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The 5 mile radius of opportunity

November 11, 2016 Gym Marketing
By Brian Alexander owner of CrossFit Illumine and TwoBrain Mentor Let’s assume that there are 5 CrossFit gyms within a 5 mile radius.  Let’s generously assume that each of those CrossFit gyms have 100 members.  Simple math here.  500 “CrossFitters” within a 5 mile radius. Sure that is decent opportunity, but affiliate owners generally fight over the same 500 CrossFitters by racing to the bottom with discounts and pricing and undercutting each other all in the name of competition. Tearing something good down in an attempt to pull from the same small group of active CrossFitters. In this scenario actually, nobody wins.  The affiliate owners lose and the customer loses.  We see it happen far too often.  Gym A discounts rates and charges incredibly cheap rates.  Gym A thinks 300 members will solve all of his/her problems.  Gym A realizes he is on the hamster wheel of death and can’t keep people in the gym.  Gym A has a retention problem.  Gym A then repeats the cycle over and over again until he/she is fed-up, burned out and realized he or she just bought themselves a $30k/yr job working 60-80 hours a week. You can fight over those existing CrossFitters in the race to the bottom.  Instead we focus on the real opportunity.  We focus on the people sitting on the couch. While everyone fights over the .001% (500 existing CrossFitters), We are working on building a resilient business around the 99.99% who aren’t doing CrossFit, also known as the 409,000 population within my 5 mile radius. Any rational person would like their odds on any bet at 99.99% over .001% right? Instead of racing to the bottom, you will find us racing to the top.   You will find us adding tremendous value in coaching, community, and our facility. We attract people with our same mindset. Our culture is predicated on people who get it. You will find us changing ...
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Win by building, not by tearing down

November 11, 2016 Member Retention
By Brian Alexander owner of CrossFit Illumine and TwoBrain Mentor I want to win by building the biggest and baddest empire in all of the lands.  Am I competitive?  Absolutely. In fact one thing that drives me is doing the things that others aren’t willing to do.  The hard things.  The audaciously ambitious things.  We win by doing things bigger and better, never once giving a single ounce of energy to the thought of what the competition is thinking or doing. That is how we win, and that is how I sleep well at night. Winners win by building their own empire.  Losers try to win by tearing someone else’s empire down.  
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Top 9 Myths Gym Owners Believe

November 10, 2016 Gym Operations
I do free calls with affiliates. I’m getting close to 1000 of them now: 30 – 60 minutes, on my dime. It’s taken me years to reach this point. Recently, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: gym owners are making decisions based on guesses, random advice and feelings…but not data. They’re risking their future, their family’s grocery budget and their client’s long-term access to coaching because they don’t check the numbers. Here are some common myths: People join CrossFit for “the community” The most important number to track is how many athletes you have Everyone except you is doing well Clients choose a gym because of its workout programming People in your town are scared of the word “CrossFit” Average household income in your area matters People seek a low price-point to start Gyms with 300 members are successful Sharing thoughts on the election is a great idea No data supports any of the above. They’re beliefs, not facts. They’re opinion wrapped in a sticky story. Every day, I wake up at 4am and write. I ask myself, “What was the best question I was asked yesterday? How can I provide the answer to others?” Then I blog, or plan a quick video. I wrote “Help First” and “Two-Brain Business 2.0” in 70 days because there were SO many good questions on these calls. The information to solve huge problems is now available on our site. As I say on my podcast, “Ask better questions. Tell better stories.” If I can see weaknesses better, I can help more. But if I miss a weakness–or see something that ISN’T there, like one of the myths above–my information isn’t helpful. Information given without data is just opinion. And there’s far too much opinion masquerading as truth in the gym owners’ world. How can YOU get this data? Fill out our 2016 Gym Owners’ Survey. Give YOUR data – anonymously, of course – and ...
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Looking for Potential in Potential Coaches

November 10, 2016 Hiring Staff
By Brian Alexander owner of CrossFit Illumine and TwoBrain Mentor Hiring in the CrossFit world is a bit tricky.  To be an effective Leader and CEO of your gym you have to be able to empower others to Coach classes while you work on your business instead of in it. The ability to see things from a 10,000 foot perspective is critical to develop and implement strategies for long term growth and retention in order to make your business resilient and successful. Most Affiliate Owners don’t have the luxury of having ten candidates to choose from at any given time and what that leaves us with is two choices: 1. Develop our own Coaches internally (Think ATC) 2. Find existing Coaches looking for opportunity I’ve made more mistakes than I care to admit when it comes to hiring. Here is what I have learned to ask myself  when considering hiring a potential Coach to lead within your community and represent your brand. 1.  Can they lead?  I am a firm believer that a person is either a leader or they are not.   Leadership can be developed but it’s takes years of life experience and opportunities.  Picking a “fix-me-upper” candidate in this case can be a crap shoot.  Sometimes it works, more often it doesn’t.  Ask yourself this: Would you yourself work for them?  That’s who I want representing my brand, someone I would work for myself. 2.  Can they connect?  Are they able to connect on a personal level with your members?  Are they emotionally involved?  Do they bring the energy needed to make class the best hour of your members day? 3.  Do they represent your culture,  its’ values and mission?  Having a 20 year old fire breather with aspirations of making the CrossFit Games coaching  a 45 year old Mom’s who just wants to move better, live longer and be happier isn’t the best fit.  They are from ...
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Hire Right – A Gamble Worth Making

November 9, 2016 Hiring Staff
By Jay Williams, TwoBrain Mentor The biggest loss I have taken in business cost me over $200,000. I hired the wrong person and kept them around too long. Their bad decisions cost me money, members, AND other staff members on top of the salary I was paying. Ugh, that one still burns. My biggest win has been worth $300,000 and counting. My head coach has started new programs, forged local partnerships, trained the younger coaches, and helped generally make my life easier. Hiring… If you get this one thing right, you can increase the size of your business by 10x with just a few good choices. Get it wrong, it can shut you down. No wonder so many gym owners try to avoid playing this game altogether. You fall into the trap of doing everything yourself, trading “services” for membership, or hiring a bunch of part time “hobby coaches”. Nobody can do it as well as you, so why take the chance? Don’t get me wrong, you CAN run a business this way if your perfect day includes making every decision, never taking a vacation, and having a revolving door of employees. But what if you want to see your kids at night? Or open a second business? Or just not be handcuffed to the squat rack? If you want members who are going to stick around for life, you have to find employees who will do the same. We get it, hiring is a gamble, and it IS scary. The good news is, we have made enough bad gambles to have figured a few things out for you. How to find the right people (Internships – Module 18) How to hire them (Staff contracts – Module 12) How to make a career for them so they stick around (Creating careers – Module 14) When you get hiring right, it’s a gamble worth making, and will get you closer to ...
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What's a "Joy Girl"?

November 8, 2016 Hiring Staff
Your clients should have a relationship with your brand. Their fitness should not hinge on their relationship with one coach. If your client only attends YOUR classes, that’s a problem. It even has a name: the Icon Problem. Read about it here: The Icon Problem If your client has a “coach for life”, they probably don’t have a “gym for life”. They’ll move with the coach. What happens with the “icon coach” takes a two-week vacation? What if the coach leaves? You’re building fragility into your business. It’s critical for every client to receive the SAME experience from every coach in your gym. Consistency is more important than anything else. And the client experience should be spread across your staff. One of the foundational positions we teach is the “Joy Girl”. In this role, one of your staff spends 2-3 hours per week working on retention. They call clients with “bright spots”. They do Goal Reviews. They call absentees. They follow up with texted videos. It’s a rewarding position for everyone: the Joy Girl, the client and the business. Download the Joy Girl responsibilities sheet here: Joy Girl responsibilities sample When a client hits a PR, they get a call. “Hey Sam! I saw you linked 23 double-unders for the first time this week. We’re so proud of you! What are you going to do next?” This creates the habit of constant micro-goal setting. Our 1:1 clients do this every session with their coach, of course, but the Joy Girl position takes the practice from on person to many. This makes it scalable for group training. When a client is absent, the Joy Girl calls and says, “Hey Sam, last time we spoke, you said one of your goals was to link 50 double-unders. Are you getting closer to that goal?” When a client has been absent for two weeks, a call from the Joy Girl gets them back into ...
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