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Your Members Don't Care About You.

by Jay Williams, TwoBrain Mentor Your members don’t care about you. It took me a while to get that through my head. But it’s true. They don’t. They don’t care that you went to regionals or that you have a six pack. They don’t care how many hours you work, or how much money you made (or lost) last month. In fact, they don’t care about your gym either. Your new Eleiko barbells and colorful med balls. How many members you have, or whether you sell the latest new supplement or bars. They don’t care that you’re a better value than the gym down the street, or your classes are smaller than the others, or you have better coaches or parking or bathrooms…. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself, have you ever had a member you thought to be super loyal to you suddenly leave for another gym? Or just quit outright in a huff after a dispute over a refund or a minor drama at the gym? They DO NOT care about you. What DO they care about? Themselves… Can you meet their needs? Can you get them RESULTS? Can they feel comfortable here? Do they feel like YOU care about THEM? Most gym owners make the gym all about them… Sign up for MY course, check out MY new equipment, check out how cool WE are… And totally forget that they are there to serve their members… The owner who understands and caters to their members needs by: —>Asking what they want (take them out for coffee or run a member survey) —>creating courses and programs to serve their needs —>creating systems to give each member the same experience every time —>maintaining, tweaking, and adjusting based on clients needs. Always wins in the long term. With CrossFit gyms facing tougher and tougher competition, you need to start getting out of your own head, and focusing on what is in ...
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Episode 39: The "Glory Days" of CrossFit

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Is Shadowing Overrated?

Let’s think about how we learn new skills. In sixth grade math class, does a teacher say, “Watch me do math, and then YOU try it”? Or do they say, “Here’s what I’m doing right now – I’m carrying the one and putting it up here.” You don’t have that luxury when an intern is watching you coach a live class. You can’t freeze the participants, silence the stereo and say, “Justin, I’m holding this stick in front of her bar so she has a tactile cue about proper bar path.” Instead, you hope he’s paying attention, and you hope he figures out WHY you’re holding that PVC vertically, and why you chose Julie, and why you chose her TODAY, and how you positioned the rest of the class around her to see, and where you stood, and how loudly you spoke, and… Modelling is an important part of teaching. But it’s not the majority. Demonstration, explanation, repetition, mimicry and recall are all important parts of teaching. When a box owner tells me they have a new coach “shadowing” them, I always hope they don’t mean “watching.” Because that’s only about 20% of the way they’ll learn. I admit it: I think about “learning” a lot more than most people. As a co-owner of IgniteGym, I often face the problem of getting a message to stick in the brain of a noncompliant client. These lessons have made me better at storytelling and coaching everyone else. And they created the infrastructure of our Advanced Theory Course: first the potential interns learn the foundation; then they teach it back. Then they relearn the movements; then they teach them back (but only to other interns.) THEN they shadow, and then they teach while being recorded for evaluation. Done right, it really only takes 8-12 weeks. But focusing primarily on “shadowing” makes the process much longer, the lessons less sticky, and everyone’s time less ...
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Profit and Happiness

This morning at Catalyst, our CrossFitters ran through a sprinkler. Last week, a visiting CrossFitter told me, “I’ve been doing this since 2012, and that’s the most fun I’ve ever had doing CrossFit.” She was in town for our Saturday morning class. On Thursday, I was talking in our private TwoBrain group about rewarding purchases, and mentioned two “rewards” I’ve recently received: one, a mug, for paying cash for a new car; the second, an electric toothbrush, for paying cash for my daughter’s new braces. One comment I received was, “I love how you just spent over $40k in cash and you’re still happy as a ham.” How are these three separate instances related? This is how: You become happy by making others happy. But first, the “money” talk: Money IS necessary for happiness. At least, to a certain point. Emerging studies show the “happiness quotient” is different across the world, but generally falls around $70,000. After you net $70,000, happiness improves only marginally as income rises. After you earn 70k, you need to find a new way to create joy in your life. What DOES make you happier? Service to others. If you follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, you’ll see that joy is really achieved by making others happy. Yes, you need security (money) FIRST. But after you’ve achieved a level at which your basic and recreational needs are met, only service can provide increasing happiness. Trust me on this. The secret to life is making other people happy.  This is exactly how our Mentorship works: we get some of the best people in the world (gym owners) to their “Perfect Day.” We help them achieve the first few levels of happiness (security and prosperity; more than enough for themselves.) But we don’t stop there. Successful gym owners are then taught how to expand their services to help more people. Different types of “work” make different people happy. In this short ...
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UpCoach Challenge: Client Scavenger Hunt

Create a list of 15-20 obscure “facts” about various clients. Challenge your coaches to discover them all as quickly as possible. Offer a $100 gift card to Rogue. Coaches post their responses in your private Facebook group for coaches. No duplicate answers allowed. Sample Questions: 1. List 3 athletes who prefer Nano 2s to all other shoes. 2. Record the name of 3 pets belonging to clients. 3. Get the names of 5 clients who wear a tie to work. 4. Name three businesses owned by clients. 5. Name four clients whose spouses DON’T come to the gym. 6. Name a client who has overcome a major illness. 7. Name a client who has been at the gym for more than 5 years. 8. Name three clients who don’t eat anything before coming to work out. 9. Write the name of 5 clients who wear a size M shirt. 10. Name three clients who drive more than 15 minutes one way to reach the gym. 11. Name six clients who have reached a PR this week. 12. Give six names of kids whose parents are your clients. 13. Give four name of parents whose kids are your clients. 14. Find one picture of your gym on Instagram taken by a client. 15. Name one client who hasn’t missed a workout in over a year. …obviously, some of the answers will be used for Affinity Marketing later. But this is a great test for one of the 7 Areas of Excellence: Gym Culture.
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The Real Costs of “Trades”

“It’s pretty hard to tell a volunteer what to do.” I was still a junior in college when I first heard this sentence. I was volunteering at a Seniors’ Drop-In Center every Friday, mastering the game of Shuffleboard and optimizing production in the quilting bee. I was frustrated because classes weren’t starting on time; the seniors were there to socialize, not exercise, and I hadn’t yet figured that out. Now that most of my time is sent helping gym owners run their businesses, I repeat these words often. I used to accept “trades” often (especially before I had money) but my generous nature meant I always wound up giving away far more than I received. For example, if a client built me three plyo boxes, I might give him 3 months of free unlimited CrossFit (or around $400 back then.) That’s WAY too much for three boxes, even with his labor built in. Let’s go straight to the most common example I see: “If you coach X number of classes per week, I’ll give you a free membership.” What’s a membership worth? How many classes does a volunteer have to coach to make the trade equitable? Let’s figure it out: If a class is worth $90 in revenue (Two-Brain mentoring clients are shown how to calculate this number) then the coach is paid $40 for the hour (the 4/9ths Model.) But most gyms don’t pay their coaches this much because the owners aren’t careful about their margin. That’s another topic. Let’s say your average coach is paid $20 per class. If their membership is worth $150 per month, a volunteer must coach 7 classes and pay $10 per month, or coach 8 classes and be paid $10. If they miss a few classes in July, they pay the difference. If they make up a few extra classes in August, you pay them the difference. What about the cost of certification? ...
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