Two-Brain Business has produced more than 40 certified millionaires and hundreds of gyms that earn their owners over $100,000 per year.
What do these owners have in common? Instead of focusing on implementing one secret strategy, running a Hail Mary marketing campaign or reading 50 books in a year, they focus on momentum.
I have two habits that have built my gym, my mentorship practice and all of my other companies:
1. Every day, I do one thing to grow my business before I do anything else.
2. Every night, I look back at my day and ask myself, “Did I do one thing to grow my business today?”
This is the advice I share with almost every gym owner in Two-Brain. We have dozens of courses. We have specialists for every topic imaginable. We have a team of over 60 successful mentors worldwide. We have the largest data set in the industry. And it’s all built to answer this question:
“What should I actually do?”
But here’s the secret: no one action will grow your gym.
There’s no single marketing campaign that will last forever, no book that will give you the leadership template you can use for the next 30 years, no retention plan that will keep every client forever.
The key is momentum.
8 Steps to Gain Momentum
Jim Collins wrote about the “flywheel of momentum” in his book “Good to Great.”
But I wanted to give gym owners something more tactical: a set of “do this now” instructions they could follow every morning. That’s why I wrote “The Simple Six.”
Here’s how to do it:
1. Get out six pieces of paper, six napkins or six sticky notes—whatever.
2. At the top of each page, write one of these metrics: ARM (average revenue per member), LEG (length of engagement), Head (client count), ROI (return on investment), EHR (effective hourly rate) and NOB (net owner benefit).
3. Do a two-minute “SixStorm” for each. For example, start a timer for two minutes, turn to the ARM page and write down every idea you have to increase how much the average client pays you each month. Then go to the next page: LEG. In two minutes, write down every idea you have to increase client retention. (Two-Brain gyms have a massive set of tools, templates and courses that can be used to improve each of these metrics.) Repeat for all six pages. Some will have long lists, and some will have short lists.
4. Go back to the first list: ARM. Circle the easiest, fastest tactic to boost ARM. Repeat this selection process for LEG, Head, ROI, EHR and NOB.
5. Tomorrow morning, do one thing to grow your business before you do anything else. Open your ARM list. Look at the item you circled. Start working on that idea. When you run out of time (for me, that’s about 45 minutes), put the work away and go on to the next part of your day.
6. Pick it up again. Work on the ARM idea until it’s done. Then start working on your LEG idea. Work on each task with single-minded focus until it’s done. Don’t try to work on everything at once.
7. After you’ve improved each of the six metrics a tiny bit, you’ve pushed your business forward a little. Collins calls this “pushing the flywheel” (performing all six actions equals one turn of the flywheel), but you can think of it as one “round” in a workout. One rep of ARM, one rep of LEG, one rep of Headcount, one rep of ROI, one rep of EHR and one little boost to NOB—that’s one one round.
8. Start the next round.
Look Backward to See Progress
Don’t forget: It’s just as important to reflect on the work as it is to do the work. Count backward: Look at your progress instead of comparing yourself to others or to your ideal outcome. Protect your momentum.
If you do one thing to improve your business every day, you will start to see little gains. Over time, these little gains stack up to create big gains. You’ll sometimes hear gurus call this “the law of incremental gains” or “the 1 percent rule.” But it all boils down to momentum.
The first time you ask yourself “did I do one thing today to grow my business?” you might be disappointed in the answer. Most of us stay busy all day in our gyms, but the gyms don’t grow. That means you’re treading water but not getting anywhere.
For me, the only way to ensure my business grows is to start my day with a growth activity before I’m distracted.
How about you?
