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Keeping Wolves Fat

February 8, 2018 Vision
If I asked, “Who’s your nearest competition?” what would your answer be?   We all know the political answer: “Other CrossFit gyms aren’t my competition. The couch is my competition.” But do you actually FEEL that way?   Are you comparing prices with them? Are they copying your stuff? Does anyone try to “poach” clients from the other?   Have you ever referred a client to a nearby box, or them to you? Why not?   I’m going to bet on one of two answers: fear, or famine.   It’s really one answer: if you’re starving, you’re scared to let any dollar (or any client) slip through your fingers, right? I know EXACTLY how that feels. I’ve been there. It’s tempting, when you’re broke, to engage in behavior that would embarrass you: deriding their program, finding things to dislike about them, running them down to potential clients. But if you’re starving, you sometimes feel like you have to.   When you’re broke, or just breaking even, you’re running scared. That makes fear the ONLY reason you have “competition” in your town from other boxes. Dump a million dollars on every gym in town, and you’d all be friendlier. Take away the money problem; get everyone operating from a solid base; and suddenly the confidence issues and trust issues are gone.   I grew up on a farm. We had wolves around. Fences kept them out most of the time. But if there was a long winter and food became scarce, the wolves would start taking chances. They’d steal sheep and kill chickens. Eventually, a bullet would find them, but not before they did some damage.   Our best defense was to keep the wolves FAT. When wolves are fat, they don’t chase your flock. So we fed them. Dead sheep, deer hit by cars on our road…all were dragged far into the bush, where the wolves would eat them. And ...
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Are You Poisoning Your Brand?

February 6, 2018 Member Retention
It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.   A current maxim on social media strategy demands that we “be authentic”.   Great advice–unless you’re a jerk.   Or you’re thinking about sharing a strong political opinion with your clients.   Or you can’t spell very well.   Your clients are paying for a professional service. Your online persona has to reinforce your professional value.   A few weeks ago, a gym owner asked if her husband’s social media posts were hurting their business. This was a first for me, but obviously she was worried enough to ask. And for good reason: his Instagram feed was full of “Kick ’em all out!” and “Build the wall higher!” memes. There was some pretty outrageous stuff in there. His political affiliation wasn’t just polarized: it was extreme. Even a conservative would feel uncomfortable reading some of this stuff.   How would a client feel? How would they associate those beliefs with your business?   Like it or not, every entrepreneur is a public figure. The easiest way to get “likes” on Facebook is to be likable.   I’m not recommending that you fake anything. I’m suggesting you consider your audience before you post.   Gary Vaynerchuk is one of many “authenticity” advocates. Watch any of his videos from the last five years, and you’ll him use the F-word like a comma. His audience is entrepreneurs now.   But his audience USED to be neighborhood people who wanted to buy wine from his dad’s shop. Watch Wine TV’s first few years’ worth of episodes. Is there a single swear word?   Go ahead and check. Here’s the first episode to get you started.   Before the “Gary Vee” hype, Vaynerchuk was selling wine to a local audience of higher-income clients. He was mostly an owner-operator trying to turn ...
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Your K-9 Mentor

February 4, 2018 Personal Development
By Jason Williams, TwoBrain Mentor My dog is becoming my mentor. We’ve had our 6 month old pup named Belle since she was 2 months old. Since she is a lab/shephard mix, she’s unbelievably smart. Within 2 training sessions, she had learned to sit, stay, lay down, and shake. Within a month, she was able to do an obstacle course at the gym! Everything was going swimmingly, until she started growing. All the sudden, she started barking, jumping up, and ignoring commands. She still had the same personality, still super smart, still LOOKED like the dog that won “star puppy” at the SPCA training course. But she was bigger, stronger, and amped up ALL THE TIME! Something had to change. I had to take a step back and review the basics again with this bigger, stronger, super dog. So, after a long walk and some vigorous exercise, we spent an afternoon working again on sit, stay, lay down, and shake. By the end, she not only had those things down, but my 6 year old could tell her to do them! And since then, she’s been much more responsive and much more well-behaved. The process taught me something I applied immediately to my business. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward… That means things like writing your roles and tasks, reviewing your intake process, or revisiting your perfect day. For me, this meant redefining my roles and tasks, and making sure I had the right people in the right seats. This made a HUGE difference in the productivity and morale of the team. Taking this step back doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You got to where you are NOW based on what you knew THEN. But that won’t get you where you want to be NEXT. If you ignore this, you may find yourself building your business on a shaky foundation of ideas you sorta implemented and ...
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What Comes First: Marketing or Mentorship?

February 3, 2018 Gym Marketing
When you break your day down into the roles you fill at the gym, how much time do you spend marketing?   If marketing is ALL of your time, you’re a marketer. But if marketing is only SOME of your time, you’re a business owner.   Specialists (marketers) work for generalists (business owners) because your business is SO much larger than the marketing piece.   As I wrote yesterday in “The Curse of the Lottery Winner“, marketing takes on disproportionate importance when you don’t have money. But when it works, and you HAVE money, do all your problems disappear? Of course not.   I’ve done this broke, and I’ve done it with a lot of money in my account. Having money is better than not. But the way your business is set up to handle new leads; the way your staff is compensated; the way your clients are retained–and even the type of marketing you do–are far bigger questions than “How do I build a Facebook ad?”   Five years ago, Facebook wasn’t the most popular platform in the world for advertising. Five years from now, it will no longer be. What then?   (Your mentor will know the answer.)
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The Lottery Winner's Curse

February 2, 2018 Gym Operations
In 2002, Jack Whittaker won $315 million in a Powerball jackpot. Within a decade, his daughter and granddaughter had died of drug overdoses, his wife had divorced him, and he had been sued several times. Once he was robbed of $545,000 in cash that had been sitting in his car while he visited a strip club. When interviewed after the robbery, he sobbed to reporters, “I wish I’d torn that ticket up.” Every picture of every lottery winner is the same: big teeth, blown-up check, clean slate. The winner is thinking, “All of my past mistakes are erased. I’m out of debt. I have a clean slate. I can do anything I want. I won. I’ll be a winner forever.” But pictures of lottery winners taken three years later show the opposite story: more than half are broke. Nearly 50% get divorced. And almost none of them are smiling. Money didn’t solve their problems. More than anything else, money just poured jet fuel on their problems. Here are ten more examples out of thousands. As my friend Jarret Perelmutter once told me, “Nobody cares about money until they don’t have any. Then it’s ALL they care about.” Many lottery tickets are sold to people who don’t have money. What does this have to do with CrossFit gyms? Well, there are a host of new “marketing consultants” out there. And many of their programs generate revenue. The gyms who are most likely to sign up for their services are those in triage: they need money NOW or face bankruptcy. And, thankfully, sometimes they GET the money to keep going. Does that solve their long-term problems? No. Clients upset about “bait-and-switch” tactics leave horrible reviews on Google. High turnover rates mean gyms owners must always recruit at a high rate, even when ad prices rise (and what happens when Facebook is replaced by the next platform?) Coaches struggle under the sales pressure. ...
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The Scariest Answer We Hear

February 1, 2018 Gym Operations
We’ve been running our Gym Checkup for two years. Thousands of gym owners have completed it. Most finish the checkup and book a free call with me to discuss their answers. Sometimes we invite those callers to mentorship. Some of these guys are generating over a million in gross revenue per year. Some are looking for a lifeline to make it through the month. Most are in the middle. But almost ALL gyms, rich or poor, give us this answer on at least one of the questions in the Checkup: “I don’t know.” “I don’t know my goal for this business. I haven’t really thought about it.” “I don’t know how long a client stays with me.” “I don’t know what my coaches want.” “I don’t know my profit margin.” “I don’t know how I’m going to retire.” ….in fact, many gym owners bail out of the Checkup partway through, use the “phone a friend” button, and book the call anyway, because it’s obvious their business is out of control. You manage what you measure. You control what you know. As a coach, you’d never let an athlete post an estimated score. “I think I did Fran in under 3:00.” You’d never guess at their body fat percentage. “I think you’re around 30%, and I think you used to be around 33%. Great work.” You’d never accept a guess. “I bet I could lift 500lbs.” You would test, and retest. You would KNOW. When you open a business, coaching isn’t your job anymore; it’s your service. Your business provides a platform for that service. Your job is to build that platform. That means it’s your job to know your ARM, your LEG, your profit margin. It’s your job to know what your coaches want: is to more work, or less? Has that answer changed in the last two months? We can blame poor software options for our lack of knowledge, ...
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