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From Our Readers: Messages In A Bottle

April 10, 2018 Personal Development
On Sunday, I posted “What’s In Your Note?“.   I asked readers of this blog to send me a short reply. I wanted to know what short message they’d send to a struggling gym owner–or to themselves in five years. Over 50 responses came back in the first 50 hours. Without opinion, correction or embellishment, here they are:   Love yourself first Feel fear and face it Be early Make happiness Big vision, Golden Rule, Relentless pursuit of excellence, Embrace failure “You are a business owner, humble yourself, never stop learning, remember your why.”   Trust your instincts more its your vision, your dream and your ass on the line!   Never forgot to keep smiling. It will be fun, hard, beautiful, tough, outstanding, rewarding, stressful at times but you get to change lives. Set up rules right away. Stick to your values & please pay your self.   Be real about the brutal facts of your current situation but be optimistic about what the future holds.   Look inward to know why you are doing this and stop there. Don’t try to instill your values on everyone else. Help them improve their best values they already have.   “Finding the right staff that shares your vision and is hungry for more.  But more importantly communicating with them better and more often!” “Get paid what you are worth. But provide the same back.”   Stay in the fight. Find solutions.   Understand your why   Client shoes Consistency Increase client value everyday Innovate Differentiate It’s okay to ask for help. Charge what you’re worth. Never forsake your happiness. Start for the right reasons, hire 2BB, profit first, stay grounded “It’s easier to do things right the first time. Choose wisely” ‘Hire someone smarter than you’ 35-50 professionals is better niche than Games athletes. Give more charge more. Start small and outgrow your box. When deciding to take on a partner, ...
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Episode 114: The Baltimore Connection

April 9, 2018 Podcast Vision
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What's On Your Note?

April 8, 2018 Personal Development
On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into The Pentagon. All 64 passengers–including six hijackers–were killed. Another 125 people in the building were killed with them. The victims’ bodies are memorialized at the Pentagon Memorial, and they live on in the hearts and minds of a nation.   But one of them left something more.   The victims of the Pentagon attack were taken to Dover Air Force Base. This is where all CIA operatives (spies) are brought before burial. Astronauts from the space shuttle Columbia, victims of the bombing of the USS Cole–they’re prepared for their final rest by the morticians at Dover.   While performing autopsies on the passengers of Flight 77, one of the morticians found the ultimate “message in a bottle”: a short note, hurriedly written, in the stomach of a passenger.   The passenger wrote a note and ate it. Stomach acids protected the note while the plane burned.   What was on the note? That’s confidential. What’s important is that the message was received.   The passenger wasn’t sure whether they’d live or die. But they wrote the note anyway, and ate it, on the very slim chance it would be discovered.   Let’s turn to your business.   It’s no secret that not every gym survives.   I’ve seen the numbers. There are over 14,000 CrossFit gyms in the world now–but there have been more. The open-source model of entrepreneurship is a massive opportunity. But it’s also a challenge: everyone kinda has to figure it out as they go. Programs like the Incubator didn’t exist until the last few years, and some of the first affiliates simply didn’t make it. Some of those in the tidal wave of growth from 2012-2014 decided not to continue at the end of their first leases.   ALL of those box owners tried hard. The survivors didn’t outwork the rest. No one ...
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Stand By Your Brand

April 6, 2018 Gym Marketing
We’re not exercising at Catalyst tonight. We’re having pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw and beer. We’re doing an Escape Room challenge to close out our Intramural Open.   No one will count our macros. No one will speed-dial Robb Wolf, or thumb to the appropriate passage of The Primal Blueprint to lecture us on the barbecue sauce.   I host these events–and pick up the tab–every quarter or so. Every time I do, I ask myself, “Am I sending the wrong message here? Should I really be telling people that it’s okay to eat this stuff, drink this stuff, and skip their workout?”   “Am I REALLY a fitness coach?”   Then I think, “Maybe I should change our name from Catalyst Fitness to The Catalyst Club or something.” I do a Google search. Sometimes I even register a domain name on GoDaddy (I have over 60 URLs registered because of big ideas like this.)   And then I think, “It took me thirteen painful years to carve out the brand we have.”   Your brand isn’t your website. Your logo, site, Facebook page–that’s just the candy coating.   Your brand is the way you behave. It’s the reason the coaches at Catalyst wear Catalyst shirts when they’re coaching, and not Rogue shirts or Toronto Blue Jays hats.   It’s the reason every client receives the same coaching and care for the same price. It’s the reason I don’t have to apologize for inconsistencies in coaching or value or toilet paper placement.   My brand is the reason I want my staff to park out back instead of the primo parking spaces up front. It’s the reason I want every light in our big gym on before any clients pull up to the door. And it’s the reason teenaged girls draw green arrows on their arm when they’re bored in math class.   They do those things because my branding is ...
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Authenticity

April 5, 2018 Personal Development
I was Yogi Bear.   In my last summer of college, I took a job in Wisconsin. I thought I would be teaching kids to play sports. Instead, I was running Hanna-Barbera-themed activities and birthday parties. And twice every day, I was zipping up a giant fur suit, slipping into rubber boots that were too large, and walking five miles. I lost ten pounds, despite the ice vest we wore underneath.   When you put on a Yogi Bear costume, you don’t take on the full character. You’re not allowed to steal pic-a-nic baskets or swat beehives. And you’re not allowed to do the Yogi Bear voice. You have to stay silent, because while the giant costume sure makes you LOOK like Yogi, no one actually SOUNDS like Yogi. Little kids will run from their cabins and tents to hug Yogi’s legs; but if you speak, the illusion is shattered. You’re only authentically Yogi until you’re obviously not.   “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.” – Einstein   Being a genius made Einstein good at his job. But being relatable made him popular.   Authenticity, in business, means that you have skin in the game. It means that you identify with your audience because you are them.   You know all about their accounting problems, because you have trouble balancing your own books.   You know all about their weight loss problems, because after working a 14-hour day at the gym, the last thing you want to do is cook dinner. So, donuts.   You know all about their bad hair day because you have them, too. Remember that time the blinkers wouldn’t turn off in your truck? That was annoying. And it happens to your customers, too.   Sharing these stories with your clients tells them, “We’re the same.” It says, “You can believe me when I tell you ...
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The Salary Cap

April 4, 2018 Hiring Staff
How much CAN you afford to pay your coaches? How about yourself? It’s no secret that we teach the 4/9ths Model at Two-Brain. We pay our coaches 44 percent of the gross revenue created by CrossFit groups, personal training and specialty programs. Sometimes, coaches launch a program so large that it becomes a separate company. The model is supported by data from other industries, as well as accounting strategies like “Profit First.” And even though we get more granular with our breakdown, most consultants in the CrossFit industry copy this model, though they might rename it to make it their own. Or they might pay a higher percentage for personal training, but expect coaches to run classes for free. However you want to slice it, the 4/9ths Model is the most effective model for gyms: It’s better pay than a trainer will ever find at a Globogym. It creates opportunities to be entrepreneurial, without risk (we call that “intrapreneurial”). It allows the box to cover costs, and prioritize paying the owner. It removes the ceiling effect created by salaries. Here’s another way to think of the 4/9ths Model that doesn’t sound so “mathy”: Think of your team of coaches like a sports team, and your mentor as the league commissioner. You’re allowed, by league rules, to spend 44.4 percent of your gross revenue on payroll. This doesn’t include YOUR pay as an owner, or your profit. Those payroll expenses include taxes, healthcare, and all other costs associated with paying your staff. This is why I prefer to have contractors instead of employees: I want my crew to have the same taxation opportunities I have, without the entrepreneurial risk. But that’s another subject. Want to hire an admin staff? Great—as long as the expense of their wage fits under your salary cap of 44.4 percent. The industry average is below 25 percent. If you call a local franchise gym and ask, ...
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