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Coach vs Owner: Mindset

By Ken Andrukow, TwoBrain Mentor Opening your own affiliate is an amazing way to get paid doing work  you love, helping your clients realize their goals, and changing lives. In your own gym, you can craft the dream job you’ve always been looking for. Loving your work is great, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But understand that the best self-employment scenario is just that: you’re employing yourself in a job role, and your goals need to align with that approach. That’s the self-employed coach mindset. However, what you may be finding is that there’s a gap between having the best job of your life, and other goals that you’ve realized are important to you: having more time to spend with family, travelling, contributing to your community, and building a team of leaders. If you want the ability to set your schedule, work less and earn more, and earn passive income, you need to change your mindset from that of a self-employed coach to one of an entrepreneur. You may be asking yourself, “why  can’t I do both?” You’re probably trying to do that right now, in fact. Which is why you’re here, reading this post: it doesn’t work. Have you ever tried to coach someone through their squat technique and then ask them to pay their current month of dues when they’re on the way out the door after class? That painful clash of roles is one absolutely no one can manage gracefully. To be effective as an owner you need to be free to do the hard tasks like money collection, and let your coaches be supportive and kind to your athletes. Shifting your mindset may be a challenge, but here’s a start. If you’re frequently asking yourself what you need to do to get better at something that needs to be done in your affiliate, whether that’s marketing, coaching or bookkeeping, then you’re seeking to fill ...
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Episode 73: Box Pilates, with Sara Benson

 
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Congratulations, Tate and Jeff!

Last night, the TwoBrain family reached a new milestone. Tate Stewart and Jeff Burlingame graduated from our Mentor Training Program! For years, I’ve been watching our little corner of the fitness industry and its evolution. I recorded my thoughts in three books, tracked every scrap of data I could find, and built the plan that we now call The Incubator. After watching the successes (and, sadly, failures) of thousands of gyms, I know that mentorship is the only path to success. You can read books, ask questions in Facebook Groups, watch videos, even take online courses…but without external guidance, you won’t take action. Neither will I: my mentors change as my businesses evolve, but their collective presence remains constant. In fact, I’ve tried to do this every other way: I’ve sold books, seminars and online programs. NONE will work without an excellent mentor to say, “Do this one thing today. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Obviously, I take this very seriously. One of the first blog posts I wrote when I founded Two-Brain Business was Consultants vs Mentors. I was already asking myself, “What qualifies anyone to become a mentor?” and “How can I make a mentor even MORE effective?” These questions come from the rising crop of consultants in the CrossFit world…and also from the constant “Impostor Syndrome” that many founders experience. I took those questions to Jay Williams, who has also had many mentors over his lifetime, and we started framing in the first stages of training. I invited two members of the TwoBrain Family to form our first class: Jeff Burlingame and Tate Stewart. Six months later, they’re more ready than any mentor has ever been. (The requirements for our training process are outlined here.) It’s been a very challenging six months for each of them. But today, they stand before us as the best mentors ever trained in the fitness industry. They’re certainly far more prepared than I was when I ...
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Are You Treating the Symptoms and Not The Cause?

Are You Treating the Symptoms and Not The Cause? Your affiliate gym has been open for twelve months. The initial launch went well, but after the first wave of memberships had come in, you’re still catching up to the capital investments you made just to open your doors. What’s more, is the spending isn’t slowing down. There are things you didn’t take into account that are just now revealing themselves. In looking at your membership numbers, you’re bleeding a little bit, and you need to start turning a profit or the savings you’ve been using to fund the business are going to run out soon. What’s the solution? Are you an affiliate owner who thinks “if I can just only get 50 more members, everything will be ok?” More members equal more money in the bank account, right? So you may be tempted to run some agressive promotions, maybe a Groupon or similar to bring in new people. However, have you considered how this can affect your gym? Can you accommodate the new members in your existing classes, or will you have to add more classes outside your current blocks? Will members use these workout times, or will you have to cap attendance in the cornerstone 6 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. WODs and leave your loyal members frustrated with the crowds? How will your long-time members feel about working out alongside new additions who are paying half of what they are? Will you have to hire more coaches to provide the same quality of attention and care your members deserve? Will you have to work longer hours to administer the large numbers of people coming in for a fraction of what they should be? The symptom of your problem is that your profits are too low, but increasing incoming cash flow while also increasing your expenses in cash and time is just chasing the dragon. You need to stop applying ...
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Episode 72: Leading Outside The Box

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The Drive-By

By Jonathan de Friess Owner/Coach CrossFit Eta Justin, Texas TwoBrain Family member A few weeks back, I was driving to my gym. On one of the back road routes, someone is building a training facility. The building is brand new and there is massive amounts of turf outside of the building. I noticed medballs and a few other pieces of equipment when the doors were open on a previous day, which sparked my interest. Over the next two weeks, I eagerly peered into this new place, sometimes turning around to drive back, just to see what I would be competing against. I wondered how this would affect my business and which clients would have the greatest propensity to move to a place like this. Then, this past Friday, I was on my way to the gym again. Before reaching this back road, I made a mental note to peek at this new facility. But just before I reached the exit to the back road, I began to think about how to utilize social media to leverage awareness for my gym. I began to connect dots between hashtags, Facebook ads, and retargeting campaigns. Before I knew it, I was clearly past this potential competitor, and I had completely forgotten to look. But I did not care. I was too busy thinking about what I needed to do. I had no time to pay attention to what someone else was doing. I lose sight so easily sometimes. I get caught up with everyone else and forget my mission, my purpose, and why my gym is unique. In the Incubator, this is called “Strategic Advantages.” We easily miss “Strategic Advantages” if we are looking at everyone else. But when we define “Strategic Advantages,” we have created leverage for our brand. What are your “Strategic Advantages?” If you have some, good! Go emphasize them. If you don’t know them, then write out the things ...
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