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What To Do When They Copy You

February 11, 2018 Gym Operations
***This was my response to an email from Coach B. Coach B read a love letter from me last week called “Keeping Wolves Fat”, and responded with his own story. You’ve heard it before, and if you’re an innovator, you’ve probably been through this: you have a great idea. Another local gym copies it verbatim. You’re frustrated. What can you do? This is what I told him.***   Hey B, I read this on Friday and thought about it since then.   The reason I repeat the message “Don’t worry about being copied” so often is that I get copied a LOT. And it drives me nuts. Right now, three different companies are giving away  “Intramural Open Guides” as clickbait. Of course, the Intramural Open started at Catalyst from something I learned in 1989 at my high school. I don’t want credit for it, I just want people to stop ripping off Affiliates using my idea as bait. And I hear this all the time from high-tier gyms: “We start something, it’s awesome, and then everyone copies it.” And that, my friend, is the nature of being a leader. You have good ideas. They have your ideas. Because you’re a leader, and they’re in second place. Mel Siff once told me, “As soon as you plant a flag, people will start shooting.” He was mostly right. First they’ll criticize you, then they’ll copy you, and then they’ll claim your idea was so self-evident that anyone could have come up with it on their own. Arthur Jones made this defense when he was accused of stealing his machine designs from their Swedish inventor, Ling. It’s frustrating. But here’s the good news: 1. You’ll never run out of good ideas. 2. They already have. 3. People are smart. They know where good ideas come from, or they’ll learn, eventually. And people will graduate up to your service, just as they graduate up ...
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Prison Escapes and Hard Conversations

February 9, 2018 Gym Operations
I don’t do powerlifting meets in prisons anymore.   Picture this: 4000 men, and all of them innocent (just ask them). All incarcerated for life. All bored to tears, with nothing to do except lift weights and smoke.   Every year, inmates in this prison [name withheld] used to get one present at Christmas: me, and a couple of buddies, who would come in and lift weights with them. We had an annual Powerlifting Meet, with judges and everything. My friends had massive lifts, and the inmates looked forward to our visits all year.   Then one year, some of them tried to escape.   They dug a tunnel sixteen feet down to pass below the electrified fence that was buried in the ground. They used homemade shovels. They carted sand out in their pockets and spread it around the yard. They worked through the night, and rigged up lights. They kept it a secret for years while they dug, hoping to end up in a forest on the other side of the fence.   Then, on the night before their escape, with only feet left to go, they were caught.   One of them got cold feet, and blew the whistle on the others.   These guys were CLOSE. The pickup car was ready. Guards later found a pile of dirt next to their escape hole, ready to fill it in. I mean, they were GONE. But one guy couldn’t do it. He gave up, and buried the rest.   Why? Because he wasn’t sure if the others were going to take him along. They wouldn’t answer his questions about it. They avoided a hard conversation with him. And now they’re all stuck for many more years, and all perks–including powerlifting meets–are canceled for everyone. The gym is full of bunk beds now.   Most gym owners, like these inmates, are one hard conversation away from freedom.   That ...
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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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