Chris Cooper's Blog, page 99

The Next Level for Gym Owners: Two-Brain’s Tinker Program

Mike (00:02):

Your gym is stable and profitable, but you’re an entrepreneur and you’re always looking for the next challenge. So what do you do? How do you do it and how do you acquire the skills you need to succeed at the next level? Today on Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper talks to Jeff Smith about the Tinker program for advanced entrepreneurs.

Chris (00:19):

Hey, everybody, it’s Coop here. And today I get to chat with Jeff Smith and Jeff runs the Tinker program for us at Two-Brain. Welcome Jeff.

Jeff (00:27):                                                                   

How you doing? Thanks for having me, Coop.

Chris (00:29):

The last podcast that Jeff and I did was about buying buildings and it was cool because we had to record it separately. And I was talking about commercial and Jeff was talking about residential because that’s just our personal preference. But there was a lot of overlap in that podcast. And a lot of people really loved it. Today, we’re gonna talk about the Tinker phase of gym ownership and the changes that an entrepreneur goes through as they kind of like, you know, go from this caterpillar into a beautiful Tinker butter fly or whatever, as they emerge from their chrysalis into Jeff Smith’s world. And like the mental changes that you have to go through, how you have to level up as a leader and other stuff too. So Jeff, why don’t we kick off with, like, when people come into the Tinker program, how do you see them leveling up as an entrepreneur?

Jeff (01:20):

Well, I think initially when they come in there’s a lot of overwhelm because it’s just another level. And so now they’ve leveled up where they’re used to dealing with their normal problems and day to day stuff that they understand. They’ve now kind of moved into a next phase where we’re inundating them with so much information again, that is not necessarily gym related, it’s new stuff. And there’s all these investment vehicles and all these different discussions going on and they just dive into it and they want to absorb it. But the initial thing is usually that little person on your shoulder creeps in and says, what are you doing here? Like, why are you here? You don’t belong in here. And then we deal with like this cycle of imposter syndrome that is inevitable for everybody.

Jeff (02:25):

And so I think when they come in, there’s just like this shell-shocked kind of version of them until they get comfortable. So we try to make them very comfortable, bring them in the group, cuz it is a super welcoming group, but it is also, it can be super overwhelming. Like people are talking accounting and taxes and money and insurance policies and all this that like most people try to avoid to this level. Right. And then you really wanna understand that it, there’s no rush in things like, and that’s the one thing that I try to impress on people when they come into the program is like, man, run your own race. Like you don’t have to be going out there and like, oh, I saw so and so’s buying Airbnb. So I guess I better go do that.

Jeff (03:13):

I saw so and so’s doing a hundred grand a year in their life insurance policy. So I better do that. The real thing we try to impress on them is that like just slow down, get some space from where you’ve been at. Or what issues do we need to separate you from in your business, in your primary business? Cause a lot of people are working on their primary business. I mean, I just had a call a minute ago about like the Tinker phase. And that was a specific question. Like am I working in my business too much to be considered a Tinker. And I think that that’s the wrong way to look at things like you should be asking yourself how you’re spending your time and are you spending your time effectively and efficiently. And then are you doing what you wanna be doing? And then is that actually the truth? Cuz the example I used for the gentleman that was on the phone is like, you may go out and take on six new high ticket clients cuz you wanna make 20 grand for the gym this month, but really is that what you wanna be doing?

Jeff (04:32):

Cause the farmer phase is really about like putting your systems and structure in place and then pouring on the gasoline and making money. Like the Tinker phase is like detaching yourself a little bit so you can get a hundred mile view of what you’ve been doing. And then like, are you doing things the way you wanna be doing them? And sometimes the guys come back and they’re like, well, not exactly, but we need to by tweak ve degrees and then I wanna go to a million bucks a year. OK, cool. Like stay in your gym or I want to go and I want to open five more locations, that’s a different thing to do. Other people just get more effective and efficient with their businesses and they spend less time in there cuz they wanna spend more time with their family, but they wanna make the same amount of money and that might be your ultimate goal.

Jeff (05:31):

So it really just doesn’t matter. I think you and I, the reason that this podcast is happening, cuz we were chatting last week and I mentioned that most people come out of the farmer phase with like a level of PTSD for business cuz they’ve just been getting beaten with lessons and that’s how we all learn. Right. And part of being able to take a different view and a different perspective and hear other people’s problems and what they’re working on and aspirations, it really is just eyeopening to where you can be going truly with just a few different levels of thought. And then also who you surround yourself with or you’re connected to, sorry.

Chris (06:23):

Yeah man. That’s great. And the PTSD really was the trigger. And when you said that to me last week I laughed out loud. Then I said, oh my goodness, we gotta record this. So, I wanna start with that imposter syndrome that you mentioned first, this is what stops a lot of people from joining a mastermind. I know you and I have certainly felt that in different masterminds that we’ve been in. So Jeff, what is the value of imposter syndrome and how do you overcome it?

Jeff (06:49):

Man, the value of it, I oftentimes use it as a reason to dig deeper on like what exactly the stories I’m telling myself are. But it also can be just an indicator that you’re actually doing, you’re in the right room because you’re taking steps to do things that scare you to continue to make progress. Cause I believe that you’re either moving forward or you’re moving backwards in life or business, both. And a lot of times we just get paralyzed by not doing anything because we don’t know how to make a decision. There’s no catastrophic decision you can make. Truly. I mean, you’re not gonna go to zero tomorrow for any reason. There’s no fatal decisions. It’s just about continuing to make decisions. The imposter syndrome that you experience in this program or any other mastermind that we’ve been a part of, like they’re all the same.

Jeff (07:53):

You have to recognize that everybody’s human and that everybody has a journey that they’re on of their own. Like, I mean I met some crazy successful people that all have their own problems and like they may be different than yours and your skillset may be far ahead of them in certain areas. And that’s kind of what you don’t realize. You have to kind of take yourself back and be like these aren’t celebrities, these are just people that, they’ve done the same thing that you’re doing. And they’re either, it’s different timing or they’ve been on it longer or like there’s just different levels. Like that’s the one thing that I got down rabbit hole with really digging into the Tinker program over the past few years and thinking about like where we’re at, what level we’re on from a wealth perspective, from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Jeff (08:54):

And like everybody in the program is, with the exception of one person, has been in business less than 15 years. And I am also a huge believer that the magic doesn’t even start to happen until two decades in. And so like when you talk about impost syndrome, like you just need to slow down and put it into perspective. Like you’ve been in business five years, man. Like you expect to be a nine figure business and like having all these multiples and IPOing like, that’s not happening yet for you, but that’s not to say that by year 30 in business, you couldn’t just dominate that and achieve everything you’re looking to do. Like I’ve had a lot of conversations with the people in the group that are coming in and they’re in their late twenties, early thirties. And I’m like, man, you are so far ahead of me that you’re gonna be, you’re gonna have such a foundation and a wealth platform built by the time you’re 40 years old that like anything and everything that you want to achieve with your family, you’ll be able to have it by 50 and it’s true, but you have to take skills and perspective and pour time on top of them because it’s not a fast situation.

Jeff (10:17):

So there’s nobody in that group that will hit year 25 in business and not have really everything they want possible in life.

Chris (10:27):

OK, man, that’s awesome. For me, joining any new mastermind I’ve learned, like I should try to find my niche. So what I’ll do is if I’m showing up and I know everybody’s earning way more money than I am, or they have a bigger business, I’ll say, does anybody wanna work out at 6:00 AM tomorrow before we start? Right. Because that’s something that I know that maybe, you know, other people don’t, or I’ll say, Hey, is anybody here writing a book? I’m just finishing one or whatever, and like find a little niche and if you can get to know two or three people around the table with you, then that often helps you feel like you fit in.

Jeff (11:03):

Yeah.

Chris (11:03):

The next thing I wanna ask you about was the joke that you made about PTSD in farmer phase and how you’re just getting smashed with so many lessons. And I think I had that for 10 years, right? Like what are some of these examples, Jeff, that like the big lessons that we have to learn in farmer that are just beating the crap outta people.

Jeff (11:21):

Well, I think most of it is mental cuz I spent some time thinking about it after we talked. And I think that when you’re living in that farmer phase, oftentimes you are living with a scarcity mindset, scarcity in every aspect of life because you’re just freshly used to being broke or almost not making rent or having these issues. It’s usually money driven. And that’s what causes us to kind of shy away from our abundance mindset and our like possibility mindset of like, what truly could we do with this business? Cause I mean, we all go in with these thoughts of grandeur and then we get smacked down a little bit and taught a lot of lessons. And then what happens is you have your profit first account and you’re sweeping like 50% of gross revenue into long term savings.

Jeff (12:19):

And like we’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Like we have these conversations with people and they’re like, we’ve got $500,000 in our savings account. And we take home $1,500 a month and you’re like, what? That seems backwards. What are you doing? And they’re like, well COVID might hit again and or something like that. Right. And that can be taught in a variety of ways though, because the things that happen over time caused that scarcity mindset, your number one trainer leaves you, your GM steals from you. Like any variety of things. It doesn’t have to be money related. Like it can be emotional. You have a gang of 20 clients that gang up on you and think you’re a bad person and on you on the internet and leave you at the same time, like stuff like that happens. And it creates, first of all, it creates like armor for us, which is good because you’re gonna need that going forward. Cause you’re dealing with bigger and bigger problems over time if you’re growing. And, but what it can cause is it can cause a level of stagnation as well. Like once you reach a certain level of success.

Chris (13:35):

So you’re saying like once you reach that level, are you scared to go for the next level because you just don’t want more beatings?

Jeff (13:42):

Well, what I see most is that people’s growth muscles kind of atrophy because they’ve been broke. They’re now making money. And now like they go from $2,500 a month to taking home like $7,500 a month or $8,000 a month. And now life is really comfortable for them. And so they can sit there in that phase for years, if nothing pokes them. And what I say in the Tinker program, oftentimes I tell stories about it is that you’re, everyone that’s ready for that phase. And if you’re listening to this and you’re in the growth phase and you’re doing well, you should probably ask yourself, am I a big fish in a small pond? Because every one of us is until you level up and then in that room and you’re like, all right, I got a lot of work to do.

Jeff (14:40):

I’m on level one again, but that is the push that most people need to start thinking bigger and going bigger and doing different things in their lives, in all aspects. Right. So I just think that often time, and some of that is perfectly justifiable as well because of the fatigue factor. Like I see people get in there and they get profitable and they do need to rest. Like maybe I just need to see if this thing will run for a couple months, like a year and just pay me like this. Because when you think about that scarcity, like they think what if I step away and go shift focus to this Tinker program. And then my $8,000 goes back to $2,000. Like I won’t be able to pay my house payment, blah blah. And that’s another misconception of the program I think is like, you’re gonna focus on what you should be focusing on whatever aspect of life that is.

Jeff (15:39):

You’re going to be held accountable for focusing on that. The thing about it is you’ve got all these tools to fix it faster than you did before. And you’ve got a group of people around you that are operating at a very high level that are very resilient. So when that next setback happens, it doesn’t drop you down. We’re pulling the floor up. If you think about it like an elevator, you’re on floor 10 and you fall all the way back to the floor, OK. We want to teach lessons and skills to bring that floor up to level three. So that as you climb again, you’re only gonna fall down to level three and not down to the basement ever again.

Chris (16:23):

Yeah. Good stuff, man. That’s really insightful. What about time? Like I know a lot of people, when they get to this level, they have a little bit more money than they need. And they also have a little bit more time than they need. And for me, like the biggest signal that I can get that I need to surround myself with higher level people get into a different mastermind is when I have money that I’m wasting on crap or I’m spending, you know, time playing NHL 22 on the Xbox. Like I am wasting time or wasting money. So when somebody comes into like Tinker level, how much time do they need to work on all this other stuff? Is it one hour a day, one day a week? Or what should they do?

Jeff (17:12):

That’s a really good question. I think it just depends. You don’t need very much time. But I mean, we do Q and A’s on Wednesdays, so those are an hour. But besides that, you can kind of jump in and participate as you’d like to. So, I mean, you can do modules, we’ve got roadmaps and modules and everything else that are Tinker level stuff. There’s a lot of interaction in the Facebook group and things like that as well. But it’s not a huge time investment. I would say the number one thing is like the perspective of how you’re spending your time is what we want you analyzing in the Tinker phase. Going back to the conversation about the high level ticket and things like that. You need to be asking yourself harder questions at that phase because like, are you doing what you’re passionate about?

Jeff (18:07):

And why are you doing the things that you’re doing? Like I’m big on questioning, like why I’m operating the way I’m operating and what I do, the schedule I keep, why. It’s like that stuff needs audited all the time. And is it serving you? It’s OK to implement and run it for a quarter and then come back and say, OK, well, I thought, a prime example, cuz I get on this kick all the time is I hate the miracle morning. Like I hate that with a passion and so, but I’ve done it. OK. So I was a believer for a minute. I read the book, I’m like, oh, miracle morning, miracle morning. And like, then I implemented it and then it didn’t serve me. And so when I went back and I audited my time, I’m like, oh yeah, I’m doing yoga and meditating and doing all this for an hour and a half in the morning.

Jeff (19:02):

But was I meeting all the production goals I wanted to, was I was I moving the needle where I needed to during the day. And my answer 10 times outta 10 is no, because the way my life works and operates on the highest level is I get up early as hell four o’clock in the morning, whatever it is. And I do my critical tasks first. My number one projects are done before eight o’clock in the morning, every day. So I don’t waste time doing yoga and all that, cuz I’ve got, cause that allows me at eight o’clock to turn the switch and I can be reactionary then. And I can deal with gym stuff or I can deal with real estate stuff or I can take phone calls or do podcasts or do things like that. Right. But if you’re are not spending time on your project work that’s deliberate and carved out,

Jeff (19:57):

You’re not gonna move forward. And that’s what happens with most of these gym owners that are in the farmer phase. They get to where their cycle and their time is Parkinson’s law and, and it has consumed, their reactionary time has consumed 100% of their workday. And so that gym is stuck. It’s not going to progress. It might, they might dink and dunk and add a few here and add a few there. But like, if you want exponential growth in anything that you’re doing, you really have to spend that quality time on it to innovate and move things forward. You know, this I’ve seen you completely change the way you do things with regards to your time management. And I think it’s really increased the trajectory of where Two-Brain’s going too.

Chris (20:47):

So you’re saying like, you don’t need to have a lot more extra time. You just have to be more, discipline’s the wrong word, right? You just have to be more,

Jeff (20:54):

Deliberate, intentional.

Chris (20:55):

Yeah. Intentional. Yeah. OK. That’s a great point, man. So Jeff, over the last couple years, we’ve seen something really remarkable and that is, I think it’s now 13 people have reached the level of millionaire. They have a million dollars in net worth. That’s like assets minus liabilities. If they cashed in all their chips and paid off their debt, they’d have a million dollars or more. These guys are getting there way faster than you and I ever did, right? Like three years instead of 15 years or whatever. Why is that, like tell people, what are we doing now that’s getting people to this million dollar mark faster.

Jeff (21:33):

I think it’s partially mentorship, because like now they’ve got people out in front of ’em that have made these mistakes, learned these lessons. An it’s also a matter of focus and then opening their eyes to what’s possible, possibilities. Because people come into the group and they’re like a little bit blown away by the level of conversations that are going on and what people are thinking about. And then, you and I talked years ago about taking your cashflow and your excess cash flow from your business and turning it into assets and how powerful that can be. But people don’t really, they take it for granted because it’s the compounding effect of being able to do it and make some moves. We’ve also had a lot of people come into the group not understanding leverage, things like that.

Jeff (22:23):

And so you can go a lot further, a lot faster with leverage and you and I have had a lot of conversations on that topic for sure. But that is the one thing I’m most proud of about the group. I think it’s fantastic to see that kind of stuff, because I know how life changing that can be for them and their family. And a lot of people have kids and things like that. And so it’s very, it’s fun to watch. I love watching people succeed and win and the answer I’ve droned on here. But like, I think it’s just because it’s the banister four minute mile.

Chris (22:59):

Like that’s a big part of it. Right. And also there are a lot of us in the group now who can say like, what not to do, like don’t waste your time on that. Or even here’s how to get focused or even here’s what to do first.

Jeff (23:10):

Yeah. Well, with the size of the group we’ve gone to 60 or whatever now, and like there’s somebody doing nearly everything you wanna be doing. So it’s nice from the standpoint of like, who can I align with like, OK, so and so is at this level. So and so is scaling gyms. So and so is buingy Airbnb. So and so is doing this. So like you can go out there and like really find your niche on who you want to align with, but then like if you gotta return to your gym and ask a question, where do we get the SOP for this? Or what are you guys doing best practices? I mean, we’ve been talking daily about how to pay staff and compensate staff for the long term. And like that has been a constant conversation in the group recently. And so like, that’s not related to assets and like investing and things like that, but there’s resources in the group that are experts at many different areas of business. So that’s been a lot of fun as well.

Chris (24:09):

Yeah. One of the great things about curating a small group like that is you get to talk to only the best and find out what just the best are doing without a lot of extra noise. Like we try to track data every month and publish leaderboards to help people outside Two-Brain even understand like, what are the best gyms in the world doing? But the beautiful part about being in a mastermind like this is, it’s just a Facebook message away, you know, Hey, that guy did an $80,000 event last month. Why don’t I just text him? You know, oh, I know h froimm Tinker or this guy is really doing well on crypto right now. I’m sitting beside him at the mastermind event. I think you just highlighted, like one of the most beautiful parts of this program is everybody’s a gym owner, but everybody’s doing something and somebody’s doing everything.

Jeff (24:57):

And the beautiful thing about this group and what we’ve been able to curate is that like, it really is an open abundant area. And what I mean by that is like, you can literally pick up the phone and ask for, you can post in the Facebook group. Will you give me that verbatim? And they’ll send it to you. Yeah. Anything. So if you’re trying to implement something in your group, like you can go ask the guy who’s doing it seven figures with it. And the guy who’s doing seven figures with it will give it to you. And like, it’s not a competitive environment. Meaning like you getting a piece of the pie is shrinking pie. We’re all just growing one exponential pie. And if we get better, it’s just better for us and for everyone quite frankly. Right. Yeah. And so that’s been fun to watch, sorry.

Chris (25:52):

No, that’s great, man. So is there anything else that you’ve noticed among these entrepreneurs that shifts in their mindset once they reach Tinker phase or maybe after they’ve been Tinker phase for a while?

Jeff (26:02):

I think a lot of people have a lot of aspirations, but when you see people around you taking action on a massive level, like it makes you really question why you’re still sitting on your hands and not going to the bank and getting pre-approved or why you’re not being deliberate about investing more or why you’re not doing X, Y, or Z. Cuz I mean, we’ve seen some tremendous growth and when you get behind the curtain and you get to watch it, you’re like I’m not making enough moves or why have I been questioning this or am I an over consumer of education versus taking action on things?

Chris (26:47):

And I am guilty there. My favorite thing that I’ve realized, and I wouldn’t say that, you know, this is because of us or anything, but in the last round where we qualified seven brand new millionaires, what I noticed immediately was that every single one of them wanted to help everybody else get to that level as fast as possible. So as soon as they found out that they had reached that milestone of a million dollars in net worth, they started giving more advice and tips and here’s what I’ve learned to everybody else. Yeah. That’s really incredible. And that’s my favorite thing about this group this month, but next month I’ll have something different that’s my favorite. Jeff dude, thanks so much for making time for this. This is gonna help really inspire a lot of people. And if you’re at this phase already, by all means, reach out to Jeff or I, and we’ll talk to you about joining the Tinker mastermind program. If you’re in the farmer phase and you’re still getting those daily beatings, you’re trying to fight through the trauma of learning those hard lessons. You know, you can always reach Jeff through Two-Brain and he can tell you how to fast track to get up to Tinker faster.

Jeff (27:53):

Heck yeah. And thanks for having me Coop. The one thing I do wanna say real quick is like, just cuz you’re having problems in your gym or there’s something wrong with your business, like don’t allow that to block your ability to level up, because we’ve all got problems. Every single one of us is dealing with on a different level. And like just cuz these people are in the Tinker phase doesn’t mean that they’re having zero issues. They’re not having to go one step backwards to go two steps forward, everyone deals with that forever and it’s never ending until you just get outta business or die. And so don’t allow that to hold you back. So thanks for having me Coop. I really appreciate it.

Chris (28:37):

Yeah man. All right.

Mike (28:41):

Two-Brain Radio airs twice a week and features all the info you need to run a successful fitness business. Subscribe so you don’t miss a show. Now here’s Coop one more time.

Chris (28:50):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

The post The Next Level for Gym Owners: Two-Brain’s Tinker Program appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

How to Create a Professional Marketing Plan for Your Gym

Successful gyms have effective long-term professional marketing strategies.

If you’re in the fitness business running a studio, boutique, CrossFit affiliate, 24-7 facility or group training facility, the time is right for you to take advantage of a health-club market of over 71 million active consumers in the U.S. alone. Added to that, you have a huge audience of potential clients who aren’t working out but might start if you motivate them to take the first step.

Running an effective gym marketing campaign might seem easier said than done when you consider your budget and resources. However, with the help of web technology and your gym media, we will show you how to confidently boost your brand and generate ROI with little cash outlay. We’ll also tell you how to ensure you get results when you spend hard-earned money on paid advertising.

Marketing Objectives

Before starting your gym marketing plan, it’s essential to define your objectives. Do you want to promote your brand and increase your audience on social media? Or are you trying to motivate people to sign up for a nutrition kickstart, free consultation (No Sweat Intro) or other program?

Whatever your goal is, you need to make it clear and then lay out the plan to achieve it. For example, if you want to attract a consistent stream of high-value clients with a firm commitment to health and fitness, your objectives might be:

1. Increasing free-consultation bookings through referrals from present clients.

2. Increasing close rate in consultations.

3. Expanding your contact list and nurturing leads through email campaigns.

4. Increasing social media subscriptions and engagement.

5. Fostering an image of quality and value.

6. Increasing brand awareness.

You don’t want everyone. A good gym marketing plan should identify your exact target audience.Prioritizing Your Target Audience

Every successful market plan centers on a target audience. In the fitness world, the target audience is made up of the people who are most likely to join your gym. For example:

A spin studio might focus on local people who want to burn fat and lose weight through high-intensity interval training on stationary bikes in a group setting.An access-only gym in an office district might try to attract busy professionals who want to do their own strength and cardio workouts using a host of modern fitness machines in a facility that features showers and towel service.A microgym might target high-value clients who are willing to pay a premium rate for high-touch services including personal training and nutrition coaching.

If your gym is entirely new, you’ll need to research your area to pinpoint the best audience for your initial client pool. Some general stats to consider are:

About 60 percent of gym-goers are between 18 and 34 years old. Around 31 percent are between 35 and 54.50.5 percent of gym members are female.A majority of gym-goers have a household income over $75,000 a year. Don’t Forget the Most Important People

It’s critical to ensure you know which people you want to attract—but don’t ever forget to put retention of current clients first.

Two-Brain’s data shows that retention is a key part of marketing—though many gym owners don’t realize it. The person most likely to be a client next month is the client you have this month. Present clients are the easiest—and cheapest—to resell, and they’re most likely to upgrade to other service packages.

Even better, they can become multipliers as a source of referrals from their contact networks. Gyms that implement an Affinity Marketing plan use precise tactics to encourage satisfied current clients to connect the gym to their family and friends.

Get Two-Brain’s Affinity Marketing Guide here.

Although clients acquired through paid advertising are essential, it is best to focus on this group in the latter stages of your gym marketing campaign. Referrals, your gym’s media and unpaid content marketing channels are very effective ways to improve your overall return on investment (ROI). With that in mind, your priorities for sales should be:

1. Current clients.

2. Former clients.

3. People on your email list. 

4. Organic audiences from social media content marketing.

5. Referrals (Affinity Marketing).

6. Strangers from paid advertising. 

The order is critical: prioritize referrals before using paid ads served to strangers.Gym Marketing Strategies and Tactics

Your gym marketing strategy should include three aspects: affinity, organic and paid. As your gym business grows, the emphasis on the elements will change. But you should use affinity and organic marketing even when you get to the stage where paid ads are needed.

Typically, this is how the evolution occurs (remember that elements are added; they don’t replace foundational elements):

Organic conversations help the owner build a client base of one to five.Referrals take the enterprise to 15 to 20 clients.Affinity Marketing with light media placement creates a client base of 20 to 50.High website recruitment, content marketing on several social media platforms, and funnel advertising grow the gym from 50 to 100 clients.Global sales activity is needed for a 150-plus client base.

If you use affinity, organic and paid marketing correctly, your gym can grow quickly. Plus, you’ll save time and resources that might be wasted on other strategies. This three-pronged approach helps you leverage hard-won existing clients to acquire warm leads, nurture an ever-growing audience and build brand recognition, and work to start conversations with new people who are likely to benefit from your services.

The following is a thorough breakdown of each phase.

Your plan can help you identify the strategies that are right for your fitness business.Affinity Marketing

Everyone in business knows that nothing tops word-of-mouth advertising. However, you can’t wait for your existing members to bring in their acquaintances and loved ones. The passive approach to the customer referral market will not boost your membership acquisition.

Two Brain’s Affinity Marketing strategy is a supercharged version of peer-to-peer referrals. By motivating your best members to invite people with whom they share strong bonds, the process produces:

Quality new clients with an existing connection to other clients.Great conversion results in a non-sales environment.Cost-effective exponential growth.A family atmosphere with high current-client satisfaction.A way to keep cloning your best clients.

Affinity Marketing allows you to leverage your genuine care for your clients a create a tangible impact on your gym’s ecosystem. Its synergy can create a win-win situation for everyone involved, and you will discover that “helping” people connected to clients is a much more powerful gym marketing tool than selling. 

Affinity and Gym Marketing

The blueprint for Affinity Marketing requires you to arrange clients and potential clients into groups according to their affinity to your business. Because affinity refers to the level of favor and respect a person has for something, your current clients occupy your highest affinity level. The second highest affinity level is their loved ones, including household members and family. The next highest affinity group: co-workers, followed by friends, then by people who share the same hobby or pastime.

Start the Affinity Marketing process by having conversations with clients who are closest to your brand and work your way through your membership. 

Regardless of your gym marketing phase, Affinity Marketing should be a continuing force in your plan forever. It should always run in the background no matter what you do with organic content or paid advertising.

Here are the simple steps for a successful Affinity Marketing campaign.

Step 1. Identify Your “Seed Clients”

You know your best clients because they are easy to spot. They participate and pay the most. Also, they chum it up with other members, and they like to talk to you. Hands down, they are the happiest and most satisfied with your brand. They’re “mavens.”

In a more precise way, you can identify your seed clients by using Mike Michalowicz’s method of ranking your best clients with a two-column list on a notepad or Word document. In one column, list all the fun clients—those who make you happiest. List the highest paying clients in the other column. The clients who make both lists are your seed clients.

Step 2. Find Your Seed Clients’ Inner Circle

During your conversations with your seed clients, find out specifics about the people closest to them, including names of relatives, friends, etc. Also, note other associations, like places of work and churches. After you go through all your seed clients, move on to the rest of your clients and learn about their connections. 

Step 3. Schedule Goal Review Sessions With Your Clients

Goal review sessions should be a standard practice because they are essential for keeping your clients on track with training. However, they are also an opportunity to initiate an Affinity Marketing conversation. It should become a natural part of the session to ask about clients’ close contacts and how you can help them. Remember: It’s not about selling but about finding ways to help the people your clients care about through your services.

Step 4. Update the Plan or Make Them Famous!

During the goal review, you can determine whether your clients are happy with their progress. If not, choose a metric they want to change the most and create a new plan based on it. In some cases, this new plan will result in upgraded service packages. For example, a client who’s unsatisfied with weight-loss progress might want to add nutrition coaching to a personal-training package. On the other hand, congratulate satisfied clients and share their stories on your social media and other gym media. Putting them on a podium will make them feel great and create the “social proof” that’s essential in any marketing effort.

Step 5. Mention a High-Affinity Connection

As you engage in conversations with your clients, you should become skillful at leading the discussion toward family, friends and associates. For example, you could ask questions like:

Who’s been the most support for you?How are your co-workers doing during the busy season?How is your rec-league team doing this year?Might your client’s golf friends want to match his distance off the tee by training with you?Step 6. Offer to Help

Invariably, most clients will mention how someone needs to lose weight, get in shape, build strength and so on. This type of comment is your cue to offer solutions for that person and provide an easy avenue for reaching their fitness goals at your gym. You’re offering help!

Ask your client for an introduction or the contact info of the person you might be able to help. You can even suggest a joint personal training session, a free fitness assessment or any other enticement that comes to mind. Remember: Your current client knows your service works and wants acquaintances to become fit and healthy, too. Your clients will usually be happy to help you connect with their family and friends.

Be sure to connect with the referral fast!

Step 7. Reward the Referring Client

When clients refer friends who join your gym, reward them with a personalized gift and a handwritten note—something that shows your appreciation for their trust in you and your system. Avoid giving out free months or discounts because doing so attracts cost-sensitive consumers and feels like “bribery.” Instead, create a referral culture that’s based on genuinely helpful actions.

Step 8. Practice Affinity Marketing 10 Times a Month

Affinity Marketing works best when you go through the first seven steps with 10 clients a month. This requires you to set time aside in your marketing plan. The rewards for doing so are great: Gyms that are good at Affinity Marketing often don’t have to run ads at all.

Step 9. Run a Group Activity

If you use them wisely, quarterly group events can complement your individual Affinity Marketing efforts. You can use your social media content marketing and gym media to encourage members to invite their high-affinity contacts to these functions. Some possible titles are:

Date Night Workouts.Best Buddy Cardio Rush.Family Festival Calorie Burn.“Your Gym Name” Crunch Classic.Wine ‘N’ WOD (Two-Brain supplies an exact plan for this event to clients).

Regardless of how you arrange it, your end game is to get as many bookings from the event as you can, meaning you must take the initiative to get people to commit to a No Sweat Intro. Even if they don’t commit, make sure you collect the email addresses of all attendees and add them to your contact list for nurturing.

You don’t always have to spend money: content marketing can work magic for gyms.Unpaid Social Media Content Marketing

Social media provides an excellent gym marketing channel for establishing your brand in the local market, developing an active following and attracting new clients. However, getting the most from your social media content marketing campaign requires the same sort of steadfast planning as Affinity Marketing. 

The first task is to determine which social media platforms work best for reaching your target audience. Because they have broad appeal, Facebook and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms among all demographics. These platforms are excellent for sharing text and visual media content. Also, they provide an accurate and near-real-time tracking system to gauge your content effectiveness, along with a content tagging system for focusing on your target market. 

Although you don’t invest money in social media content marketing, you invest your time. So, to ensure you use your time wisely, you can adopt a schedule close to this one. 

Send daily posts to your feed, complete with hashtags and location tags to attract new followers. Along with engaging text, you can use videos and photos interchangeably. Check your engagement stats to see which types of post do best, then prioritize them. Depending on the platform, post around five daily “stories” or a live feed once a week.Respond to every pertinent comment and direct message within two days or even immediately if you can.Direct people from social media to your website to check out your blog.On Facebook, join local fitness-oriented groups and participate daily.Offer free “lead magnets” to get people to supply contact info or start conversations in which you can sell by chat.

For the most part, people get turned off to advertising-dominant profiles. So, you should target a content-to-promotion ratio of about 4:1. Be sure to provide value with posts that don’t always push people to buy.

The success of your social media content marketing relies on your ability to keep your followers engaged by commenting, messaging and replying. To this point, a 2017 Sprout Social study reported that 48 percent of consumers said responsive social media interactions encouraged them to make purchases. This quality beat out all other business social media activities, including promotional offers and educational content. Be sure to interact with your audience quickly and as often as you can.

Content Is King and Queen

Creating fresh content can be challenging for many people. If you run low on ideas, try to find new material from your followers’ comments, questions and concerns. By simply addressing their issues, you can create informative and exciting content. 

Another excellent way of producing great content is by using best-of lists. This form of content allows you to show clients and prospective clients your willingness to help, your fitness expertise and your depth. At the outset, you can start with a simple approach shared by Mike Warkentin on the Two-Brain blog. 

Just make a list of best-of topics like best sports drinks, best exercise apparel shops in your hometown, best butt exercises, or best CrossFit shoes. Then, choose one topic and list five items under it, writing a short blurb about each. In the end, make sure you include a call-to-action such as:

If you have any other questions about starting a fitness regimen, call us at (your business number).For more information about our services, call us at (your number).If you want a No Sweat Intro, book a reservation at (your website landing page). 

If you’re still short on ideas, ask your best clients what they want to know about, or ask your newest clients what would have helped them find your gym sooner. Then create that content for your social media platforms.

Paid marketing: the final piece of the puzzle for fitness entrepreneurs.Paid Digital Marketing

As the third part of your gym marketing plan, paid digital marketing comes into play only after successfully addressing the others. Businesses pay Google, Microsoft Advertising and social media platforms to display sponsored media messages or display ads to drive consumer traffic to their websites or other landing pages. The most common format of paid digital marketing is pay-per-click, meaning you only pay when someone clicks on your ad prompt to visit a landing page.

Paid digital marketing is most useful for increasing brand awareness and attracting new client prospects at the beginning of their product exploration. This fact is why we consider paid advertising as selling to strangers—which is more complicated than selling to people with whom you have already established a relationship through Affinity Marketing, social media content marketing and gym media. Even with “retargeting campaigns” that remind people of things they saw, added to a cart or almost acted on, your paid marketing audience has less affinity for your business.

Numbers Matter!

Because you are forking out money for these “cold leads,” it’s imperative to keep track of your return on investment (ROI). Primary advertising platforms like Google and Facebook have exceptionally informative campaign dashboards that provide vital metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rates, impressions, clicks, total ad cost, total clicks and more. You can go even further to review various combinations of ad copy and media—Facebook’s dynamic creative system—and some gyms use special spreadsheets to track ROI on front-end offers, re-sells and long-term engagement (Two-Brain supplies them to clients).

For your gym business, the key performance indicators (KPIs) in digital marketing are CPC and conversions. CPC is a good indicator of the effectiveness of your display ad or promotion message. A declining cost-per-click metric is a budget optimizer because it shows your ad is routing consumers to your website at a lower cost.

However, you should have a predetermined spending limit before starting the campaign. And if you know your set, show and close rates, as well as your lifetime client value (you should!), you might be prepared to spend a lot on client acquisition because you know you’ll recoup that money over time.

For example, some gyms don’t worry about acquisition costs others consider “high” because they know their numbers. If it costs $50 to acquire a client who will generate $400 in front-end profit, that investment is well worth it. It’s increasingly worth it if you know that client will almost certainly spend an additional $1,500 in your business over the next months due to your re-sell, upsell and retention strategies. And if that client refers two more because of your Affinity Marketing efforts, that initial $50 cost of acquisition is inconsequential!

Tracking your metrics is essential to ensure ROI on advertising. This fictional gym needs to improve its show and close rates!Conversions and Sales

The conversions metric reflects the total success of your digital gym marketing campaign because it measures the number of times someone executed your call to action, meaning they called you or performed whatever engagement you requested. Conversion rates are tied to downstream sales numbers, as mentioned above.

For example, if your goal is to get people to book free fitness consultations, every conversion via your ads represents an “at bat” for your sales team. You’ll need to ensure they have the training and tools they need to make as many sales as possible. If your goal is to get people on your mailing list in exchange for a lead magnet, your downstream numbers will be affected by your lead-nurturing systems—and eventually your sales team’s work with leads who book consultations.

Paid advertising can be complicated and costly, so we’ll leave you with this simple—and essential—rule:

Always track your metrics to ensure you’re getting ROI on your paid marketing efforts.

Being a great coach isn’t enough. You must be a great marketer and business owner, too.Measuring the Success of Your Gym Marketing Plan

Measuring and evaluating your overall gym marketing plan is the last and most essential part of determining the success of your strategies and tactics. As valuable as these metrics are, you must go beyond reviewing only average revenue per member (ARM), length of engagement (LEG), lifetime value (LTV) and total members. To measure the effectiveness of each component of the plan, you need an effective way of determining which methods are working, what you can improve on and which parts to discontinue.

In our earlier example, we used the following objectives:

1. Increasing free-consultation bookings through referrals from present clients.

2. Increasing close rate in consultations.

3. Expanding your contact list and nurturing leads through email campaigns.

4. Increasing social media subscriptions and engagement.

5. Fostering an image of quality and value.

6. Increasing brand awareness.

As you can see, objectives 1, 2, 3 and 4 are easily trackable with quantitative measures. Numbers 5 and 6 are harder to qualify and evaluate. Collecting and quantitatively analyzing responses from your members’ goal sessions is helpful in assessing value-building efforts.

For example: Of the 100 members you interviewed in their quarterly goal review sessions, 95 percent said your gym provided all the tools necessary for them to reach their goals. That shows you’ve built a lot of value.

Along with the goal review session feedback, you can get a clearer picture of how well you’re meeting your brand-awareness objectives by doing internal and external surveys. You can conduct internal surveys through social media, cancellation forms, informal talks with your members and gym media. In addition, many free online survey tools such as Google forms, SurveyMonkey and SurveyNuts can provide you with effective gym survey formats.

External surveys fall in the category of gym market research. So, it is essential to have a fully identified target market. If you do, you can perform a targeted phone or online survey to gauge your brand’s reach in your area if you decide there is ROI in doing so.

To some degree, brand awareness can also be measured by increasing social-media metrics and website traffic, so these numbers should be reviewed regularly when evaluating your gym-marketing plan.

Your Gym Marketing Plan and Your Future

Running a successful gym is not easy, and there is no guarantee the business will survive.

However, by creating, instituting and optimizing a solid gym marketing plan, you’ll give yourself the best shot at profiting from your hard work and investment.

About the Author: John Burson successfully ran a personal training business for over 20 years, and he has written volumes of published articles on business entrepreneurship, finance and the fitness industry.

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“Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” Revisited

The second edition of Chris Cooper’s “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” is now out, and it’s been updated and improved.

As we got Coop’s fourth book ready for print, I had a chance to reread it cover to cover.

Below, you’ll find my three biggest takeaways from the revised book.

Click here to take the quiz and find out which stage of entrepreneurship you’re at.

1. Points of Focus

Entrepreneurship can be overwhelming. You have so many worries and so much stuff to do. It’s easy to become frantic and try to do all the things—many of which are the wrong things. Or they’re the right things at the wrong time.

To keep gym owners on track, Chris has presented first points of focus for each stage of entrepreneurship. I’ll share three of them here:

Founder: Generate recurring cash flow.Farmer: Earn $100,000 in net owner benefit.Tinker: Build a net worth of $1 million.

Are there other things you need to consider? Of course—but they should all relate to these primary goals.

With these points of focus in place, you’ll have a valuable filter: “Will this action bring me closer to my primary goal at this stage?” If the answer is “no,” put the action on hold.

And, of course, Chris supplies a host of tactics you can use to accomplish these big goals.

2. Moving Between Stages

The second edition of the book makes it clearer that there’s no hard checklist for advancement to the next level. And you might move between levels as you and your business evolve.

That’s important because some people are hesitant to level up if they haven’t checked every single box. And other more experienced entrepreneurs feel disheartened if they have to address “lower-level tasks” a second or third time.

Keep in mind that your journey won’t be linear. You’re going to move forward and backward—and that’s OK. Here’s one of the best images from the book:

Expect setbacks and backsliding but be sure to evaluate your overall trajectory. If the general trend is upward, don’t sweat the small setbacks.

3. Experience Is an Accelerant

Let’s say you reach Tinker Stage and something—say, a two-year global pandemic—knocks your business off course.

Maybe your cash flow suffers and your profit margins decrease or evaporate. Maybe you feel like a failure because you’re thinking about taking a pay cut. Or maybe you lose key staff members and get pulled back into the day-to-day operations of the business.

Whatever the issue, you’re going to be more equipped to deal with it the second time around. Solving problems the first time is hard. Solving them the second time is much easier.

So take heart if you’re a tinker who’s working on farmer-level tasks again or a farmer who’s doing founder’s tasks for a second or third time. You aren’t a failure. You’re going to finish the jobs quickly and regain your momentum, and you’re going to move forward faster this time.

Read and Focus

If you need perspective on your journey as an entrepreneur, I highly recommend you read—or reread—“Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief.”

Get it here. Then dial in your focus and start moving forward and upward with more speed.

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Frazzled and Frantic? Focus Skills Are the Answer

Mike (00:02):

Time to enter my sales in Facebook and then click like on my account, then order toilet paper for the oil change. I’ll be there in a second. Let me check this email first. OK. TikTok notification, new episode of Yellowstone. OK. I gotta upload this episode Two-Brain Radio to the secure government server. What? I’m losing it over here, Chris Cooper, can you help?

Chris (00:24):

You are not ADD. You do not have attention deficit disorder. You just don’t have a mental framework to help you focus and get stuff done. I was just chatting with my new friend, Mick, in the UK, and we were talking about overwhelm and he’s in our growth program. He’s growing. It’s awesome. But he says, Coop. I never know which thing I should be working on specifically today. I try to read the emails. I get a third of the way through, and I move onto the podcast and I listen to a bit of that on two-X speed. And then I listen to my mentor’s advice and I go on the roadmap and I open this thing up. And before I know it, my time is up and I haven’t made progress. What do I do? Here’s the exact advice that I gave him.

Chris (01:10):

The first thing to do is decide when you are most focused during the day. You should probably know this, but just in case, it’s either usually following your workout or first thing in the morning, and you wanna find yourself a quiet spot, a place where you can close the door and you wanna set yourself a clock for an hour. It’s hard to stay focused on one thing for an hour, but you’ll develop the mental strength to do this. I don’t say discipline, by the way, when I’m talking about focus because staying focused is not a matter of discipline. Staying focused is a matter of training and practice, just like any other skill. The reason that we all think that we have ADD and I admit it, I’ve taken the ADHD test several times, is because we just haven’t developed that skill of staying focused.

Chris (02:02):

We have developed the skill of staying unfocused. We have trained ourselves to be unfocused through our phones and our instant messages, but I’ll stay off that topic. So you set aside one hour a day, you close your door, you draw your blinds, you set the clock. Now, what do you do? By the way, you’re gonna do this five days a week. So five hours a week working on the specific thing that you need to do to grow your business. Now Mick’s doing great in our six metrics that we track. He’s trending higher in all of them. His ARM is really good. His retention’s amazing. He wants more clients. And so what he’s gonna do is with his mentor, identify three strategies to get more clients. And that’s all he’s going to focus on for the next month, five days a week, one hour a day. The first strategy was getting his Facebook ads working.

Chris (02:56):

And so in the first hour of the day, he’s going to go into his Facebook ads manager, and he’s going to set up his ads. Then he’s going to set up his pixel or whatever. His second strategy was to set up a bring a friend quarterly event. And then his third strategy was to start goal reviews and start doing affinity marketing. Sounds simple, right? But he wasn’t familiar with all of these concepts. And none of us like to spend time on Facebook ads manager. So we gave him links to the Two-Brain roadmap. There’s a full course on running Facebook ads. For example, there’s a full course on affinity marketing. For example, there’s a full course on running bring a friend events, for example. And so in that hour, he asks himself a question, do I know exactly what to do? And if he does, then he just does it.

Chris (03:48):

If he doesn’t, then he starts going through the Two-Brain materials. Now the Two-Brain materials are not me standing in front of a podium and lecturing like they were eight years ago. The Two-Brain materials are all done with you. So that means there’s either a template to follow or a screen share to watch and do. In the case of Facebook ads manager, you can just like follow along in one window, or maybe it’s like a worksheet to fill out. So, you know, if MIck starts working on goal reviews and affinity marketing today, he’s going to pull out the worksheet for the seed client exercise. He’s going to book coffee dates with those people. When he’s done that, he’s going to make a list of all of their connections. And he’s going to book goal reviews with 10 clients, and then he’s going to offer to help one connection per client.

Chris (04:39):

Now, right there is about 10 or 15 hours of work, but only if you’re focused. I know people who’ve been trying to do that or get that done for four months. And the reason that they can’t is because they haven’t set aside these windows of focus and they haven’t given themselves the opportunity to practice focus. You are not ADD, you are not even undisciplined. You’re not even unfocused. You simply don’t have a framework to follow to help you get stuff done. And that’s what mentorship is really all about. It’s not just telling you the right answer. It’s not just helping you troubleshoot the problems. It’s giving you frameworks to take the next steps forward, to stay focused on what really matters and to actually get it done. Hope this helps.

Mike (05:28):

Now for a focus drill to employ your new mental skills, focus and click subscribe to Two-Brain Radio for more episodes. Thanks. Here’s Coop one more time.

Chris (05:38):

If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

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When to Hire a GM (and What to Pay)

Mike (00:02):

My growing gym is kind of stable. Time to hire a GM. Right? Well, maybe. Today on Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper will remove the guesswork. He’ll tell you exactly when you should hire a general manager and how to compensate the person. Before Chris hits the mic, click subscribe for more episodes. Now here’s Coop.

Chris (00:23):

When should you hire a manager for your gym? A general manager, even a COO. There’s definitely a time and a place to do it, especially if a gym is part of your platform and you’re ready to move on to the next thing. I’m Chris Cooper. And I made a lot of mistakes with my gym, including hiring general managers way too soon. So today I’m gonna tell you the steps when to hire a general manager, when to wait and even what to pay them. At Two-Brain, we teach something called the value ladder. So when you’re starting out with your gym, you identify all of the different hats that you as the owner are wearing, and then you assign a dollar value to each hat, and then you hire people at the lowest dollar value first. So for example, you might say you do five roles in your gym.

Chris (01:15):

You do cleaner, you do admin, which is like booking and billing. Basically. You do coaching, you do personal training and you do management of staff. If I laid all of these things out on a piece of paper and said, what would it cost to replace you in the cleaner role? Or what would you pay somebody that you hired to do the cleaning? That’s probably the first role that you would hire because it would be the least expensive. I can hire a cleaner for $15 per hour in Sioux Sault Marie. So the first person I would hire is a cleaner and I would first write down like exactly my cleaning checklist. I would write down how to buy more cleaning supplies. I would probably take pictures of what like I want my bathroom to look like when it’s clean and then I would hire this person.

Chris (02:01):

And in the time that I saved by hiring this person, I would dedicate that to the next role on my plate. OK. Admin. So I would write my staff playbook and I would clean up my booking and billing and I would set up calendars for my staff, et cetera. OK. And then I would say, OK, now I can hire somebody to do billing for me. And that role is a little bit more expensive. Maybe it’s $18 an hour, and I can hire that role. I can create checklists for them, and I can invest the time that I save in my next highest value role. Right. I can do more coaching. And then I can replace myself in the coaching role and spend more of my time doing higher value work, like personal training or building out my new nutrition program or whatever. And I can keep climbing the value ladder.

Chris (02:47):

Now I’ve made this as simple as possible. Really there are about 12 roles in every gym. And, you can read about that in my book, Gym Owner’s Handbook. Eventually though, you’re going to get to a point where you have a fairly big operation. You have three to six staff working for you, and you’re ready to move on to the next thing. And the next thing might be a gym. It might be like, I wanna work more on marketing and sales. So I need to stop managing people and running staff meetings and worrying about booking, and cancellations and the bookkeeping and the P and L and all that stuff. And I wanna hire somebody to manage operations. And that person is your general manager. To be very clear, their job is to keep things the same. Their job is not to grow the business for you.

Chris (03:36):

Their job is not to handle your marketing, maybe your sales. Their job is not to handle coach development. Their job is to take your playbook and make sure that your playbook gets delivered to a 10 out of 10 every single day. It’s valuable because that is a very leveragable role. And also because it frees you from distraction so that you can focus in on growing, scaling a gym or buying another gym, or, you know, investing in an Airbnb or whatever that is. OK. So for that reason, hiring a GM is one of the last things that people do in the farmer phase before they’re ready to move to tinker phase in our program. The GM role is manager. And so they should be hired if they are good at managing, it’s not necessarily the same skillset as coaching. And so hiring somebody that’s a coach in your gym and like promoting them to general manager

Chris (04:32):

doesn’t always work out. In fact, one out of every two general managers that we see in Two-Brain doesn’t have the skillset of management. They’re just promoted into something that they’re not competent at yet. And so the owner has to really spend a lot of time mentoring their new manager to manage their business. A lot of times too, we see that the general manager is just basically like the new CEO and they’re in charge of management. And they’re also in charge of marketing. And they’re also in charge of sales, all of these skills that it took the owner of the gym three to five years to really gain, they’re now just delegating to a manager with little to no experience, education or even a mentor to help them. So the manager’s job is to keep things the same. The manager’s primary tool is the playbook.

Chris (05:21):

And the manager is paid on a salary instead of on commission for two reasons. Number one, they are bearing the burden of more than just time spent. They’re not being paid for their time. They’re being paid to wear the mantle of responsibility. They’re not being paid to report problem to the owner. They are being paid to solve problems. For example, let’s say that your gym breaks a water pipe and there’s a flood. And it’s 3:00 AM. The general manager’s job is not to press the red button and wake you up. The general manager’s job is to go to the gym, to call the plumber, to get the situation resolved, to clean it up and to get the gym open at 6:00 AM, right on schedule. That is really important to get across that their job is not to report problems, but to solve problems. The other reason that they’re usually paid a salary is they’re not responsible for growth and their actions,

Chris (06:19):

They can improve retention in your gym. They might improve efficiency in your gym, you know, driving down your expenses or improving your ROI. But most general managers do not have the skillset to be marketers. And so they cannot improve top line revenue, which means they have very little info on overall profit, which means they are not in a place where they can make a commission, which means that they need to have like a base salary. So when do you hire a GM? You don’t hire a GM and put them on a salary until you are making a good salary. You are the general manager, usually until you’re making at least $80,000 a year, I would rather, you make a hundred thousand dollars a year and then know what your next step’s going to be before you hire a general manager. So for me, there was no reason to hire a general manager of catalyst until I started working with more and more gyms through 3, 2, 1 Go Project.

Chris (07:14):

And also Ignite Gym was really starting to take off. And I had to do a lot of traveling. That’s when I hired a manager. I wasn’t focused on growing the gym anymore. I just wanted the gym to maintain its current level. And that’s what a manager does. Right? They maintain through management. They even have the same root word. So you hire the manager when the gym is doing well enough that it can maintain, and you’ll be happy because you’re working on something else. What you don’t do is hire a manager to grow your gym for you. That’s just abdicating your responsibility to grow the gym. Now can a manager grow a gym? Yes. If you’ve done the work to learn how to market and how to sell, and you are so good at it that you can write an SOP, hey manager, if you just keep doing this, the gym will keep growing.

Chris (08:06):

That’s when a manager can take that job over. When the manager has shown that they have the same close rate as you do, meaning that if 10 people walk in the door and they meet with you and seven of them sign up for your gym, and then you run that test with your manager and 10 more people walk through the door and seven of them sign up with the manager, then it’s OK to hand off sales to them too. Is it ever OK to pay the manager a commission or to get a halftime manager? Yes. On both counts. If the manager is also taking on a sales role, then absolutely you can pay them some kind of sales commission, but more than likely, you’re probably just gonna start them with a base salary. Should the manager also be able to take on coaching hours?

Chris (08:51):

Yes, absolutely. The nature of most micro gyms is not such that you’ll need a management layer to run the micro gym where it’s somebody’s, full-time 40 hour a week job to run this gym and nothing else. That probably won’t happen. The general manager of catalyst works about 20 hours as a manager and 20 hours as a coach. And his salary is split between a salary for managing obviously, and the four-ninths model for personal training and group coaching. And so that’s how he makes his income. You can do it either way. Absolutely. But you have to generate the revenue first and then pay the manager. In most cases with most of your staff, the staff should generate the revenue that’s required to pay them times about two and a half. That’s where the four-ninths model really comes from is if somebody wants to make $40 an hour as a personal trainer, which is great, then they need to be generating about $90 an hour for the gym.

Chris (09:53):

But a general manager is not in a position to generate the revenue that pays for their salary. So the gym has to already be generating that revenue before you hire the manager. The only time I would say this isn’t true is when hiring the general manager buys you the time to generate the revenue for the gym. They’re freeing you up to go full time, all in on marketing and sales for growth. The other time when you really have to hire a general manager is when you have your eyes on the next thing. So if you’re going to start your second gym, you should hire a manager to run your first gym for you because your full-time job will become opening this second gym. If you’re going to acquire another gym, you need a great manager in your first gym, even more because you’re not starting from scratch with the second gym, you’re fixing the other owner’s mistakes.

Chris (10:44):

And that’s gonna take you all of your attention. If you are building a new thing, you know, you wanna build a t-shirt company to sell to other gyms in your area. Then you definitely need a general manager. For example, when I was building ignite gym, I realized that I needed a general manager to run catalyst because both things took so much attention that jumping back and forth was exhausting. This is a mental cognitive condition called task switching. And it really wears you out. So I would think about ignite gym for two hours, and then I would go coach a class, and then I would come back and I’d try to get refocused on ignite, but I was hungry and I might get a good 20 minutes of work out of the next hour. And then I would go back and I would be like trying to sell somebody in a no sweat intro.

Chris (11:32):

And I would fail at that. And I’d come back and try and work on ignite. You really need at that point, somebody who will just maintain what you’ve got so that you can focus on the next thing. I hope this helps you out with general managers. The biggest mistake that I see in gyms is people hiring general managers too soon. And the, the reason that you usually see it is because they want to abdicate responsibility for something they don’t like, like sales or marketing, onto somebody else. And so what they do is they hire somebody with no education, no background, no skillset, no practice to do the job that they hate doing. And then they’re surprised when they have to micromanage this manager because that person doesn’t have training. What I do because I can’t spend time managing my gym anymore is I hire an amazing manager.

Chris (12:23):

Who’s passionate about catalyst and my mission. And then I put them through ramp up, the Two-Brain program, and I get them a Two-Brain mentor. So that I don’t have to be their boss. I don’t have to micromanage them. They don’t have to come to me when they’re struggling with something or they can’t figure something out. They have access to all the Two-Brain resources and the Two-Brain mentor helps them run my gym. And I think a lot of the people in our tinker program do this exactly the same way they want their gym to grow, but they’re also busy working on other things. Hiring a general manager is hiring somebody to maintain what you have. And I hope this podcast has helped you decide when the time is right for that.

Mike (13:04):

Want another perspective on our industry? Check out our new podcast, Women In Ftness Business with Tiffy Thompson. Tiffy presents big wins, lessons from failure and real conversations with real women who are improving the health of their clients around the world. Now here’s Chris Cooper one more time.

Chris (13:19):

on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

The post When to Hire a GM (and What to Pay) appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Funnel Flossing: Is Your Pipeline Leaking Sales?

Create a funnel and forget it?

Not if you want to make sales.

To convert clients, you must test and retest everything.

Here’s why.

A member of the Gym Owners United group on Facebook recently detailed a sales pipeline that included a company hired to reach out to leads within 15 minutes. Also in the plan: lead nurturing. This gym owner was clearly investing time and effort into growing his business.

Despite these features, the poster said his “schedule rate” had actually dropped in 2022—people just weren’t booking. He asked for feedback and advice—which group members are always happy to provide.

I poked around his website and discovered a few things that could be addressed right away to increase conversions.

1. The site didn’t clearly explain how training would benefit the visitor. It mentioned “accountability” and “community” instead of “weight loss,” “improved fitness,” “more strength” or something similar.

2. The site assumed I knew something about the training method. But I didn’t and would be forced to try to learn how it could help me before I decided to pay for a three-class trial (not a strong offer) or sign up for a six-week challenge (a better offer).

3. The landing page listed a lot of features instead of problems that could be solved. For example, the training plan had helped “hundreds of people”—but the site didn’t say what it had helped them do. Visitors had to make the connection for themselves, and marketers will tell you they often won’t do it.

4. When I clicked on the first “challenge” button, I didn’t get to a screen that captured my contact info and then moved me along the funnel. That was a missed opportunity to get a lead into a nurturing sequence. Instead, I was moved lower on the landing page to a module without another button. I had to look for my next click.

5. When I eventually found and clicked the “start” button, I got an error page. That’s a sure-thing, no-doubt funnel killer.

You can pull a lot of lessons from a short examination of a landing page—and the gym owner said he was going to make some adjustments based on the advice supplied by the members of Gym Owners United. I hope the owner makes more sales as a result.

Here’s the most important thing this landing-page review highlighted: Test your funnel upon setup, and then test it regularly after that.

This test requires no marketing skill, no money and very little time. You simply click into your own funnel and see what happens. Go through the steps with the eyes of a prospective client and note things that could be improved.

But you don’t even have to worry about fine tuning at this stage. Your first task is just making sure the funnel actually works. Don’t assume it’s functional. Ensure that it actually does what it’s supposed to do.

Test My Funnel

Here’s your short Test My Funnel checklist:

All links must work.All offers must be current, not expired.Client info must be captured for nurturing (as soon as possible), and nurturing procedures must start immediately.Clients must be able to sign up easily (for a consultation, a program, to receive a lead magnet—whatever your conversion goal is).

Marketing can get complicated. But before you start fiddling with ad copy, tweaking images and hiring a marketing company to nurture your leads, test your funnel. Then put a monthly reminder on your calendar: “test funnel.”

Don’t “set it and forget it.”

Test it and retest it.

If the funnel works, optimize it. But that’s Step 2.

Step 1 is asking “does this thing even work?”

The post Funnel Flossing: Is Your Pipeline Leaking Sales? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

What Do I Talk to My Gym Business Mentor About?

Mike (00:02):

If your gym is sinking fast, you know what to ask a mentor, but what happens when you don’t have any emergencies? Chris Cooper has spent thousands of hours talking to gym owners and he’ll tell you what happens in those conversations on this edition of Two-Brain Radio.

Chris (00:14):

What do you talk to your mentor about? For every five gyms who start in our mentorship practice called Two-Brain business, four of them have a very specific problem that once they solve it, they could double or even triple the size of their gym. There’s one big thing holding them back. A lot of them have two things or maybe even three things that are slowing them down, but fixing the problem is just step one. And even though some of us made so many mistakes at startup, that it can take a long time to solve all the problems and they have to be solved in a specific order. And it takes a while for us to see the results of solving that problems. Eventually we’re going to run out of problems to solve. And that’s good. That doesn’t mean we don’t need a mentor anymore. It doesn’t mean that we can’t benefit from coaching.

Chris (01:01):

In fact, when my gym started doing well, I upgraded the mentorship that I was receiving. And then when Two-Brain started to grow, I upgraded the number of mentors that I had. And now I like to surround myself with people who are caring and compassionate and understand my journey, who can help me forecast the next steps and yes, solve problems. So what do you talk to your mentor about? That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. This is relevant for everybody who is thinking about having a business coach, for everybody who already has a business mentor, for the business coaches who listen to this podcast. That’s a great growing segment now, thank you. But also for people who don’t even own a business, and they’re doing some kind of coaching in their life like fitness coaching, maybe it’s yoga, coaching, nutrition, coaching, or you’re just coaching other people to do better.

Chris (01:53):

Or you’re thinking about getting a coach to do better. Once you’ve solved your problems in business or in life, what you’re really buying is speed. Now, when you’re solving problems, you need a lot of support. You need one-on-one mentorship. And that’s why we provide one-on-one mentorship in our startup, rampup and growth programs. It’s all one-on-one because you need somebody who really knows your case who can guide you carefully through the steps to fix your problems. But when you get into our higher level programs, at that point, what you’re buying is really speed. So having a mentor or a coach at that level helps you see, not just like what the opportunities are for the next step for you, but also how to make the most use of those opportunities. How to capitalize on them faster without trial and error or making mistakes. The interesting thing is that as you mature as an entrepreneur, you quickly understand the value of not figuring it out for yourself.

Chris (02:54):

And one of the top lessons that most people eventually learn is that if I have the ability to just buy the solution or buy the path or buy somebody else’s mistakes or their experience, then that is the best ROI that I can possibly get. Right? What I’m really buying there is speed. So if you’re a fitness coach and you’re listening to this and you are trying to improve somebody’s fitness, you already know that you can’t just fix their movement faults forever. Right? People usually come in and they’ve got some movement faults, their knees cave in in the squat, their back rounds on the deadlift, and you’re fixing their technique. And for six months, a year, maybe even two years, that’s what they need the most to make the most progress is the removal of obstacles. But eventually they need something more. And maybe that is different programming.

Chris (03:44):

Maybe that’s different coaching from you. Maybe that’s just a clear picture of what the next level is, but maybe that’s also speed. Getting there faster. For coaches who are selling a quote unquote high ticket offering, what they’re actually is speed, right? They’re not selling knowledge. If knowledge was the problem, we would all be billionaires with six pack abs. If knowledge solved the problem, then all these PhDs in nutrition would be shreded and outliving us all by 30 years. Knowledge is not the problem. So how do we create speed? Well, that’s the mentor or the coach’s job. So after you’ve solved your problems, which is step one, and that’s what one-on-one mentorship is for, at least in our program. You wanna talk to your mentor about some other things. So the first thing that you wanna do is you wanna start off usually with like, what’s bugging you right now.

Chris (04:36):

You know, what is the thing that’s gonna distract you from focusing. So if your business is running perfectly well, you know, everything’s going great. You’re coasting along, you’re growing. The first thing that you want to ask yourself is like, what is aggravating me? Because that is the thing that’s gonna distract you from focusing on the most important things. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about next. So if you got a bee in your bonnet, because somebody looked at you the wrong way, they made a weird comment on Facebook, your government’s really pissing you off. Like that’s what you want to talk to your mentor about even when your gym is doing OK, because that is the thing that’s gonna stop you now is your emotional state. The next thing that you need to do is get focused on the most important thing. And so a really good experienced coach or mentor can suss out this most important thing pretty quickly.

Chris (05:31):

And they can do it a lot better than you can do it. It’s not really therapy. Although therapists use a lot of the same techniques that a good mentor does what they’re actually doing is sifting through all the things that you’re thinking about, the opportunities that you see, the ideas that you have. And they’re saying, that’s the one. Go all in on that. So for example, I was talking to somebody yesterday, who’s in a tinker phase program, and he’s got a few gyms. They’re all doing OK. You know, one of them, he just bought, so it’s coming along, but I have no doubt that he’s gonna be able to fix this. He’s also got a really high level corporate program for a local corporation. Let’s just say. That’s paying him a lot per hour and he’s making so much money on that, that he can afford to make mistakes in other places, right.

Chris (06:22):

He can be underpriced on his CrossFit classes. He can, overpay his trainers, whatever, like he’s doing so well in this one area that that covers a lot of mistakes somewhere else. So there’s no need for him to improve those other things. So instead of saying like, well, here’s your problems with your business, what we did was spent the hour focusing hard on duplicating the thing that was paying him so much that the other stuff almost didn’t even matter. Instead, what a lot of entrepreneurs do is they have five ideas and they act on all of them instead of prioritizing the one that’s really making the difference. So for example, if you’ve got an idea to, you’ve got your gym, it’s doing pretty well, and now you’re gonna start a t-shirt company. You’re gonna run this new line of supplements. You’re also gonna buy this second gym.

Chris (07:09):

And, you know, you’re going to create a brand of programming, maybe. OK, well, you can look at those opportunities and let’s face it. If you’re a good entrepreneur, you can make money at any of those things. What a mentor’s job is to do is to say like, here are the four, here’s what the return on your time would be financially. Here’s what the return on your energy would be emotionally, which one should be focused on. And then it’s their job to hold you accountable to that one thing for the next quarter or the next year, even, or two years or whatever that is. And that’s really the value. So for example, when Two-Brain was just a fledgling company, we were doing about 250 K a year, my mentor was Dan Martel and we would get together on these meetings and I would say, OK, Dan, you know, I got an idea for a coaching company.

Chris (08:01):

I got an idea for a t-shirt company. I think that we could probably start a bookkeeping company. There’s so many opportunities to help gym owners more. And I’m the one that sees all these things and I wanna kind of get going on them. I wanna start them before anybody else has this great idea, too. And so Dan and I would talk for a few minutes, and then finally, he’d say, you can only pick one, which one are you gonna do? And I’d say, but Dan, I’m worried. Like why don’t I just start this t-shirt company to solve the apparel problem? I’ll just get it going. And then like, I’ll really focus on it later and he’d say, no, don’t do it. And then I’d say something like, oh, OK, Dan, I’ve got this great idea to maybe start a bookkeeping company or start a white label supplement company.

Chris (08:49):

And he’d say, no, don’t do it. And the job of the mentor there was to keep me focused on the thing that would help gym owners the most, which was actually building the mentorship program of Two-Brain Business. And so in the next year, the business quadrupled, and then it doubled again the year after that, by maintaining my focus. And when I stopped doing one-on-one mentorship, I had this one year kind of lapse there. I started five other projects. And guess what? My core project, the thing that was actually helping gym owners the most didn’t grow as fast. It just kind of coasted along and it grew, but not at the rate that it was growing before. And we were helping people less. And so what I did that year was I started a bunch of other projects. I had great ideas and I kicked them off.

Chris (09:35):

And now I see that if I had just said, somebody else go start this, you know, just handed the idea off to them. They could have probably grown those projects bigger. I could have grown my own projects bigger by maintaining focus. Another thing that the mentor’s job is to do is to be the connector. And this is more important the more successful you are. So for example, in our tinker program, there are a lot of people who are interested in expanding their platform with the acquisition of cryptocurrency. I know nothing about cryptocurrency. I have a strategy for growth. It includes real estate and index funds. I’m not too excited about cryptocurrency. On the other hand, I’m 46 years old, and a lot of people are. So my job is to be the connector, to find, filter and bring in a great expert who will take people in Two-Brain from where they are with their knowledge of crypto, to having enough knowledge to be able to make an informed decision and actually take action.

Chris (10:36):

So, yesterday this is what I did. I got on calls with three crypto experts who were all recommended to me by somebody who’s associated with my mentor, right. He was that first connector. And then I talked to each one, I selected the one who I thought was perfect for our audience. And then I engaged them. I said, you know, how can we bring you in to talk to our tinker group? We set up a deal. And now they’re coming in to make a presentation on crypto to our tinker group. Your mentor has a lot of connections that they’ve formed. Usually they’ve been in the game for a long time. And so that means they might not be the expert on something, but they know somebody who can, and that connection is so valuable. Imagine you’re trying to teach your client crypto and to know that you have to go down deep and you have to learn it for a full year before you’re qualified to teach them anything about it, right?

Chris (11:32):

Because you’re so scared that they’re gonna go find another expert. Well, your mentor can probably just link you to the person that you need who’s already spent that year. Who’s already done that research. Who’s made the mistakes and who can teach that connection. And there’s so many examples of this in our tinker level program, you know, you want to start your second gym as a direct duplicate of your first gym? We have people who’ve done that. You want go buy five more gyms in three months. We’ve got people who’ve done that. You want to build a personal brand. You want to do a high ticket offering that complements your gym or a high value offering outside your gym. We have people in the program who have done that. You wanna start a supplement company. Yeah. We’ve got that. Crypto, Airbnb, self storage businesses, index funds, overfunded, whole life.

Chris (12:21):

There are people in the group who’ve done all of these things. And the mentor’s job is just to kind of connect you to them. So when I’m talking to a mentor and I book a call, I get on the call and the mentor said, what’s distracting you right now. OK. So that could be like, if there is a problem, we might go down that road then. OK. Let’s look at some metrics. And so we usually look at six metrics if you’re in the growth phase of our program or about three metrics if you’re in the tinker phase of our program. Are these things growing? Yes. Now let’s talk about your opportunities. Which thing are you focusing on hardest right now? What will you be focused on for the next month or for the next three months? How can I help you focus on that better?

Chris (13:05):

And so right back to the what’s distracting you. What the mentor doesn’t do is dive deep down the, why do you want to do that? Or how is this a hard lesson for you? That won’t move you forward, right? Digging you back into your history, getting caught up in your current story, that won’t help you progress. The mentor’s job is to get you out of that rumination, out of your own head, focused on what the opportunities are ahead of you and you know, what you should be working on. So when I’m talking to my mentors right now, a lot of that conversation is about finance. I have a very clear goal to make it to 20 million in net worth so that I can give away a million dollars every year. And everything that I do has to be directed toward that goal. So when a mentor says, Hey, Chris, how come you’re doing this thing?

Chris (13:52):

Is that getting you closer toward that goal? That’s actually speeding me up. And this is the kind of thing that a mentor does that people don’t appreciate. So the last thing that I wanna say here is everybody should be in a coaching program. If you are a coach, you should have a coach. Even if you’re a business coach, you should have a business coach. If not, I don’t really know, you know, where you’re getting your information or how you’re improving your skills or how you’re really serving your clients better. When you have a coach, though, your job is to reach out to them, to be a good client, to initiate conversation, not to wait until you have like your monthly appointment or whatever, not to wait until they start to worry that you’re drifting and they reach out to you, not to expect them to call you every two weeks or whatever to check in, but to actually send them updates, not just problems.

Chris (14:52):

Don’t wait till you have problems, because if they’re a good coach, you’re not gonna have a lot of problems for very long, but send them your wins. Hey, I sent this email out and here’s what happened, or, Hey, I’m about to do this thing. How could I make it better? Or I see these two opportunities, which one do I pick? Or, Hey, I would love to learn more about crypto. Who do you know? And that’s what I talk to my coach about. Sometimes I get on a call and I’m like, oh man, maybe I should cancel. I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about today. And the coach will say something like Chris what’s bugging you right now. And that’s usually top of mind. And we start digging into that. And then within 25 to 35 minutes, not only am I moved on to what’s important, but I’ve also got a framework to do it. And probably some connections who are going to really speed up the process. When you’re working with a mentor, you’re buying speed. You’re also buying the avoidance of pain and the solution to your mistakes. But fixing your mistakes is step one. When the mistakes are done, that’s when you need more mentorship. I hope that helps.

Mike (16:00):

Two-Brain Radio airs twice a week and features all the info you need to run a successful fitness business. Subscribe so you don’t miss a show. Now here’s Coop one more time.

Chris (16:10):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

The post What Do I Talk to My Gym Business Mentor About? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Fit Shaming, Motherhood and Entrepreneurship: Jenn Hunter-Marshall

Jennifer Hunter-Marshall is the co-owner and head coach of CrossFit Garden City in Long Island, New York. She’s also an athlete who competes in CrossFit and functional fitness competitions, an actor, and a mom of two young kids.

We talk about her unusual path to the fitness industry,  what it’s like to have your kids grow up in the gym, fit-shaming and why the concept of “having it all” needs to be put to bed.

https://crossfitgardencity.com/

Timeline:

1:38: Unlikely path to gym ownership

6:19: The concept of “you can have it all”

7:25: Mom guilt

10:25: New understanding of a mom’s need for space

14:19: Co-parenting with your biz partner

16:53: Growing up in a gym

21:34: The importance of being intentional

20:22: Working with pre-/post-natal women

25:21: Competition

34:33: Fit-shaming

38:36: Strong role models for daughters

 

 

Tiffy (00:04):

I’m Tiffy Thompson and Women In Fitness Business is my deep dive into the industry from the female perspective. In each show, I talk with fitness entrepreneurs, coaches, and executives about why they got into the industry and what’s keeping them there. I ask about the unique challenges for women in fitness, the balancing act of career and family, and the different strategies for success in a tough field. I’ll present big wins, lessons from failure and real conversations with real women who are improving the health of their clients around the world. It’s a spotlight on the great work of the women who know working out. Today, I talk to Jennifer Hunter Marshall. Jennifer is the co-owner and head coach of CrossFit Garden City in Long Island, New York. She’s also an athlete who competes in CrossFit and functional fitness competitions, an actor, and a mom of two young kids. We talk about her unusual path to the fitness industry, what it’s like have your kids grow up in the gym, fit shaming, and why this concept of having it all needs to be put to bed. OK, Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jennifer (01:09):

Oh, thank you. Excited to be here.

Tiffy (01:13):

I’m curious, when you were young, did you think you’d grow up to become a gym owner? Did that enter into your consciousness?

Jennifer (01:23):

Not at all. So when I was young, I didn’t even think of it as that was a possibility. Right. I think I was juggling between, do I wanna be a doctor or a lawyer? So this was totally not on my radar.

Tiffy (01:34):

Right. So how did it transpire, like what kind of led to it?

Jennifer (01:38):

Just a series of happy accidents. That I would describe it. I guess I’ll go back to right before it started. So when I was a senior in high school, around that time, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, which was devastating at the time because of the not side effects, but just the issues that I had health-wise. And so that kind of set the stage for my pursuit of health going forward later. And then, fast forward a couple years later, I went to grad school for theater. So I have a master’s in fine arts. OK. And, I was never good at waitressing, not saying that all actors are waitresses or wait staff or anything like that, but I was able to, I was good at fitness. So I taught group exercise and personal training as my side hustle while I was in school and then moved to New York to pursue a life in the theater.

Jennifer (02:44):

And, that is harder than it looks in the movies. Right. And so my side hustle turned to be like a full-time thing. So I had a very successful personal training business in New York City for years. Met my now husband who is in finance at the time. So neither one of us had it on our radar. Yeah. And, then from there, we moved to Colorado and, we found CrossFit when we were in Colorado. This is 2006 and then our lives forever changed and opened up the possibility I think for us getting into CrossFit of having a gym or owning a business such as that, because we hadn’t seen anything like that. Before then it was all commercial gyms or, you know, the traditional type of training facilities that we see that one would visit at those times. So, that was, I guess like the, that was the moment 2006, where things changed like, Hey, perhaps we could do this for ourselves versus working for other people. And then that began our journey.

Tiffy (03:56):

And when you were young, were kids part of your like life plan or was that?

Jennifer (04:04):

So always in the back of my mind, I always envisioned myself as a mother. I used to think I wanted eight kids then after you get one you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t know what I was thinking about. Those that do that’s great. And, but yes, I always wanted kids and we always thought that we had time. I got, we got married when I was like later I was in like my early, mid thirties when we got married. We were like, OK, we’ll have a little bit of time. I was competing in CrossFit and we were traveling on seminar staff around the world. So it was just like, we thought we’ll have time. Right. And that’s where my autoimmune issues and things from earlier came to bear.

Jennifer (04:51):

Cause it turned out I had, fertility issues or infertility issues. And that was challenging for like a five to six or so years struggling with that and trying to get pregnant. You spend like your early life as a young woman, trying not to have it so you can pursue, you know, what you wanna do professionally. And then the moment comes, you’re like, now I’m ready. And universe is like, well, guess what? Buckle up cuz it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. And so, and thankfully on the other side of that very stressful, financially, emotionally, journey. We have two beautiful kids.

Tiffy (05:38):

And they’re two and four? So you’re in the throw of the toddler preschooler.

Jennifer (05:46):

Yes. Uhhuh. I want my independence, but I can’t do anything.

Tiffy (05:50):

Change my diaper. Yeah. So when you look at like how you balance kind of the day to day of gym ownership and you’re also doing voice work, you say, and like theater stuff and, and motherhood in a never ending pandemic. We seem to be, what’s been the trickiest part of all that for you?

Jennifer (06:19):

I guess. And I was thinking about this a lot when I knew we were gonna be talking Tippy, like the concept of you can have it all. And I think that’s something that we were sold as women. Like at least I heard as a message. And now that I’m in it, I don’t know that you can have it all, but you need to be very selective about what all that you are pursuing. If that makes sense. It can’t be everything. But what you do keep has to be meaningful and worth you taking away from those other things. So if I’m going to do something, how does this impact my kids, my marriage, that’s my foundation of what’s most important. Yeah. How I do everything, if that answers the question, but that’s one of the things that I still trying to juggle. Yeah.

Tiffy (07:08):

I know for myself, I like, I struggle with guilt of like, when I’m paying attention to work, I’m not giving enough attention to the kids. And then vice versa. It’s this constant and push and pull. How do you kind of contend with that guilt or that?

Jennifer (07:25):

I don’t know if I’ve ever, if I’ve been able to get rid of the guilt, you know, like something like I have to do this, I have to work because this all is on our, like not me, but me and my husband, we have to make this business work. Yeah. And I think the best thing that we were able to do, and we’re fortunate to be able to do it is involve our kids in everything we do. So their stuff isn’t, they’re not separate from us. Right. Like not, they do have activities that are appropriate for them. My son does karate and they have school, but versus like throwing them in other places or on a babysitter per se, we kind of like, all right, they’re coming to the gym with us. I know we’re fortunate to do that. Not everybody can just take their kids to work. At least on my end I think it’s great. I believe our members love it. They just run the roost over there. They are very social and I think it’s nice to have them around the gym for our members to have just my kids seem unaffected by all of the heaviness of what’s going on. So for an hour of the day, I think the people that come to our gym to see and hear the laughter of children and just how they are, you know, they’re getting through it. Then all right. So it’s working right now.

Tiffy (08:53):

It’s almost like an extended like family for them, it sounds like.

Jennifer (08:58):

Absolutely. They’ll grab anybody and sit them down the couch in th lobby and read to them. They ride on the sleds all the time. Anytime there’s a sled workout, they’re jumping on somebody’s sled. So I always tell ’em like, you scaled up the weight on that one. And they just, they’re there. And they wanna go. My daughter today, she was like, I wanna go to the gym. I don’t wanna go to school. I was like, well, today’s your first day back in two weeks. You’re going.

Tiffy (09:28):

We’ll get the workout in later.

Jennifer (09:29):

Yeah. We’ll get it in. So it’s been great. And, but again, you’re always like, whew, I need to spend more time. And as a parent, whether you’re mom or a father, you always these early years, not that all the years aren’t, are so precious because they go so quickly. So for me being like, all right, Jen, be present, like, you’re thinking about what’s going on, what I have to get ready for next, listen to them, see them and be here. That’s what I struggle with, making sure that it’s those things that I don’t miss. So.

Tiffy (10:09):

Yeah. Do you find that having kids kind of changed how you relate to your members and to your staff? Like, did it kind of change that or?

Jennifer (10:24):

I think with my members, I guess those that have kids that understand how better, and I think that makes me a better coach, like how important that hour or like, so they don’t have their kids there. In CrossFit it is the best hour of your day, and it’s a moment where you can just let everything out. So you can be the best parent when you leave or just you’re taking care of yourself in that moment. So that means more to me now, I think, especially I crave those times when I can work out now. And it’s like therapy for me, like I have to get in there and move around. So that’s why it’s so important for us to be open, for people to have that space to go. Cause some of our members are locked up at home all day working still, like I just couldn’t wait to get outta the house. And so we are not considered frontline workers or like anything like that, but it’s healthcare. It totally is. So we are so fortunate, but we feel like such a necessity for us to be open and to be there.

Tiffy (11:41):

Has it changed how you prioritize what you’re going to do with your day?

Jennifer (11:49):

Yes. So one of the things that happened for us, so my husband and I we’ve owned our gym for 11 years, which is long time, especially in CrossFit, I think it’s like, a five year life expectancy, three to five or something for a lot of new gyms opening. I think that’s a statistic that I heard. So to be open for 11 years and move twice within that time. So we’re in our third location. Our location we’re in now happened. We had to move. This was right the same week that I gave birth to my second child. And then six months before the whole world turned upside down. So we had a lot going on at one time and I had a difficult, second, well, both of them were difficult, with my second pregnancy. I ended up with postpart preeclampsia.

Jennifer (12:36):

Which was extremely scary and life threatening. Wow. Cause, if it hadn’t been caught or I didn’t have the resources that I had, it could, it would be a very different end to my story. So dealing with all of that and then moving. So, now where, I lost track now? Oh, so what has changed? So what has changed? Before that time, we had a lot more staff and I kind of worked when I wanted to and I was on seminar staff well I still am and traveled weekends, doing seminars when I could, that were local. So I could get home for my son when I just had one at the time, but because of the shutdown and just financially things had to change for us in order to keep the business afloat. My husband and I do most of the coaching. OK. So that is where the juggle comes in. So my husband does the morning shift to afternoon. And then I come in most days we have another coach that helps us out in the afternoons and then I’ll do afternoon to evening. Right. And so I’ve got the kids in the morning. Right. We switch, he takes ’em to school and then he’s got them after school in the afternoon. So I get home in the evening.

Tiffy (13:56):

Do you, so that’s another layer of complexity, cuz this is like you’re running a business with your spouse and it’s almost like you’re doing, it’s like the daycare sort of trade off. And is it hard to connect with your spouse and all of this? Or how do you kind of navigate that?

Jennifer (14:17):

Yeah. It’s tough. We’re on different sleep schedules. So we try, I just had a birthday. Woo. We managed to have a date night, to spend some time together. But, and my husband reminds me of it often because I get easily distracted again, being present in those moments where you around each other to listen, we share podcasts with each other. That’s another way that we have something to talk about. And in the car, we’re traveling with the kids we listen. So we have something to talk about and share one way that we connect and then trying to, sometimes we’re more successful than others schedule those important date nights or time where we can just be together. Right. And we’ve tried to do sometimes more successful with than others. But yeah, what we gotta do right now. And then we also work weekends, teaching CrossFit level one level, two seminars. So he’s traveling this weekend. To where is he going? North Carolina. And he won’t be back till Monday afternoon.

Tiffy (15:23):

Wow. So do you have like family around to help or like how do you do this?

Jennifer (15:31):

Thankfully my husband’s family is in New York, so we get a lot of support from his oldest sister has been tremendously helpful. And then we have members that we’re very close to that are like family that help. So my birthday dinner, one of our members babysat and a lot of, some of them vy for it. They’re like we wanna babysit. The kids are so much fun. I think they have a bigger fan club than we do. Everybody knows them. Yeah. So that helps out tremendously. Otherwise I don’t know how we would do it. My family lives in Virginia and they would love to help more if they could. One of the things that’s been difficult speaking for our parents, my husband’s the youngest, I’m the oldest, but our parents are older now, so it’s hard for them to take on like a full day with a four year old and two year old. Like good for a couple hours. So, it’s hard to like, be like, Hey, we’re gonna leave them with you and go, but they definitely help out however they can.

Tiffy (16:39):

Yeah. And for your kids, from their perspective, what has it been like seeing them growing up in the gym and like, what do you want them to kind of take away from that experience?

Jennifer (16:53):

One of the things, I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way, but what I see happening is and I hope continues to grow their curiosity. And about people, about the spaces that they’re in. Like they’re not afraid, I guess that’s the way that I look at it. And I guess a lot of children aren’t that way or weren’t that way. Now I see kids that are a little bit afraid because everything going on and maybe that’s transferred on to them by their parents. But we encourage them to be fearless, of, you know, everything. So they’ll climb on top of boxes. So they’ll go up and say how hi to a stranger, like just even walking down the street in our neighborhood, they’re like, hi, how you doing to anybody? And people are like, whoa, who is this child?

Jennifer (17:43):

Some adults dunno quite what to make of it. My son is, very outgoing. So that’s something that I hope continues and that we’re gonna continue to foster. And I think being in a supportive community like ours helps. So he’s got more than just two parents. He’s got that village of people who look out for him and right. And, love both of them. But, yeah. So I think that’s the thing that I wanna see for both of them as they continue to grow just their, what is it? People literacy or just in and about themselves as well. Yeah.

Tiffy (18:25):

And they’re also getting a very positive image of like health and fitness and taking care of themselves and seeing you guys take care of yourselves, it must have an impact on them.

Jennifer (18:37):

Oh yes. And the teachers tell us all the time, at least my son, like at school they’ll get like little snacks or something and one of he goes, my son goes to Spanish school once a week. I grew up in Europe. And so I grew up speaking, or being exposed to other languages and cultures and I speak Spanish. My German’s not as great, but I thought it was important from an early age for them to learn. Yeah. So he gos once a week and he was at school and I guess they gave him snacks and the teachers, like, I just wanted to let you know, does Hunter have an allergy or anything? And I was like, no, why? He said, because we gave out, I think they were fruit snacks or something like that. And he said, I’ll eat it, but don’t tell my daddy. And I was like, what? Like, no, no no. It’s because we don’t have it at our house. She’s like I know you guys own a gym. I was like, but he can have it if he’s at school, we don’t want him be a weirdo. But he already knows. This is like when he was like four. Yeah. He’ll tell people that’s a bad sugar.

Tiffy (19:55):

I’m curious like how, like having kids and being an entrepreneur, if you feel that having kids has kind of held back your progress as an entrepreneur or augmented it.

Jennifer (20:11):

Guess depending on where I’m standing each day could be either or the other. Right. In terms of availbility. There’s a lot of logistical things that have to happen for me to like spontaneously go and do something, like have an idea and I’m just gonna start this tomorrow. It might not be tomorrow. So I have to, it’s more planning involved because we have them to like, juggle, like, oh, I wanna do a class in the evening. I’m like, oh, well, how’s that impact dinner? Like bedtime, being home, all those things. Because that’s the time where most of people are at the gym, so yeah. Weekends and things like that. So I guess it just, it depends, but I try not to let it hold me back from pursuing those things that are important to me, going back to, you know, you can’t have it all, but what are those things that are meaningful to you? Right. So, I think it’s important for my kids to see me pursuing those things. So like, mommy, you know, I need to, you know, so they don’t hold back.

Tiffy (21:17):

When you’re kind of filtering out all the noise and identifying what those things you wanna focus on are, how do you do that? And like what are the kind of tactics that you use to kind of narrow in?

Jennifer (21:34):

I’m still working on it. Tiffy, my husband asks me all the time. He’s like, you can’t do everything. Because people ask, I think it was last year. I said, I’m just gonna say yes to everything. I think it was Sean, she’s created a lot of popular TV shows. She’s a African American writer best way to describe her, but producer, Grey’s anatomy. I remember reading an article that either she was interviewed for, or she wrote, and she was talking about, I think she has three daughters and she was just busy all the time. And she’s like, I’m just gonna say yes to everything. Yes to playing with my children. If they ask me, and see where it goes. And then, you know, so I took that and I ran with it.

Jennifer (22:24):

And so my hashtag is yes, coach Jen. And so I was just like, yes, to everything. And then you find out like, whoa, what that leads you down to. So it’s like an initially, is it something intrigues me, is it something that I would be good at? Does it add value to my life versus not? And then there’s like the three things that kind of think about and then how can I juggle it all? And again, some days it doesn’t work out so great. But, and then I’m still trying to weed out things. Cause I’m in classes for my acting, trying to be a good mom and wife plus a good coach and a seminar staff member. So there’s a lot of balls that I’ve got juggling. Yeah.

Jennifer (23:19):

And, just trying to put them like, this is the only time I have to do this and making sure they don’t bleed into one another. I guess that’s the other thing like multitasking, I don’t think works and it doesn’t exist. I think you just have to focus one thing at a time and then that’s it. This is all I have to get done with and then move on to the next thing. I guess it came up from my doctor put it to me this one time, I see a functional medicine doctor. She’s like, yeah. In terms of doing everything you wanna do, you just have to give it a certain amount of time. Like this is as much time as I can spend on this. Right. I work with a nonprofit and we went through a massive rebranding. There was a lot of stuff that I had to do.

Jennifer (24:02):

Then I was like, whoa, this is more than I signed on for. My doctor’s like, no, you need to just set your limits. Right. I wanna help. This is how much time I have. And that’s it. And people will take it or they won’t. Right. And that’s, and you have to be comfortable with that. So I’m trying to do that now with everything that I have, if people are looking at me, when people are asking me to do stuff, if it’s something that I wanna do. Then I’m very selective about what I do. When people ask me, like, we need you to do this. We need to do this. And like, hold on, let me just see what time I have to work with and how that deal with everything else I have to do.

Tiffy (24:41):

Being very intentional and

Jennifer (24:43):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.cause there’s only 24 hours in a day and I already don’t get enough sleep. So I need to like carve out some more for that.

Tiffy (24:54):

I read an interview with you and it was talking about how you were competing and you switched off, like you didn’t go on social media for the whole time because you wanted to be focused. And that really kind of stood out to me. Is that something, is that a practice you employ or like how does kind of the digital world meld into your life and how do you control that?

Jennifer (25:21):

I remember that was the year that I went to the Games as a masters, 2014 and it stressed me out to like kind of see like leaderboards, see where people are. I was like, you know what, what you did is what you did. That’s what you got and how it shakes out at the end. I can’t do anything more than I did. So does it help me psychologically, mentally, emotionally to every week or every day be looking and then seeing other what other people were commenting on? No. So I didn’t even put my scores in. My husband put all my scores. I didn’t deal with it at all. And that was immensely helpful. And I think that helped me get through. Now it’s tough because this age that we’re in, you market yourself, kind of have to be on.

Tiffy (26:09):

The metaverse.

Jennifer (26:12):

Some days you’re like, I just wanna get out and yeah. Everybody knows you can get in. So it’s not like you can’t be like, oh no, you can look. So it’s harder. But I have the one thing that I did do is take Facebook off of my phone. So the only way I have, and I only go in for like groups that I’m in. So some things that I’m in, either acting groups or, I’m taking a course now on, the female athlete, pre and postpartum, which is an amazing course that I’m taking right now. I think they’re a Canadian group actually.

Jennifer (26:57):

But it’s a great course, but they have a Facebook book group that I have to submit weekly assignments on, but I only go in for that right. Go into our community page. And that has helped a lot because I don’t have enough time as it is to be sucked into just like, oh, so and so posted this and then that means something else. And then you’re down a rabbit hole. Do you see like a bulldog on a skateboard? So it’s just it gets crazy. Yeah. Trying to work on that with the Instagram, my husband is better at that. So he got the only thing he can use on his phone is text and email. So that he’s not pulled in, so then you’re intentional. So I have to pull out my laptop yeah. So then when you’re at the stoplight, you’re not like, oh, lemme just see what so and so posted about.

Tiffy (27:53):

I wanted to ask about like your experience with like the pregnancy issues and the preeclampsia and stuff and the postpart depression. Right. And now you’re in this course for pre and postnatal stuff. Do you see yourself heading in that direction in terms of helping your clients with this sort of thing? Or where do you see that heading?

Jennifer (28:19):

I see it as being more of an extension of what I’ve already doing. I started out, let’s see, I’ve been training people for over 20 years now. And when I first started out and this was prior to CrossFit, I distinguished myself as a trainer where I was working by working, not primarily with women, but working with prenatal women. OK. And then during pregnancy. So I took all the courses that there were out there at that time. And there weren’t many, and the information that was out there is very different. The landscape has changed tremendously. I think on my own, and I don’t know how I knew to do it was less conservative than what was out there. Cause at the time it was the American gynecologist, they had like guidelines for how to train pregnant women. It was very conservative.

Tiffy (29:14):

Right. Like no running.

Jennifer (29:17):

You can’t lift over five pounds.

Tiffy (29:23):

Pick up that watermelon for me.

Jennifer (29:26):

Exactly. But I was in the gym and I was with women who were professional marathon runners, those were the people that I was training and I was like, they wanna run. And I was like, well, this is inconsistent. They’ve been doing this for so long. How can I help them manage this at this time safely? So took whatever was out there.and then kind of developed my own kind of thing. And then, you know, I did, I taught Pilates and yoga for years and did Pilates and yoga and incorporated that, I had a class in Colorado. I taught one of my former members, this is like 2007. She’s like, I still remember your pre and postnatal Pilates class cause I allowed the women to bring the babies back. So they could, you know, start to reintegrate themselves into fitness, and it was cute. Cause we had playlists that we play and the babies would respond to some of the music.

Tiffy (30:21):

Well they can hear it all.

Jennifer (30:22):

They can hear it all. They’re like, oh, they must remember. Yeah. And so I guess as time has passed on, and especially because of my experience, it’s a demographic that’s near and dear to my heart. So as the field of training, pre and postnatal, women has grown and developed, and I just wanna seek out more. So the course is geared towards physical therapists. OK. Which I’m not. So I’m learning a lot like, OK, these are things that I may ask my client or member to ask their PT or pelvic floor PT, whoever they go see, and then I can help inform me. And then I will just know more. I feel like my journey as a trainer and a coach is ongoing. I encourage everyone, myself to approach everything like you don’t know. So I’ve never reached like I’ve got it all.

Jennifer (31:17):

No, I’m like, OK, let me learn some more. I’m like, oh, I didn’t think about this. And just and then maybe you don’t not necessarily agree, but just you have the tools to like question and like, does that really make sense? Does this work, can I test and retest? And those are some of the things I’ve learned in the last few years from the courses tha, I’ve taken, don’t be so attached to one particular track or dogma or like no, each person is different. You, approach it from a place of care and wanting to truly help them and you’ll find what’s the best solution for them. So I think that’s how I approach not only training my pre and postnatal clientele, but just all of my clients. Serve you as the individual, within a group because we do group training. Also do individual training.

Tiffy (32:09):

Sounds like you’re taking like your own life experiences too. And allowing them to inform how you respond to people and how you see like perceive their journey too.

Jennifer (32:24):

Yeah. It’s interesting. One of the reasons why we got into group training is you can do more at one time versus I did one on one for years. It was exhausting, like eight hours of like one person at a time, but you still have to create that same environment within a group. And so how can you do that? And it takes time and patience is like juggling. That’s why we always recommend you start with one person at a time before you have a group of 15. Cause you just can’t do that effectively. So I think those trainers that are able to do that or coaches gradually do that and create that individual within the group setting, will get the best results for the people that are working with them.

Tiffy (33:09):

And I also like that you have a theater background too. Does that must play into like, especially the group dynamic.

Jennifer (33:19):

Oh, so much. My jam back in the day was called butts and guts. That was the most popular class that I taught. I was like, what? It’s just lunges and sit-ups but with the right music and the good corny jokes, like it was the best 45 minutes of their day. Yeah. And people reach out to me like I miss your class, I used to have a class called pump and jump, and I am not afraid to be silly. I fully commit to my silliness and my corny jokes. And I layer that on with like also being a good coach. Right. And I think that provides the levity that’s needed cuz people wanna have fun, but they wanna go after their fitness goals too. So it definitely helps.

Tiffy (34:06):

Mike had a question for you, like, you’re a functional fitness role model essentially. And we’ve heard a lot from people who are critical of women with muscle, have you had to deal with that crowd? And what would you say to ou say to women who have had run-ins with ignorant people?

Jennifer (34:33):

I’ve had that. OK. So answer your question. Women with muscles or being very muscular. I’ve dealt with it my whole life. They’ll say a lot of times I’ve heard this. I don’t wanna look, you know, be fit or build muscle. I don’t wanna look like you. My response, no problem. It won’t happen. It takes a lot of hard work for that to happen. And for people I actually it would be interesting to see, I did an episode of what would you do? It’s on US television, but it’s a show hosted by John Keone. It was on fit shaming. So it was, I think it’s on YouTube where you still find it, but I was exercising for like eight hours outside. Right. And, the setup of the show is there are actors that tried to get other people to say something about the person the episode’s about.

Jennifer (35:27):

So random people walking by and these two other actors would go by and try to say, look at that, look how musclely she is, that’s gross. And try to get a response from the people agreeing with them or not agreeing. Right. And it was interesting because I would say like 99% of the people were like, leave her alone. So it’s great. Or like, maybe that’s not what I’m into, but let her do her thing. Right. Which very, like, not that I was shocked, but it warmed my heart to know that people defended me like that. And I think now with when, I mean, I consider myself a mature, experienced woman at my age, but when I started out like 20 some years ago, there weren’t a lot of women that looked as muscular as me, even in CrossFit when I was competing, people were like wow, she’s jaked.

Jennifer (36:21):

I had a six pack. And I thought something was wrong with my stomach. Cause I didn’t see any women that had that definition. This is when I was in college. Yeah. And I didn’t like it. I would like cover it up and now cause like every, you know, people walk around outside to go buy groceries with their shirt off, but so I had to deal with it. And it was, I went from being kind of embarrassed by it to now it’s a source of pride for me. It’s like, I work very hard to have a strong body that allowed me to survive mentally and physically the hard deliveries that I had. And if I did not have this strong body that forged a strong mind, I would not have gotten through it. I don’t think so. So like that hard, and it doesn’t always translate into muscles. I don’t want anybody to think, like I have to have muscle to be strong, but just that, pursuit of fitness and working hard in the gym or whatever you choose to do to be your or outlet for fitness, it by doing so develops your mind to be like a little bit more resilient, a little bit tougher.

Tiffy (37:32):

Do you think some of that confidence has come with age or maybe the experience of becoming a mom kind of built that up?

Jennifer (37:41):

I think both cause motherhood and age happen at the same time yes. So it’s like, ah, like I don’t give a shit anymore. And not to be joke about it too much, but say women say like, oh, you’re so muscular. That’s unattractive. I think now we have great role models that exist out there, aside from me, Serena Williams, Simone Biles that are muscular and beautiful and I think are showing a different narrative. So we don’t have to, and there others as well, those are the two that come to mind that I look up to and be like, yeah, I’m like a mini Serena Williams.

Tiffy (38:25):

You have a daughter? A son and a daughter. So what is your hope for her when she becomes an adult and what she’s capable of doing? What do you want her to know?

Jennifer (38:35):

I just want her to be strong, which she already is, she’s always saying like, feel my muscles, but she’s holding her arm, I’m like, you’re not flexing anything or contracting. And she’s like, I’m working out and she calls herself wonder woman. We were both wonder woman for Halloween and she has a wonder woman jacket. And the other day she insisted that I not call her by her name, but her name was wonder woman. So I hope she keeps that. And I tell her you can do anything. She’s like, I am strong. And so we do like little, I do little affirmations with the kids so not to give them a false sense or to raise their confidence artificially, but for them to believe it.

Jennifer (39:24):

So they know that they are, they’re capable and we make them do things for themselves. They’re foreign too. But they’re very resourceful.

Tiffy (39:34):

They can do a lot.

Jennifer (39:37):

Oh yes. They’ve figured out how to get what they want. If we’re not moving fast enough, they find chairs and things and boxes and put them on top of it and they get I’m like, where did you get that? My son does muscle-ups into the refrigerator to get what he wants. So I’m like, OK, he’s gonna be all right. As long as they don’t figure out how to drive, not yet. But that’s what I want for her. Just to be a resilient, young woman to not be beholden to labels, whatever they may be. And just be herself fully, unapologetically like her mama.

Tiffy (40:18):

I could talk to you all day.

Jennifer (40:22):

I know. I thought like, oh, we’ll talk for half hour, but I could talk forever.

Tiffy (40:26):

I appreciate you coming on with me today and chatting about this stuff. It’s been a real pleasure.

Jennifer (40:38):

Same here. Same here. I hope I answered your questions well, or like, you know, I’m somebody who’s still trying to figure it all out, Tiffy. And I think that’s everybody, anybody says they know all the answers, they lyin’.

Tiffy (40:50):

Well, thank you very much, Jen.

Jennifer (41:05):

Well, thank you. Give my best to Mike. One day, hopefully I’ll see you in person.

Tiffy (41:10):

That would be amazing.

Jennifer (41:13):

Stay safe and be well and I enjoyed it very much.

Tiffy (41:18):

Take care.

Tiffy (41:22):

You’ve been listening to the Women In Fitness Business podcast and I’m Tiffy Thompson. If you like what you heard today, subscribe for more. Thanks for tuning in.

 

The post Fit Shaming, Motherhood and Entrepreneurship: Jenn Hunter-Marshall appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Diet Culture, Body Image and Nutrition for Life With Adee Cazayoux

Adee Cazayoux is the CEO and founder of Working Against Gravity, an athlete who won the Bronze Medal in the 2016 Canadian National Weightlifting Championships, an artist, and mother of a 1-year-old son. We chat about the pressures on women to look a certain way, anti-diet culture and the healthy-at-any-size movement. We also get into Adee’s own struggles with her weight and the path that led her to her current role as CEO of a nutrition coaching company. 

https://www.workingagainstgravity.com/

Timeline:

1:41: Pressure on women to look a certain way

3:49: Adee’s body image evolution

7:53: Importance of personal choice

12:19: Mindset shift

14:37: Initial plan—be a teacher

15:57: Pandemic lessons

18:26: How to motivate

20:34: Coaching athletes

22:20: Running a business with your spouse

24:17: Delineation of sacred/secular time

28:00: Motherhood experience

31:39: Adee’s entrepreneurial superpower

 

 

Tiffy (00:04):

I’m Tiffy Thompson and Women In Fitness Business is my deep dive into the industry from the female perspective. In each show, I talk with fitness entrepreneurs, coaches, and executives about why they got into the industry and what’s keeping them there. I ask about the unique challenges for women in fitness, the balancing act of career and family, and the different strategies for success in a tough field. I’ll present big wins, lessons from failure and real conversations with real women who are improving the health of their clients around the world. It’s a spotlight on the great work of the women who know working out. Welcome to Women In Fitness Business. Today, I’m gonna be talking to Adee Cazayoux. She is the CEO and founder of Working Against Gravity, an athlete who won the bronze medal in the 2016 Canadian weightlifting championships and an artist and a mom. We chat about the pressures on women to look a certain way, anti-diet culture, and the healthy at any size movement. And we’ll also get into her own struggles with her weight and the path that led her to her current role as CEO of a nutrition coaching company. Adee, welcome to the show.

Adee (01:18):

Thank you. I’m excited to be here with a fellow Canadian.

Tiffy (01:22):

So I can’t think of any women I know who haven’t at one point or other, either struggled with their weight or struggled with some type of disordered eating. Is this just the cross we bear or is there something else going on?

Adee (01:41):

First I’ll say I’m not an expert in disordered eating at all. But I’ve been involved in nutrition and fitness for over half my life and worked with thousands of people on their nutrition. And this particular thing, like women and disordered eating, it’s so complex of what is actually impacting our belief systems about ourselves, about our worth, about what makes us valuable, about, you know, how much mixed messaging we get on how to eat, to look a certain way and then how to eat to fuel ourselves a certain way. And then also these like beauty ideals that have been presented to us in wide different varieties, whether it used to be through, like, I think TV shows is maybe a little bit less than it was, cuz there’s more streaming now, but social media, for sure. And just being exposed to these like ideals that people, idolize or validate.

Adee (02:51):

And then of course we wanna be validated. I think this is not women specific. I just think there is a little bit more pressure on women holding that like feminine polarity, which is not female or male, but more like the energy itself of beauty and like the physical realm of what you look like. And yeah, it just is a lot of pressure. I feel like it’s been my whole life, like reading magazines, watching TV, wanting to be liked and loved and there is somewhere messaging around your value worth and how you get loved is in part by how you look.

Tiffy (03:36):

Do you think it gets better with age like you start to care less or your kind of priority shift or for you personally, how has that sort of played out?

Adee (03:49):

Yeah, for me personally, I mean, this is something I think about every single day I have like my work, everyone has like their work in the world of what, you know, whether some like wounding from childhood that you’re still trying to heal for the rest of your life. One of mine for sure is on my body and how it looks physically. I went through this transition of, I was almost 200 pounds when I was a teenager. And then so for, in Canada, it’s, you know, grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. And so for grades nine and 10, I was overweight. And then for grades 11 and 12, I was all of a sudden attractive to the opposite sex. And this is like such a formative time of your life, where hormones are raging and you don’t have like your frontal cortex where you can make great decisions and your brain is still seriously developing and all of a sudden I’m getting so much validation for the way that I look and I still to this day battle with all of that, like I definitely used it to my advantage and used it to help me become successful.

Adee (04:57):

And then now I’m like, does that actually serve me still? And there’s a shadow to every type of success. And I definitely still battle with it today. I just, I think my brain has developed a little bit more and I have more experience and with age comes wisdom. And especially as you start to take on more responsibility or maybe start a family and then you just start realizing what actually matters in your life and what matters to you. And I keep remembering that like what is important to me, what actually matters to me and is it so important to me that of the way that I look physically and then the concept that keeps coming up for me is that different phases of life choir, a different type of body. And it’s so amazing that the female body can actually change so much, especially if you bear children, it’s so amazing.

Adee (05:54):

And you know, in postpartum, maybe it’s actually important for you to carry more body fat so that you can be a soft place to land for your baby or, produce more breast milk or whatever it is. I don’t know the exact science behind it, but I think I started to value more of the range of what your body can look like, the range, there’s a wide range of what your body can look like and you can still be beautiful. And I think I’ve had two big moments in my life where I’ve actually learned this lesson and I don’t think I could have learned it when I was younger. It’s just like experience and wisdom that requires to actually learn the lesson. One was just meeting my husband and he, I’m so fortunate to have a man in my life who is attracted to me and loves me and shows me that appreciation and attraction, even if I have to remind him to do it, which I do sometimes have to remind him, he does that in all phases of my body.

Adee (06:52):

And that is a gift. And then I actually went to burning man one year. And I was at this party at burning man, and I’m looking around and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen pictures of burning man, but people are very scantly clad all the time. Yeah. And I’m looking around and I’m like, wow, you are beautiful and you are beautiful and you’re beautiful. And every one of their bodies was so different, but they were all still so beautiful. So I’m thinking in my head, like if you’re all beautiful, then I must be beautiful too. And if all of these different types of bodies are beautiful, then mine is too. And I think the most beautiful thing is just confidence. Right.

Tiffy (07:33):

That kind of leads into my next question. So in your view, there’s this like growing movement, healthy at any size that I’m sure you’re well acquainted with. Does it sync up with nutritional science and is the desire to lose weight kind of inherently wrong? Or what what’s your take?

Adee (07:53):

I have a former employee. Who’s like one of my closest friends, her name is Dani Sheriff. And she, runs a company called the HA society where she helps women get their period back. And part of getting your period back is, is like dieting and being in a calorie deficit isn’t supportive of that goal. Yet at the same time, she worked for working against gravity for five or six years where we’re a company that primarily helps people lose weight. And she was asked all the time about the conflicts of interest. We talked about the conflicts of interest, Dani and I a lot. And, I personally think that you can want to lose weight because you love yourself. It doesn’t have to be because you dislike yourself, right. You can want to lose weight because you’ll feel better.

Adee (08:46):

You’ll be, like maybe you won’t be happier, but maybe it’s a healthier decision. Maybe you lose weight naturally by changing your diet away from eating unhealthy foods, or from moving your body more or from practicing the behaviors that help you lose weight as a byproduct of just being a healthier human being. And I think it’s OK personally, to want to lose weight and self-improvement is OK. There’s just a stigma associated with it because there’s been this lifetime that we’ve had of many lifetimes of society, media people telling us, you need to be skinny to be valuable and be beautiful, or be lean to be valuable and be beautiful. I don’t care what the end result is, but if you wanna lose weight, whether that’s going from a size 18 to a size 10, or going from a size 10 to a size six, like whatever that is for you, it’s about, it’s a personal choice.

Adee (09:45):

Right? And I think passing judgment on people’s personal choices is part of the problem in general. And so if someone’s a making a personal choice to lose weight, and they’re in touch with what is actually healthy for them and what is helping them live a better and a more fulfilling life then I don’t think it’s anybody’s job to pass judgment on that. And nobody is them. And nobody can know. Of course there are extremes, like we can fulfill this all the way to the extreme, where you have somebody who’s, you know, all the way on the side of potentially, toggling with anorexia. And then all the way on the other side where, you know, we’re in the realm of obesity or even further than that. And I think in those extremes, there are aspects that I think it would be really hard to make an argument for those being healthy. Right. And I’m not talking about those, I’m talking about the average human being who is making a personal choice to wanna lose weight. And it doesn’t have to be because they’re part of this stigma of diet.

Tiffy (10:51):

Have you had interactions with proponents of kind of anti diet culture and what was your sort of experience there?

Adee (11:00):

I haven’t had any like direct interaction, I think that we try and really present an open and welcoming and, self-awareness perspective when it comes to dieting. I don’t think at working against gravity, I know for sure as a culture, we are not promoting people to lose weight just to be valuable or be worthy. We’re helping people develop good habits to love their life and love their body at any size. And if they wanna lose weight, we’re gonna help them figure out how to do that in a way that’s healthy and allows them to maintain that lifestyle. So I think our messaging does try and say that. It’s a hard thing to say outside of a podcast like this, where we can have an extended conversation about it. But I think we do a good job of being presenting that argument.

Tiffy (11:56):

In one of your videos, you talked about when you lost a bunch of weight, you still didn’t feel like that, I don’t know, contentness in yourself and you had to kind of shift your mindset. What were those internal changes and how did you bring them on?

Adee (12:18):

Yeah, I lost like over 50 pounds and I just didn’t have this crazy different life that I imagined. I imagined, you know, you lose weight and you can wear at the time it was, like Lululemon pants, Lululemon was like only a thing in Canada for a while. And then all the girls in my elementary school were wearing Lululemon pants, but I was just, I was, there was no way I was gonna wear those pants. They just hugged your body in a way that I was so uncomfortable with. And I was like, when I can get into a pair of those pants, I’ll be happy and my life will be amazing. And it just wasn’t. And I think the mindset shifted for me was what actually made me happy was the way that I treated myself and not the way that I looked or how much I weighed.

Adee (13:12):

It was way more the fact that I could move my body and I could work out and I could do well at the gym, I could have more energy with my friends or I was eating food that actually made me feel good after. I didn’t feel good eating, you know, pizza and junk food all the time. It feels great for 10 minutes. And then I kind of hated myself after. And so it was, I started to realize that what was making me happy was not this end result. It was actually the journey on the way. And so my focus ever since has been on the journey. And I tell people all the time that it just doesn’t end. You don’t reach this destination, you’re on a fitness and nutrition and health journey for the rest of your life. Like until you’re dead. It’s not, if you think there’s an end, you’ll just, OK, so we get to the end and then what, do we get to go back to the way that we were living? And if we go back to the way that we were living, we’re just gonna end up exactly where we were. So that shift for me was a game changer in my life.

Tiffy (14:18):

It was this struggle that you overcame that got you to this place now of running a nutrition empire. Is it weird when you think back on how far you’ve come from when you were a teenager? Like, did you ever envision yourself as like an entrepreneur of a nutrition business?

Adee (14:37):

My gosh, no, absolutely not. I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher that was 100% like my dream. I wanted to have kids and I wanted to live to have the job where you could have the summers off and the winter breaks and the March breaks. And you can pick up your kids from school at three o’clock or whatever. That was like my dream. And this kind of took over my life. I call myself like an entrepreneur by accident. it just happened where people were asking for help and I wanted to help people. And I knew the impact that it had had on my life. And I just wanted to pay it forward in a way. And so, yeah, it’s super weird looking back. I still have moments of how on earth did we get here? And it’s like, as I look back, it’s just one step. You just keep taking step, step, step, step, and then all of a sudden you’re in a place you that’s nothing like where you took that first step.

Tiffy (15:37):

You operate a business that the model seems almost perfectly situated to help during this pandemic, especially like you’re offering remote coaching and coaching people in their nutrition and training coaches. What have you learned during this time? That’s kind of stuck with you/

Adee (15:57):

Man. I’ve learned probably things that are totally unrelated to nutrition, but definitely related to health as a whole. I’ve really learned the value of social interaction and just like humans are such social creatures and we need each other to survive. Like it’s just because Amazon can deliver to your door and just because you literally don’t have to leave your house, you can just stay home, be on your computer work there, just be with the people in your house. But I’ve just really the value of having community and having friends and seeing them and being able to hug them. And just how big of an impac, that has on people in general. And so, you know, it’s just like been just a major lesson of being grateful for my friends and being grateful for my family and my community and changing my life to prioritize that.

Adee (16:59):

So that just really made me super grateful. And it’s hard. It’s hard to isolate for days or, you know, luckily it’s five days these days, but it used to be 10. So yeah, it’s been, that’s like my biggest lesson of since the year and you can see it when people are checking in where they’re not getting that social interaction. They’re not going to the gym. They’re not physically seeing people at the gym. They’re not actually, you know, it’s so much easier. I work out so much harder at the gym. The people that can work out hard at home, like Games athletes that work out in their home garage, you are freaks, like absolute freaks of nature. I don’t understand. Cause when I go to a class at the gym, I just push a hundred times harder than I would at home. I would actually probably stop at home if I’m like, I gotta go do something. I would just stop. So not being able to go to the gym, not being able to see the people at the gym, the camaraderie, it’s just had a huge impact on the way people want to eat for comfort instead, or the way people just don’t have motivation to move or to exercise the same way. So there’s been a lot of support around that.

Tiffy (18:20):

How do you motivate them in nutrition coaching when they’re in this blah state?

Adee (18:26):

It’s hard. And my go-to is always to find the lowest opportunity for someone to be successful. So what does success at the lowest, lowest, lowest potential look like so that we can start collecting wins instead of thinking that I can do all of the same things that I could do before things were shut down or before I could, when I could see all my friends or go to the gym. OK. What is actually the smallest step of success right now? And how do we commit to that? Maintain it and then use that positive momentum to start building upon on it. Just cause, you know, when you like set a goal and then you achieve it, even if it’s tiny, it has this feeling inside, I call it progress juice, just like squeezes inside you, get all these hormones in your head of, yeah, I did it like I’m winning.

Adee (19:25):

Everyone loves winning. And so how do we get that? Even on the smallest scale. Or convince people that that’s even good enough. Cause that’s hard. When people are like, oh, you know, just going on a walk is not good enough. And I used to be able to do a CrossFit workout every day, or I used to be able to run a mile or run many miles. It’s like, they’re like, it’s not good enough to just walk. But you know, right now, if you actually do it and you commit to it every day, it’ll feel good. And so it’s convincing people that even though it’s small and it seems insignificant, it’s not, it really is very significant. And it builds over time because you realize that just getting that walk in becomes hard when you’re like I just don’t have the time, where am I gonna fit it in. All of a sudden this super small thing that you thought was insignificant becomes difficult to actually commit to.

Tiffy (20:21):

You coach regular people, but you also coach pro athletes. What’s the crucial difference. I’m sure there’s a lot of them, but what’s the crucial difference when it comes to your approach in nutrition coaching?

Adee (20:34):

For a professional athlete, they’re preparing for a particular day, a particular event. And they’re in a lot of cases doing things that are not necessarily healthy, like working out that much, probably isn’t healthy like for your whole life or, there like athletes that are trying to make weight for a weightlifting competition. Like sometimes we do some weird things that are just not normal in order to do that. We’re really paying attention to their body weight in those cases, trying to help them stay above their weight class so that they can gain their strength and then cut down. There’s a lot of like weight manipulation, it’s totally different. And for, like a professional athlete, it’s playing with really small factor because everything else is already completely dialed in. Right. So it could be, they’re dealing with a knee injury and we’re gonna try cutting out anti-inflammatory or inflammatory foods and seeing if that impacts their recovery around their knee. But we also can’t dial back training. So just like really dialing into the little details, where with an average person, those things wouldn’t even come up or make a difference because there’s so much else that we have to be committed to.

Tiffy (21:56):

I wanna talk a little bit about your husband and your family and how you work together, because it seems like a real cornerstone of your business. Did he like, was it his intention to, to build a nutrition empire or did he just sort of go along with this crazy journey with you?

Adee (22:20):

I started it before I met him. OK. So we didn’t start it together. And we met six months after he had started own business called Brute Strength. Which is an online, fitness programming for, primarily CrossFit athletes. And then, I started Working Against Gravity separate from him and then around like two or three years after we met, he left that business with his business partner and then, came and started working with me. I think that there were a couple reasons, one, we wanted to start a family and starting a family, you know, we’re both being the CEOs of these businesses. It’s how could I be the kind of parent that could take the time away and be there for our child and still be responsible at the same time. So there was like this balancing act and to us, it just made the most sense.

Adee (23:15):

And then also Michael and I have completely separate and complementary skills. He is so not detail oriented. So like up in the clouds, visionary idea person, he amazing with relationships. He’s an amazing communicator. He has so much emotional intelligence and can help inspire and lead people. And I am, so the detail person down to the finest little details, can keep things organized, systems, things like that. And we just really, we work really well together. I don’t think all couples could do that. But we work really well together and we’ve seriously found that any issues that have come up in work have been just another expression of a problem that existed in our marriage to begin with.

Tiffy (24:08):

Interesting. So there’s no delineation between your kind of your work time and your home time, or do you transition?

Adee (24:17):

There’s super clear delineation. So we have what we call sacred time and secular time. During off hours we do not talk about anything secular. So like that includes bills, taking out the trash, anything that could considered like work related. We do not talk about it at all. And if somebody breaks the rule, which is easy to do, we just like gently nudge the other and be like, Hey, can we talk about this another time? I just wanna keep things sacred. And we honor that, but have to have clear boundaries around or we ask like, Hey, I know we’re not supposed to talk about work right now, but can I, and then that person, they’re allowed to say no.

Tiffy (25:06):

And you have children now.

Adee (25:10):

Yes. I have a one and a half year old.

Tiffy (25:14):

Toddler age.

Adee (25:16):

Peak of movement, and then peak also of, he can communicate 80% of what he wants. And so there’s this still trying to understand what he’s even trying to say. And then also the peak of he can, he hasn’t fully grasped that, danger and, you know, it’s not that he hasn’t grasped danger. He knows when something’s dangerous, but he doesn’t have the body control. Yes. So he could try something and then he just fails at it. And the fail is pretty bad. Yeah.

Tiffy (25:57):

My son had a, he was similar when he was that age and I just remember just these huge, like bruises on his head. And I would hate to, like when we brought him to the doctor or whatever, like we’re not like beating him up. I swear. He’s just trying to climb everywhere. Do you, was it a big adjustment when you were like a new mom and trying to figure out how much you would work on the business or did you kind of have that mapped out in advance?

Adee (26:35):

Yeah. I mean, I’m a planner, so right. I definitely planned this out almost like two years in advance. And thought about it, talked to our team about it, really started to figure out what that would look like. And that was a really big deal. Big part of bringing Michael onto our team was to help with that. So I really, I had a very thorough plan and we have an amazing staff that was, they want the support back when they have kids, right. We’re most women, it’s like, right. I think we have like five men. So very few men on the team. It’s mostly women and mostly of childbearing age, not saying that all of them will have children, but many of them probably will, and they would want that support back. So they’re just so ready to be like, yeah, whatever, like that is the most important thing for you to do in your life right now and go and do that. And I would do the same for them.

Tiffy (27:36):

Did anything surprise you when it came to motherhood and balancing motherhood and work?

Adee (27:42):

I found it a little bit surprising that the narrative that was fed to me and maybe this isn’t the narrative that everyone gets is that like, your life is gonna be over and you’re never gonna have sex again. You’re never gonna sleep again. And, but it’s worth it.

Tiffy (27:59):

Sacrifice yourself on the altar of this divine motherhood.

Adee (28:03):

I, the like whole martyr story that was fed, I have not found that to be true for me. And I could totally see that this is another one of those really controversial, tricky things to talk about because every experience of motherhood, motherhood impacts everybody differently. It’s a right of passage. And I’m not saying that it’s not challenging. It’s very, very challenging. And it didn’t impact me in the way that others had told me I would be impacted. I found that actually my sex life has gotten way better, like way better. My relationship, my marriage has gotten better. And, I mean, we’ve gone in and out of being able to sleep and not being able to sleep, but that’s like, it hasn’t been as challenging as I thought it would be. And it’s been like the greatest joy of my whole life.

Adee (29:00):

I really think that when people say, oh, it’s so challenging, but it’s worth it. It sounds to me, like they’re saying it’s worth it in spite of it being challenging. When I, in my experience, I think it’s worth it because it’s challenging, because hard things are meaningful. Like things that are meaningful and fulfilling in your life aren’t easy. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be meaningful and fulfilling. And the fact that it’s challenging makes it meaningful and fulfilling. So I just remind myself that all the time, like this is a rite of passage and this is why raising children is meaningful is because it’s hard. And it’s also amazing. Like he brings so much joy into our life. I can’t even explain it.

Tiffy (29:46):

And it gets even better when they start talking.

Adee (29:50):

I can’t even imagine, like once you get to like two to four and then you’re like.

Tiffy (29:58):

It’s pretty amazing.

Adee (29:59):

Whoa. You can like sit there and play by yourself.

Tiffy (30:02):

So what’s ahead for you with WAG and what are you kind of most looking forward to when you look at your future?

Adee (30:12):

I think we’re always working on ways to improve the service as a whole. We’ve bee, playing around with video coaching, which has been exciting and new, and just like, what does that look like and how does that impact the structure of how we do things? Cause we don’t do any video coaching at all right now.

Tiffy (30:32):

Do you mean like zoom coaching or like prerecorded videos that they watch as part of a course or?

Adee (30:37):

Zoom coaching, like actually being able to interact way that you and I are right now. Right. So I’m excited to see if exploring that we’re not like exactly sure where that’s going or if it will continue, but we’re having a lot of fun, just trying new things. And then I really think the core of what we’ve got going on, can always use adapting, can always use improving and, it’s awesome and we love it and it works and, just, you know, continuing to be there, to serve as many people as we can, and also support our staff in living the best lives that they can too.

Tiffy (31:19):

You are active across a lot of like social channels, like you YouTube and you have your own podcast. Do you think your ready sort of acceptance of trying out those different ways of communication have helped you as an entrepreneur kind of adapting to those new?

Adee (31:39):

One of my superpowers as an entrepreneur is trying something. And then as soon as I think it’s not serving me anymore, I just let it go. Like I don’t have this attachment to well we put so much time and energy and effort in that. So we have to keep doing it. I just kind of like, it just doesn’t make any sense. Gambler’s fallacy, just cut it, like we’re done. So I think I do really well with that. I just like communicating with people in general, so in my personality type, I think it would be so hard. We have like a couple people on our staff that are definitely more introverted and this would be more challenging for them. But, I love people. I love helping people. I love talking to people. Like my favorite thing to do at work is actually to coach, like, it’s my favorite thing to do. So any opportunity that I can, like scale coaching, like podcasting or videos or things like that, where you can take, distill your knowledge and give that to more than just one person, is fun for me. So I think it’s helped me.

Tiffy (32:47):

Kind of in a way, it comes back to your old dream of being a teacher. Like it’s a lot of that, those things play in to like helping people and teaching.

Adee (32:58):

I think being a kindergarten teacher specifically helped me where I learned a lot about how to teach people very simple concepts in very different ways and adapting. OK. They’re not understanding that a penny is 1 cent. Like how can I explain this in a hundred different ways? Right. I think those skills really did serve me in coaching in general.

Tiffy (33:21):

That’s super interesting. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you today. Thanks for coming on the show.

Adee (33:27):

Yeah. Thank you for having me. Great questions.

Tiffy (33:31):

Thanks for tuning in today. I’m Tiffy Thompson and you’ve been listening to Women In Fitness Business. If you like what you hear, subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

 

The post Diet Culture, Body Image and Nutrition for Life With Adee Cazayoux appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Fresh Starts and Finding the Lioness Within

Kate Rawlings is a former CrossFit Games athlete, a mom and the owner of Coca CrossFit in North Ridgeville, Ohio. In my chat with her today, we get into what led her to the fitness industry, the crazy balancing act that comes with being a woman in the so-called “sandwich generation,” and how getting through this past year has shaped her business.

https://cocacrossfit.com/
http://iamstronger.org/
http://www.lionessmind.com/

Timeline:

1:15: Corporate world to gym ownership

3:55: COVID and the aftermath

6:22: Juggling responsibilities—the “sandwich generation”

11:45: Mindset and self-love

16:22: Working with women during pregnancy and postpartum 

19:44: Lioness and I Am Stronger

24:13: Dealing with changes

 

 

Tiffy (00:04):

I’m Tiffy Thompson and Women In Fitness Business is my deep dive into the industry from the female perspective. In each show, I talk with fitness entrepreneurs, coaches, and executives about why they got into the industry and what’s keeping them there. I ask about the unique challenges for women in fitness, the balancing act of career and family, and the different strategies for success in a tough field. I’ll present big wins, lessons from failure and real conversations with real women who are improving the health of their clients around the world. It’s a spotlight on the great work of the women who know working out. Kate Rowlings is a former CrossFit Games athlete, a mom and the owner of Coca CrossFit in North Ridgeville, Ohio. In my chat with her today, we get into what led her to the fitness industry, the crazy balancing act that comes with being a woman in the so-called sandwich generation and how getting through this past year has helped shape the direction she’s taken her business. I hope you enjoy it. Hi Kate, how are you?

Kate (01:06):

I am fabulous today. I do apologize if I cough a little bit during this, the joys of having a toddler is inviting all those toddler germs into your home. So we’re kicking a little bug, not COVID, just a regular toddler bug.

Tiffy (01:20):

No problem. I know it well. So Kate, with this podcast, we’re kind of going into what draws women into starting in the fitness business, what keeps them going throughout it? And I wanna talk a little bit to you today about what do you think made you make the leap from the corporate world to gym owner when only 31% of small businesses in the US are owned by women? What do you think it was about you in particular that made that leap?

Kate (01:59):

I’ve always been a little bit of a, I don’t wanna say like a black sheep when it comes to society, in not functioning in the norms of, kind of tripping into success. Not really knowing how I got there. Really kind of devaluing, I guess, downplaying skillsets that I have. So in 2010, I went to the CrossFit Games as an individual, which was an incredible experience. And I somehow we managed to walk away with a professional contract with Reebok. And so I found myself at 27 loving the fitness industry. I had always been in sports and that was kind of always been in my background, but it was this opportunity at 27 years old. I didn’t own a home. I wasn’t married. You know, I went from a division one college soccer player to almost 200 pounds in the corporate world.

Kate (02:51):

I tripped into CrossFit via a Google search in 2006, I think it was 2007, and managed to turn my life around using CrossFit, and was a level one coach and coaching at a local affiliate at the time. And so it just made sense to me to just take the leap and open up a gym. It was super low barrier of entry from a finance standpoint. And I think I just wasn’t scared enough that I shouldn’t do it right. Or like smart enough. Like I don’t know really kind of how you categorize that, but it was like, I don’t know, I was young and dumb and I took the leap. I never expected to own my own business yet alone my own gym. And it’s 12 years later and we’re still, we still got a heartbeat, so life is good. It worked out.

Tiffy (03:43):

This last couple of years has been hard for everyone, but especially hard on gym owners. What’s been happening, in your life. And what’s been happening with the gym in general.

Kate (03:55):

Well, that is a very loaded question for the last two years. It has been an interesting ride to say the least, I think Ohio, so we’re located in Ohio has been a little bit more lenient and progressive as far as shutdowns go worldwide. We got shut down. I wanna say it was about a four month period that we were completely shut down. luckily we have built such a strong tight-knit community and we invest so much into our individual members that I think when we shut down, of 112 members, we had at the time three said, please stop payment. The rest said, please continue to take it. We’re just working from home. We wanted a gym to come back to, luckily being part of, kind of Two-Brain Business and also just networking with other gyms in the area. We were able to come up with some creative ways to take it remote.

Kate (04:43):

We were, able to rent out equipment and things like that to keep the business going. And we pretty much got flooded with all of our members the day that we were allowed to open again. So I think from like the worst case scenarios, we survived it pretty well, all things considered, and over the last year and a half or so, there’s been these kind of ebbs, ebbs and flows. Last January to March, I would say we had a huge influx of people. I think people were just excited to get out of their house. They just were so cooped up, something that I now see looking back, they were the wrong people, and we should have probably weeded them out. So we had a giant kind of influx of people that wanted quick results.

Kate (05:31):

Not really the clientele we wanna work with. So, many of those have since fallen off. And I would say looking at our present day, we’re the lowest we’ve been in a while. A long while. It’s one of those, like as an entrepreneur, you go through these ebbs and flows and highs and lows. And we, I would say we’re in a low, but it’s also super exciting to be in a low, because you can make a lot of fundamental cultural changes when numbers are smaller. So that this year we’re really set up to bring in the right people with the right systems and build the culture that we wanna have taking into the next year.

Tiffy (06:14):

What’s been happening with you personally that’s kind of shifted this perspective. Or shifting the like direction you wanna take the gym.

Kate (06:22):

Sure. I think, a few things, right. Over the last few years, just seeing the value that we have put into members, and the fact that they stood by us and really kind of taught me the value of the little things that you don’t see. So, you know, you don’t see that every day that you check on Mary or tell her, you’re glad to see her that day, that that’s gonna keep her coming back and keep her life on track. And so being able to see what an impact we have on other people, in the last quarter or so September of 2021, COVID ran through our house personally. So I got it first. My soon to be ex, which is part of the chaos that has happened in the last quarter, got it as well.

Kate (07:10):

Subsequently my parents ended up getting it. They are both in their seventies. They both ended up hospitalized. My dad was hospitalized for six, my mom for 11. Wow. Certainly in the beginning we were, kind of planning for the worst. I mean, I remember sitting kind of bedside and talking funerals with my parents. Luckily we didn’t have to do that with either one of them. But that, to me, one, it shut me down. I got fairly sick, not hospitalized, but certainly not functioning for, you know, a good two to three weeks. Right. And then I really didn’t have time to really recover myself because it was immediately into, you know, my mom got hospitalized first. So then it was my dad at home sick and trying to like, make sure somebody’s there to make sure he’s eating and breathing, trying to make sure that all of it stays off of my almost four year old son.

Kate (08:04):

And like, he’s just happy and life is good. trying to keep the coaching staff informed of like what’s going on, trying to balance, unfortunately at that point, a marriage that I saw was not what I wanted from a life partner. And so making that decision to separate while all of this is all going on, certainly adds another layer into it. So, you know, I’m juggling my own sickness. I’m juggling a toddler I’m juggling a now eminent divorce, potentially dying parents. So it became straight survival mode, right. In making sure, you know, bills are paid, making sure coaching staff is paid, making sure, you know, members feel happy and loved programming is done. And like, other than that, like there’s basically been no work for the last four months on the gym. And it’s been really distracting, but also really forces you to look deep down kind of in your soul and like, who am I, what do I want, why did I start the gym 12 years ago? And being able to kind of have this like rebirth and reconnection to why I started, and what really drives me is super exciting because it’s a fire and a passion for living my life that I haven’t had in a long time for a wide variety of reasons.

Tiffy (09:27):

When you were going through all that, like, I refer this our generation as kind of the sandwich generation where we’re managing dealing with aging parents and also young children in some cases. And at that time during, when you’re going through that period, what was the biggest struggle in all of it for you and what ways did you find to cope or did you find anything that helped you in particular?

Kate (09:52):

It’s really interesting that you ask that cuz I have one of my members now is basically living what I was living, but four months ago. Dying already of chemo and now has COVID and is hospitalized. And she reached out to me and said, basically, how did you do it? And I think I have this innate ability to just go into autopilot. I think that I’m just starting to compartmentalize what I went through. And my parents had been home for two months now. So I think at the time I just really kind of go numb and go into autopilot and like, it just is work and it’s gotta get done and there’s no time for emotions. And I would find myself, you know, finding these little pockets of aloneness where I would cry and let it out because I don’t necessarily wanna hide emotion from my toddler, but I also don’t want him to have to deal with big adult emotions.

Kate (10:50):

And then it also became this, you know, being able to walk into my potentially dying parent’s room and like we’re gonna play tic-tac toe day. Right. And so becoming this kind of rock that I just needed to be. And so looking back, I don’t know how I did it, I just did it. And I think that is one of my, probably better qualities and worse qualities. because now it’s leaving me with a lot of baggage to unpack, you know, it’s its own kind of posttraumatic stress disorder, in its own right. If that makes any sense.

Tiffy (11:28):

Like when you think about where you want your business to head now in light of this like kind of realigned priorities and trying to get a clearer vision of what you want, what does that business look like? Like what does that gym look like?

Kate (11:45):

Yeah, so the gym to me really looks like this place of inclusion. This place of love, this place of family, you know, one of the beautiful things that we have is we just have an open door policy to parents bringing kids to the gym. I know that that’s a rare, rare find, a lot of places. And so for me, I personally have been working a lot on unpacking my own mindset work and my own work with my therapist and debunking, you know, or getting out of this self-loathing and this shame cycle that I’ve been in, for a lot of reasons, just from a marriage standpoint, we don’t need to get into that baggage. But I’m seeing the value in self-worth. I’m seeing the value in self-love. And so being able to really bring that skillset to the table of both current clients, future clients and dusting of this whole, I am stronger and really building something specifically for women.

Kate (12:52):

Because what I have found personally is that in the fitness industry, I thought, OK, you know, I’m a personal trainer. I’ve been in the fitness industry now for 15 years, going through my pregnancy would be super easy because I know all about the human body. The postpartum would be a total breeze, this transition into motherhood, I’d hit the ground running. and I found that all to be a complete and total utter lie that I had told myself, because I just figured that’s what you do, you bounce back and it’s no big deal. Right. And so there’s this giant void that happens. Not only just with women when it comes to moving the human body. Cause I think there’s a lot more resources, 2022 than were 2000. And I’m trying to think when I was pregnant 2018.

Kate (13:39):

In understanding that women’s needs are different. But there’s this also like, and I hate to say it, but it just is the reality if you hadn’t been a pregnant mom and made that transition yourself, you’re just not gonna be able to truly connect and understand and empathize with somebody that is going through that. So not to dig on, you know, trainers that are super knowledgeable and women, like, it just is different once you’ve had a kid and I love men that are like trying to get out there and do stuff with postpartum women. But like, y’all just don’t, don’t even enter the game, like yeah. Hate to say it, but like just stay in your lane. And again, that’s just, I don’t know, maybe that’s rude, but that’s just kind of how I feel having gone through it myself.

Kate (14:23):

Yeah. And for me, I think I bring a little bit of a different view because I’ve been through the gamut of pregnancies. So I’ve been pregnant four times. I have one surviving child, well, I had two early term losses. I had an early term labor at 22 weeks, where I had to go through the full like delivery process. And see this whole human baby, but just too small to do it on her own, to then having the rainbow baby that is a four year old. That is all boy, run, jump, kick, fight, all day. Doesn’t take naps, like just wild child. And I love that. Yeah. And so I think for me personally, I’m feeling drawn to really working with women in this pregnancy and postpartum period, because I’ve just lived through a lot of different avenues of it.

Kate (15:14):

And there’s just, there’s no one there to hold your hand and tell you, like, what you’re feeling is OK. Regardless of what you’re feeling. Right. There’s all these books. And I thought, well, I’m gonna be a good parent cause I’m gonna read all these books. And they’re all garbage because at the end of the day, whatever your motherly intuition is, obviously other than like egregious abuse and like neglect. Is the right thing, like co sleep don’t co sleep breastfeed, don’t breastfeed, like pump don’t pump, like whatever it is, like, whatever you need to do as a mom to feel good in your own skin and what you’re doing for your child. Like, that’s what you need to do.

Tiffy (15:49):

You mentioned like we get a lot of, you get a lot of advice as a young mom or a new mom, but not a lot of what you’re right. Like support and someone who understands and someone to listen to you and kind of, acknowledge how you’re feeling. When you’re dealing with your clients who are the pre and postpartum clients, what are their main, concerns that you, or what are their main issues that you sort of work with them on?

Kate (16:22):

So I think with pregnant women, there’s kind of a twofold. So there’s the first time moms. And then there’s the second time moms, right? So, you know, first time moms, they expect it to have this like pregnancy glow and they’re gonna love being pregnant. And, that it’s just gonna be sunshine and rainbows. And the reality is sometimes it’s not. And like, for me, I hated every day of being pregnant. I hated it. Like, it was not my jam. I was sick every day. I threw up literally to the point where they’re like, OK, we’re ready to push. And it was like, no, we’re not gonna push, I’m gonna throw up first. And then we’ll push. Yeah. And just having somebody there that can say like, listen, it’s OK, you’re losing your body. And you hate that.

Kate (17:06):

And again, it goes back to this whole mindset shift and having been through that process and understanding that it’s OK to not like the things that are happening while you’re pregnant, but still love the child and still love the process of pregnancy and still love the end result. But hate the process or say out loud, like, no, I don’t like that I’m in maternity pants or like, whatever that is. Yeah. So I find that more with first time moms that like, just really struggle with like who they are. They, you know, their energy levels are different and their diet is different. And why can’t I just, you know, eat the hummus with the carrots, like, because your your body just wants carbs, just eat the pizza. Like it’s fine. And absolving some of that, like guilt and shame of weight gain, or weight loss, or like whatever that is.

Kate (17:55):

Second time moms are, I find, or like subsequent moms are a little bit easier to work with because they understand what’s gonna happen. Many of them have already been through a postpartum process. Where it with them is the postpartum. So maybe their postpartum experience is different from the first one than the second one. And, you know, I, wasn’t sad with the first one. Why am I sad with the second one? And it’s, you know, there’s, there’s bonding time that is different. So where you only have one, you have all the time to just sit and hold this loving child and just be, and then, you know, you add a second one in, you know, you think probably a year or older, you know, you’re dealing with their emotions of no longer being an only child. You’re dealing with the chaos of managing a second child while trying to bond with a first child. And so the answer is kind of twofold is it’s depending on each client and what their life circumstance looks like. But a lot of it is just having somebody by your side to tell you that you’re OK, that you’re doing a good job. And to help you see the decisions that you need to make without judgment, right.

Tiffy (19:07):

What is I Am Stronger? And what did becoming a mom yourself have to do with this venture?

Kate (19:15):

So I Am Stronger is actually a rebirth project as well. I started, I Am Stronger. It used to be a nonprofit, that specifically worked with teenage girls that were underprivileged and getting them moving and using fitness as a way to build confidence. So we did a lot with the boys and girls clubs locally doing an after school girls only, workout program. At the time I think I did that 2011 to 2014. And I just didn’t have the time to commit to it that I wanted to. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to run a nonprofit, there’s a lot of red tape with how money comes in and out and paying and flowing and like way more than I wanted to take on at the time, because that time period, I was also working for CrossFit HQ, helping run CrossFit Games, Regional, and the Games, from a marketing and branding standpoint.

Kate (20:10):

So I was traveling a lot helping with those events. And so I just didn’t have the time to really commit to it, and it wasn’t the right time. So I ended up closing that all down. Thank God. I was smart enough to just keep ahold of the name, because there still is just something that resonates with me and has always with that. And the fact that I am stronger because I am stronger can be applied to literally anything. I am stronger than cancer. I am stronger than today’s stress. I am stronger than whatever you get to fill in that blank for yourself. Come to this kind of rebirth and realizing that moving forward, on my own and refinding myself, I am seeing how powerful women really are, and how we put the ceiling on ourselves.

Kate (20:58):

And we like to say externally, like the ceiling is over there, or the limiting factor is this. And really, it’s just, it’s all BS. We put limiting thing on ourselves because, for me, like, a great example is I’m not taken seriously in the fitness world because I’m a woman and that’s not true. That’s a perceived story that I have told myself that in 2020 is no longer gonna apply to me, and reframing that story of myself. And so I am finding with doing my own mindset work and working with my own therapist, and really just digging into books about peacefulness and Buddhism and meditation and all of those things that I have always been told I should do, but I’ve always thought oh those are fluffy has really brought to light that there’s are just a void of strong women saying you can be a strong woman and still be feminine and delicate and still be a mom and still be all of these other things.

Kate (21:58):

But how do you use this feminine energy that we all innately have to empower us and take us to the next level, instead of well know, I’m just really tired for one week of a month because I am on my period. Well, that’s true, but like, can we educate you as to why that’s happening and then understand that there’s other weeks that are gonna make you feel like super energized and you can take on the world, and that’s not a fluke, right. It’s gonna happen every 28 days. And so, you know, in reading some of these like female empowerment books and the postpartum course trainings that I’ve been taking, it’s a matter of kind of pulling a little bit from each section and saying, there’s a way to marry this all together. And for me, I’m leaning towards calling it and it already, I’ve already branded it, the lioness mindset.

Kate (22:49):

And so a lioness is really the leader of the family, and nobody joins their pack, essentially until the lions dies, and the next lioness will then come in and take over that family and start their own. But they are just, they’re beautiful. They’re strong, they’re intelligent. They’re the, you know, they are what makes a lion pride a lion pride, and they stand and they do it standing alone, but they also have a family unit that supports them. And so there’s this world within which women can learn and understand the power that they have, and to use that to propel both their life, their family, their business, whatever that is, forward to the next life, we can just understand what it is every month that happens with us, with being aligned with the moon and using that creative power and that energy and understanding when you’re collaborative and understanding when you’re introverted. And that, those aren’t just flukes. but those are actually things that you can start to plan your life around to be able to take everything to the next level. Right. And like taking ownership of like, yeah, I am a woman and I am strong and it’s because I can create human life. It’s not this dirty secret thing that happens that I have to keep in a closet. And then I’ve learned how to not get pregnant. And that’s basically what we’re taught growing up.

Tiffy (24:13):

There’s nothing about the sort of physiological changes that are happening at any given time of the month, let alone, like the span of a woman’s life as she goes through the different phases. So I think that education piece is huge. How does I Am Stronger work to kind of further that vision of the lioness?

Kate (24:36):

So I am, currently building and my goal is to have it ready February of 2022 is a six-week course, literally called the Lioness Mindset. Where there are weekly essentially zoom calls, so that people can do it from wherever where we go through a lesson. So like, let me kind of be your teacher for the day, they’ll be some type of activity. So like, we’re all gonna work openly. And my goal is to try and keep ’em like small cohorts so that people feel a little bit safer, you know, maybe five to six people at a time. And then there’ll be some homework of like, OK, so we’ve learned this now let’s go apply it. So that there are these kind of smaller groups where women begin to feel safe.

Kate (25:23):

Maybe they make some connections outside to other powerful women that just wanna build women up, because that’s one of the other things that I hear all the time is that the amount of women that say, like, I’m a powerful woman and I wanna empower women. And then like Mary walks out the door and they’re like, did you see what Mary had on today? I don’t understand what just happened. Like, yeah. I don’t have time for that. And we don’t have time for that and it should be like, listen, like, if you don’t like what Mary’s wearing, then tell her like, you know, not my thing, but like you do you boo boo, like, right. You can empower people and still not like what they’re doing. Yeah. And so that’s like one facet.

Kate (26:02):

And then I also, you know, towards the end of 22, wanna be able to put together aspecific a program that would be geared towards preteens in that like 11 to 15, similar course, but really gets into meeting them where they are with their bodies and being embarrassed. And like, I don’t know, like I wish when I would’ve gone through health ed, that somebody explained to me that like, yes, this happens every 28 days, and this is physically what’s happening with your hormone so that you’re not embarrassed by it. And it’s not like a shameful thing to say, like, I’ve gotta go and like, you know, go to the bathroom. And like, I’m taking my whole book bag with me so that nobody knows, like everybody knows. Yeah. Like we all know.

Kate (26:45):

And then additionally, having the pregnancy and the postpart training in there as well, but I really want to build I Am Stronger really pushing more of this kind of lioness mindset. Because I do think it’s just is like, I get amped and jazzed, just like thinking about the power of what it could do for the next person. And that trickle effect, is really what makes me get up in the morning is being able to know that if I affect one person that they could affect one person and that affects one person. An it’s not just, you know, you’re this small insignificant thing that doesn’t matter in the universe, but like, you have the power to do what you wanna do. If you decide you wanna do it.

Tiffy (27:29):

If people wanna learn more about this or, if women wanna get into this program, where should they go, or where, like, is it a website that they should visit?

Kate (27:41):

So there’s a website it’s called, iamstronger.org I’m still trying to figure out what I’m gonna do long term with that website. Cuz the .org obviously was when we were 501. Right. So I may keep the.org and have a, you know, a certain amount of profit go to a women’s something, but with a big disclaimer, unfortunately Iamstronger.com and like.net and all of those are all taken. Yeah. I think it’s like an anti-bullying campaign in Canada.

Tiffy (28:12):

Well, that’s awesome. Kate, it’s been a real pleasure talking to you today, and final thoughts, if you could give your past self any advice when it comes to life in general or being an entrepreneur, what would it be?

Kate (28:31):

God, I think it was Lisa Nichols that I heard speak recently about having this like imposter syndrome and the fact that you can have fear and self doubt and you can do it anyway. You kind of just invite them to join you on the ride. And I think that is probably the thing that I would’ve told myself even 12 years ago, when I opened the affiliate of like, you might not know it all, you might not be the best at it. You might, whatever those thoughts are that you have, like, you can have all of those and do it anyway. And that’s where I’m at now of like, if not me then who? Do it anyway.

Tiffy (29:09):

That’s all for Women In Fitness Business today. I’m Tiffy Thompson. Thanks for listening.

 

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