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Top Twelve of the Last Twelve

We publish every day.   Between blog posts, podcasts, our YouTube Channel and social media…it can get a bit overwhelming.   And oh yeah, I’ve written three books about the gym business.   In case you’re new to TwoBrain (or just trying to eat our elephant), here are the top ten blog posts we published in the last twelve months. Each has been read over 1000 times, and they all started deeper conversations.   If you want, you can jump to the head of the class and book a free call with me (Chris) to start taking action. If not, enjoy the education and inspiration for as long as you like.   1. Theseus’ Boat – Maintaining Your Culture and Replacing Yourself 2.  3 Reasons You Should Love Orange Theory (and Other HIIT Trends) 3. Killing The Canary: The Paralyzing Effect of the Vocal Minority 4. Why We’re a Mentorship Practice 5. Love + Letters – SUPER important 6. How Many “Likes” Do You Need? – an important, and very thorough, explanation on the value and purpose of Social Media 7. How To Kill Your King (The WRONG Way to Open A Gym) 8. Let’s Get Real (Or Let’s Not Play) – on the need for more data in CrossFit, and why we’re going to invest $2M to save The Movement 9. 5 Tips to Not Suck At “Sales” – actionable steps to sell more, following the “Help First” philosophy 10 . Why You’ll Never Need 300 Members – we’re coaches, not recruiters. 11. How To Say “No” To Discounts 12. Salaries Breed Laziness and Complacency–a thought-provoking piece on the “intrapreneurial mindset.”   You might love some of these (you might hate others) but the writing is always of a high quality, and each one was written to provoke deep consideration.   When you join our list, you’ll get a love letter from me almost every day. These letters are usually answers to problems I ...
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How We Test Ideas

An uncaffeinated state is not my favorite. Neither is “hangry”. But I’m at my writing table without coffee or food this morning, because we’re testing an idea at my gym.   Catalyst is often the Petri dish for new ideas. In this case, we’re taking blood from ten clients and coaches, shipping it to a lab for analysis, and then looking at the results together. Those results might mean a better way to make exercise and nutrition prescriptions. On the other hand, they might mean nothing. So we don’t share the idea with other gyms until we’re sure, one way or the other.   Our new COO, Mike Lee, described Two-Brain Business as an “idea machine”. We now have twelve mentors on the team, and each of them is brilliant. That means a huge idea every half-second.   Some of the ideas are great. These are the ones you read about in my books, and on this site. Others don’t work out, and you never hear about them.   Here’s our vetting process: A mentor or member of the TwoBrain family has a great idea. We ask them to test the idea, and suggest an objective basis for comparison. Instead of, “Did you like it? Did people like it?” we don’t guess: we say, “what results can prove this is better than what you were doing before?” or even “What data says this is better than doing nothing at all?” If data supports the new idea, we share it with three other mentors on the team. Some of us–especially Brian Alexander and me–are only too willing to test new ideas, but we try to spread it out. You really can’t test more than one thing at a time, and since we’re always testing, we spread ideas around. If data still supports the new idea, we’ll cherrypick ten clients and share our experience with them. Then we’ll tell them exactly what ...
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The REAL Path to Success

Friends, this is what the path to success looks like (extend to infinity). You’re going to make progress. Then you’re going to backtrack ALMOST to zero again. Then you’ll make a bit more progress, and then you’ll backtrack ALMOST to the point you were last time. Progress, backtrack; progress; backtrack. But here’s the reason to keep going: Every time you loop back, you won’t go quite as far backward as before. The loops get smaller. And you’ll also start to notice that you’re not backtracking quite as often as before. Some day you’ll look up and think, “Wow, I’ve gone a whole year without any major problems.” And when you have problems, thinking this way will help you keep your perspective. Nikole, a mentoring client,  coined the hashtag #highclassproblems. She’s an expert. And I love the phrase, because it reminds me that, while problems will never go away, they get smaller in magnitude and less frequent over time. Many business owners are stuck in that first loop forever. You’re not. If for no other reason, keep going because today’s problems are slightly less horrible than last year’s problems. I’ve been there. The exercise works.
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What Will You Sacrifice?

When my gym was in trouble, there was one consulting service in the CrossFit world. I watched their videos. Many of their messages made sense. But I couldn’t get past their spokesman: he ranted, he swore at people, he spammed me with sales pitches and “Hurry up! Buy now, or you’re a loser!” emails. A friend–a nearby gym owner–signed up for his service. The best testimonial my friend could give was:   “I figure I don’t have to like the guy for him to help my business.”   I thought, “If this is what I have to do to be successful in the fitness industry, then I’m not sure I want to be part of it.”   Luckily, his manner didn’t seem to fit with the rest of CrossFit’s message, so I hit “SPAM” on the next few emails and looked outside our little world for help.   I found it, and shared what I learned far and wide. And I’ve been doing it since, because knowing that I could succeed in the gym business without feeling like a slime ball was a huge revelation. It still fills me with gratitude every day.   This week, more than ever, I’ve been on the phone with gym owners who have reached a line they refuse to cross. Six out of the last ten entrepreneurs who have signed up for the Incubator have been part of other fitness consulting companies in the past. And while they all unanimously agreed that the knowledge was good, every one also said “I couldn’t do what they were telling me to do anymore.”   Not because the owner wasn’t smart enough. Not because they lacked “hustle” (please.) The gym owner couldn’t continue with their business coach because they weren’t willing to compromise their values to boost their business.   The words “bait and switch” came up a lot. So did “cold calling” and “slimy sales scripts.” So ...
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Is Entrepreneurship Really The Safest Path?

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to a call-in show about “the future of jobs.”   Two back-to-back callers grabbed my attention.   The first owned a book store. “What do you do, and whattaya make?” (Say it in a DJ voice)   She said, “I own a book store, and I do everything! I do my books, I do ordering, inventory…I’m the only staff person. I work fifteen-hour days. I make about $22 per hour.”   DJ: “How much per year?”   Store owner: “About 50k, give or take.”   The next caller was a librarian.   DJ: “What do you do, and whattaya make?” (same DJ voice – there’s a reason these guys make 30k per year.)   Librarian: “I’m a librarian. I make seventy-one-thousand-dollars-per-year. I work about 35 hours per week.”   DJ: “Wow! A librarian makes that much money?”   Librarian (scoffing): “Well, it takes a Masters’ Degree to do my job…”   DJ: “That’s a lot of late fees. How many books do you swipe in a day?”   Librarian (mildly offended): “Oh, I don’t do that. We have staff for that.”   To a business owner at the end of a long week, a librarian’s job sounds pretty sweet.   $71,000 per year. 35 hours per week. Staff to handle the book-swiping and late fees. And probably job security (at least for the next five years.) You and I both know libraries are wooly mammoths headed for the cliff, but many small businesses are even closer. So let’s set that aside.   The book store owner has traded security for opportunity. Willingly so. Most people wouldn’t make that trade. You would. So would I.   Because with opportunity comes AGILITY.   Let’s say, by 2020, everyone reads e-books. What happens to the librarian?   The store owner has options: she can sell something else, like e-readers. She can become an Amazon affiliate, ...
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Channel Conflict: Who "Owns" A Client?

I have a dentist. She’s been my dentist for a decade.   In those ten years, she’s moved her practice three times. And every time she moves, I follow, because my relationship is with her, not her office.   Obviously, this is great for her. She’ll be my dentist for life. But it’s NOT great for the dental offices she leaves.   I have a financial advisor. He has a “book of business” with my name in it.   If he moves his practice to another brand, I’ll go with him. He knows that I prefer Index Funds over RSPs, and real estate over any paper investment.   Obviously, this is great for him. But it’s NOT great for his office: if he leaves, so do his clients.   In most professions, shifting between dealerships or franchises happens only once or twice in a career. But in the fitness industry, it happens around every three years. Especially with CrossFit, where the barrier to ownership is SO low, trainers move in and out of gyms pretty often. And if you don’t want your clients to follow them down the street, you have to take a different approach.   Your clients need to have a relationship with your BRAND that overrides their relationship with any SPECIFIC coach.   Here are some tips to keep your brand in the forefront of your clients’ mind: Change your lexicon. Avoid using phrases like “coach for life”. Instead, refer to “the excellent coaches at Catalyst” and use “we” in your correspondence. Regularly switch coaches around in group class times. Sub out coaches for personal training clients occasionally. It’s fun for coaches to work with new clients, and better for the clients. Put the best person in each role. If you say “client retention is the coach’s job” then that coach will manage the entire client relationship. If they’re bad at sending birthday cards or congratulating clients, the ...
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