by Two-Brain Mentors Brian Alexander and Chris Cooper Even when things are amazing, it’s very easy to focus on the “problem areas.” Our brains are wired to detect flaws. But we often get “false positives”: cues or feedback that seems to knock all the good stuff off the table. We fixate on negative feedback even when it doesn’t represent the average client. And when someone says they don’t like a class time on our client surveys…well, we want to smash the whole puzzle and start from scratch! Right? Brian just shared a fantastic message with his coaches (he oversees 30 of them between two gyms, and relies on his strong leadership style to inspire them to take the right action when they’re out of his sight). Brian’s crew was starting to report that “some of the members” had problems with “some of the services” or “some of the class times”. These are always hard to pin down (WHICH members? What EXACTLY did they say?) but Brian has been through this before. Over a year ago, the rates at CrossFit Illumine rose. A small–but very vocal–minority of clients quit to make a point about the prices. Most have since come back, but at the time, Brian had to fight the temptation to back down from his core values and cave in to keep them. This is how he got through it, and the lesson he shared with his staff today: There will always be a small minority of people who complain about everything. For example, not including Spark in Unlimited memberships, or charging extra for speciality programs, or charging for nutrition advice, not having enough classes, CrossFit being too expensive etc… while we listen to everyone, we act according to our vision for the gym and don’t let the “Loud Minority” sway us because we understand that they don’t see the big picture we do. When I hear, “Everyone is complaining, or “Everyone ...
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