris Cooper: (14:12)
Number four is wake the neighbors. You want your gym to be at the center of a sticky web of referrals. So walk around to all the neighboring businesses with coffee. Make friends. When their clients ask about you, because they will, your neighbor will say, Oh, I know she’s great. You would be surprised how important that is in fitness. I screwed this up. So, when I opened our second location, this was 2006, we were in a second story location. We were right above this store that sold sweaters and fancy clothes to professional women, right? My target audience. And the first day, I meant to take some coffees down to meet the neighbors, introduce myself, and I forgot. And of course, at 7:00 PM I had a client drop a snatch bar and it knocked out all of the track lighting in the store below.
Chris Cooper: (15:04)
We got off on the wrong foot. They hated us. And any women who came into that store for the next five years heard that we were jerks and loud and crazy upstairs. I totally shut down that avenue. Before you can ruin a relationship by having one of your clients pushing a sled behind the parked car of the tire store next door, forge a friendship. Go take them coffee, wake the neighbors. Number five is be a pro. While it’s super important to maintain a positive reputation in your town, it’s more important to maintain a professional one. I have had bad local reviews. I’ve had a parent write a letter to the editor because I wouldn’t refund her kid. It’s more important to be consistent than it is to please everybody. People wanna know that they’ll be treated with warmth and professionalism. So if somebody leaves you a bad review, you wanna respond to that review on Google or Facebook or wherever else with, I’m sorry this didn’t work for you.
Chris Cooper: (16:04)
We have policies that we adhere to to provide the best possible service for our clients. That’s your response. That’s a professional response that you can give consistently. It is more important to be consistently professional than it is to be positive all the time. Okay? You have to be kind, you have to be tactful. You have to publish your rules and your agreements, and you have to stick with them a hundred percent of the time. Potential clients are watching, even when you think they’re not. Reputation is a pillar of longevity in any service business. The key above all to getting referrals is to not wait for them, to actively pursue them. Now I’m gonna talk about what happens when you get to the Tinker phase. You’re making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. How does this referral network help you then? Well, your job as an entrepreneur is to be the CEO of your business.
Chris Cooper: (16:58)
And that means that your job is to match new services to your audience and to forge new partnerships. In short, your job is to be the connector. Whether you have one client and you’re in the Founder phase, or 300 clients, a million dollar gym, and you’re in the Tinker phase, being the connector is your job. But the connections that you forge will change and become more valuable over time. So I just told you several ways to set up a referral culture in and around your business. Now I want to have you set up a referral web for your whole town. This works best when your business has been around for a while, has a good reputation, and shows obvious signs of success. Because I’ve been around a while, I’m often the first fitness professional that the media contacts when they need a quote. I’m often in the local news because we’ve made donations through the gym or something like that.
Chris Cooper: (17:48)
And I’ve met dozens of other business owners through my gym. So when my gym needs five new clients, I don’t turn to Instagram. I turn to my contact list in my brain. I think about other entrepreneurs in town. I send them a text or an invitation for a coffee, and then slowly I turn that conversation to exercise. Then I invite them to join me at the gym, where I offer to introduce them to a trainer. My niche is really entrepreneurs. Yours might be too, or you might be something different. You probably have entrepreneurs in your gym, but you can use a help first strategy with nurses or teachers or any profession to form a tight bond, right? You wanna be known as the one who helps first responders in time of crisis. The way that you get that reputation is not to give them 20% off.
Chris Cooper: (18:36)
That’s not why they became a first responder. The way that you get that reputation is to send 50 lasagnas out to first responders when your city is going through a crisis. I’ve done that. You wanna be the one who works with the social workers in your town. You don’t do that by giving them 10% off if they refer a friend. You do that by buying bikes for local kids or collecting gifts at Christmas time. Alright? I like working with entrepreneurs at my gym, but you can do this with any service based business. So the way you start is that you set up a referral board at your gym. You pin up the business card of any professional who works for you. So I have a referral board at Catalyst. It’s just a cork board with client business cards pinned to it. Then you invite entrepreneurs and CEOs from your gym to a local round table or a coffee chat.
Chris Cooper: (19:25)
You can propose a topic if you want, but this isn’t a lecture. Your job is to connect them. So the last time we did this, I chose a topic. I said, We’re having really great luck with Facebook advertising right now. I’m happy to show you exactly how to do it. Do you wanna get together next Friday? And I’ll walk you through it and you can bring another business owner if you want. We had 13 people show up. Only five were members from my gyms. Some of them were absolute beginners with Facebook, right? Like one of them asked me, how do you get a website? And some were really advanced, like, what should our cost per lead be for lead ads with a video? But I had a really fun hour with five of my favorite clients and eight of their friends. And then we talked about the gym.
Chris Cooper: (20:07)
And if you have several entrepreneurs in your gym, then you can make the meetup a regular occurrence and introduce topics if you want, right? And if you’re in Two-Brain, I’m happy to send you copies of my books if that will help you, whatever, hand them out. If you wanna work with nurses, then what I would suggest is that you host a nurse’s week at your gym with lectures, nutrition, coaching. Maybe you do a free trial class just for nurses on the 3:00 PM shift or something like that. Or maybe you do lunch and learn meetups. Lots of mentors do that right now. They’ll find a local partner, they’ll offer to do a lunch and learn. They’ll go into that workplace and just teach for an hour. And then fourth is invite trusted connections into your gym to speak with your clients.
Chris Cooper: (20:52)
Right? So for example, I love my financial planner Jordan. Every March I want Jordan to come into Catalyst and tell people how to save money on their taxes. And then of course, they’ll have more money, which they will often spend at my gym. Jordan will probably get some clients. The caveat is that he has to email his clients too. So his clients come in, they get this tax seminar, they’re exposed to my gym and I get to meet them. Another example is we had a physio come in and talk with our clients about aging and fitness. And, you know, that was also awesome. This is a long and rewarding game. It takes a while to set this up. It takes even longer for it to bear fruit. But the strategy offers returns that compound over time, like any long term investment.
Chris Cooper: (21:37)
When shutdowns happened for two years, I kept over 70% of my clients the whole time. People referred to me, the media called me. Other practitioners were calling to say, Are you open yet? Right? I went out to lunch with people. I still get invitations to speak at local businesses. This referral strategy means that Catalyst does not have to run ads, even though we haven’t like actively pursued any new referral relationships in probably three years. The rewards are big enough that it can replace almost all of your marketing. And the best part is that while most marketing disappears or loses its effectiveness, over time, this grows and compounds and you get more and more from it. The book on this topic that I wrote is called “Help First”. But if you wanna talk about strategies that gyms are using, go to GymOwnersUnited.com. Join our Facebook group and ask about this episode. We’ll post a link to the episode in that group. We’ll share some comments, tactic strategies, and ideas below. And you can use these forever. They don’t run out. You can repeat them for as long as you want. I’m Chris Cooper. I hope this helps. Build yourself a sticky web.
The post How to Build a Referral Network for Your Gym appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
December 2, 2022
Good Times for Gym Owners, Says New York Times
Finally some good news for gym owners and the fitness industry.
On Nov. 8, The New York Times published an article with a few interesting stats:
From March to August in 2022, gym visits increased by more than 18 percent vs. that period in 2019—before the pandemic.Sales of new memberships increased.Sales per square foot were 34 percent higher in August 2022 than they were in August 2021, and they were very close to 2019 numbers.“Space that is newly occupied by fitness centers increased to more than 4.5 million square feet in the first three months of this year, from about 2 million at the end of 2021, outpacing other types of retailers.”The industry will hit 4.2 percent growth if 2022 patterns continue to Dec. 31.The article went on to suggest many landlords are eager to lease space to gyms, then suggested that ideal gym locations might be changing as more people work from home or get back to hitting the mall.
Finally, author Jane Margolies noted some post-pandemic changes to the gym world:
Some gym owners believe at-home cardio gear acquired during the pandemic has reduced the need for similar machines at a gym, so they’re getting rid of the equipment to create more space.New gear is showing up in some gyms—“air-powered resistance training equipment” was noted, though pneumatic machines aren’t new but perhaps just novel right now.Some gyms are tricking out their spaces with lighting and tripods to please social-media influencers who need all the camera angles as they chase #gainz.To provide on-demand content to clients, some gyms are running cameras and filming classes.“There’s also an emphasis on communal spaces where members can hang out and maybe get some work done from laptops.” (Please, please calculate the ROI on this move before making it.)
You can read the entire article here: “For Fitness Buffs and Landlords, Gyms Are Hot Again.”
After more than two years of misery in the media, it’s refreshing to get good news—especially with a recession looming. I love hearing entrepreneurs are opening new gyms, expanding gyms and testing improvements in gyms. Here are three tips to for people in each category:
If you’re opening a gym, check out the free resources on Startagym.com. This website will save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.If you’re planning to expand a gym, make sure you have your current situation locked down tight. A mentor can help you spot any holes that might get way bigger if you go bigger.
If you want to try out something new, be sure to research potential ROI first, then run tests and collect data on your key metrics. For example, it’s unlikely that adding a few workstations to your lobby will increase your revenue per square foot. And new equipment won’t bring in any new clients. But expanding the role of a client success manager is likely to produce clear improvements in length of engagement. Again, a mentor can help you avoid big mistakes and make the right moves at the right time.
Finally, remember this: Strong businesses are strong businesses regardless of external factors like pandemics and recessions.
If you’re still struggling right now, Two-Brain can help you solidify your gym so you’re prepared for the next crisis. And if you’re experiencing a boom, Two-Brain can help you grow at a sustainable rate and ensure your business becomes a platform for wealth generation and legacy building.
The post Good Times for Gym Owners, Says New York Times appeared first on Two-Brain Business.
