Mike Warkentin: 0:02
83 clients on grand opening day? This is obviously a typo. Everyone knows that you can’t open with clients. That is a myth. You have to lose money for months. You have to max out your line of credit. You have to sleep at the gym. You’ve gotta fight with your partner over money—
Jason Tebedo: 0:15
Mike , Mike, Mike, that is completely a myth. A hundred percent.Mike Warkentin: 0:18
You did this?
Jason Tebedo: 0:20
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: 0:23
Uh , OK. I need to hear the story. Are you ready to share your secrets with the rest of us?
Jason Tebedo: 0:26
I would love to. Any way that I can help other people.
Mike Warkentin: 0:32
All right. Well, to our listeners, welcome to Two-Brain Radio. This is Jason Tebedo of CrossFit Angier and he’s here to tell us how he opened with 83 members. Before we get into that story, I wanna ask you to hit like and subscribe or ring the notifications bell wherever you are watching or listening with my thanks. Now, Jason, I’m not gonna keep these people waiting. The big question: How’d you open with 83 members ? Tell me what’s up.
Jason Tebedo: 0:54
Well , I tell you , I couldn’t have done it without my mentor. You know, working with Joleen Bingham was absolutely just crucial to me being able to open up with 83 members. You know, she laid out kind of a foundation as far as how my business plan should be structured, moving into a founder’s club, a pricing binder , no sweat intros. And I think the thing that really worked for me as being a former military guy is having a proven model that we know that works. And then being able to action that, you know, too many times, we think we’re the smartest person in the room and we try to invent these things, and ways of doing things. But, you know, I don’t know how many gyms Two-Brain has, but you guys have tried everything and seen what works and what doesn’t work. And I just think it was absolutely instrumental as far as us doing the right things to get people in here.
Mike Warkentin: 1:43
OK. So you mentioned a couple things that I wanna really dig into. And one that I wanna know about is Founders Club. Talk to me a little bit about that, because I’ll tell you the quick story. When I started as a gym owner , I started a facility and I think we had, I wanna say maybe eight people , so few that I could keep track of it on an Excel spreadsheet and we were losing money and I was very nervous about the whole thing . So tell me about Founders Club and how that worked for you.
Jason Tebedo: 2:06
Yeah , I think the greatest thing about founders club for us was kind of the psychological aspects of it. You know, people love to see their name, love to see it in action. So we really tried to promote that they were a part of this community and we were building it from the ground up . So we created Founders Club t-shirts, put everybody’s names on the back. I’m a little bit of a woodworker myself, engraved everybody’s names and put it up. And just having those aspects of that just really allowed us to really build those numbers. And not only that, you know, and I’m sure we’ll probably get into it a little bit, but affinity marketing, you know, once you get those, you know, grade-A type of clients coming in that you know that have a lot of influence in the ecosystem and having them help you leverage your founder’s club, it was just absolutely instrumental.
Mike Warkentin: 2:50
So for those who don’t know, the Founders Club concept is the idea that before you even open, you start telling people here is the stuff that you can get and you start packaging things. And Chris has been always clear, Chris Cooper, Two-Brain founder, clear not to discount certain things, right? You don’t wanna cheapen your membership and attract people that are just there for that tourist package, but there are some things that you can package together and create these really cool packages. And even like, you know the t-shirts that you’ve got, you have to earn it, you can’t buy it, that kind of stuff, giving people a sense of, I was there first, I have the rock and roll t-shirt from when they were playing in the club, not the stadium, that kind of thing. So tell me about, like, what did you offer in your founder’s club and then how did you get this thing out in the community? So people could find out about you before- I’m guessing before you even had a building in a space, correct?
Jason Tebedo: 3:32
Yeah. Well, we did have the building in the space, so we kind of –
Mike Warkentin: 3:36
But not officially opened?
Jason Tebedo: 3:37
Yeah, no, no, no, no. We didn’t officially open until I think, you know , a couple weeks ago, but you know, just advertising the ability of, “We’re a new gym in the area. We’re bringing something unique to the area”, providing a different value for them. But once I got in here specifically within the Founders package, we offered, you know , the shirt , obviously we offered free access to a bunch of different seminars that we’re gonna be having throughout the year. We offered a one-on-one nutrition counseling. Even my most advanced athletes that came in definitely took advantage of that to really nail down their nutrition. And sometimes, you know, coaches need coaches too, no matter how much you know, you just sometimes need that kick in the pants to get moving. So I mean that coupled with , you know, all the other things, the social media shout outs , and I’m sure we’ll probably get to the Two-Brain marketing course here sometime during our conversation, but, you know, using the power of social media to celebrate these people that were joining fueled the effort for other people to join also.
Mike Warkentin: 4:35
So you mentioned some of the stuff that’s in that package and the idea there is like, you’re offering value, but you’re not giving away memberships, not saying, you know , get a free month and things like that. And like we’ve seen people do that where you give away free months. And all of a sudden, you know, the intro package runs out, you’ve still got members, still gotta serve them . The costs are piling up, it’s a bad play, but by doing things like access to some seminars, some things that don’t cost you a ton of money and that t-shirt, you know, really is a big deal. So you give people something that they want and you give them status almost more than anything else. And Two-Brain has a complete playbook for this Founders Club. You can take a look at some of this stuff if you get Chris Cooper’s book “Start a Gym,” it’s also in there. But the idea is you are getting people to come and sign up for something and you’re giving them some extra value. And that keeps them. Tell me, where did the very first person come from? Or who was number one?
Jason Tebedo: 5:22
Oh man, that’s a great question. I would have to think about that a little bit. Obviously, you know , some of my friends and, you know, family members, they were like the first kinda seed clients per se. You know, they helped build the gym and they really wanted to be part of that foundation. But once they were established, you know, a lot of other members came in from no beginning of Crossfit, you know, just as cheery as can be and using, you know, the social media type stuff that you guys recommend we’re able to get in a lot of people. You know, Two-Brain always talks about the client, avatar, the client avatar. Our client avatar is a woman over 35 years old, 45 years old, maybe two kids, the kids are just about eight or nine. They’re kinda independent. That’s that one time in a woman’s life where she’s getting back to focusing on herself. And we really tried to, you know , kind of gear towards that and really give back to, you know , the mothers that have given so much to us.
Mike Warkentin: 6:15
So do you remember, you know, the first time- like friends and family are awesome, right? Like they’re still members, but at the same time, you’re like, “Oh, those are kinda freebies.” Right? Do you remember when you started finding people in that 83 that were like, you didn’t know who they were? Was that a big deal for you to see that this thing was actually working?
Jason Tebedo: 6:29
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was just, it was a lot of trial and error. I felt on my part trial and error because I was implementing strategies that you guys had. So when it came to like unfamiliar situations, I could always rely on my mentor to really kind of help me out and navigate those type of situations.
Mike Warkentin: 6:47
I love it. And I love hearing like- Chris Cooper always writes about this, about the records of how many people have signed up, like which gyms have signed up with the most people or started with the most people. And 83 is one of the top scores, which I think is super cool.
Jason Tebedo: 7:00
Mike, if I can add one thing.
Mike Warkentin: 7:03
Yeah. Please.
Jason Tebedo: 7:04
Kaleda, she set that bar high for me, I’ve been with Two-Brain for years, I’ve read all of Chris’s books. And when I heard her podcast from humble beginnings and , you know, being in, I quote, I think she said a disenfranchised area, a rural area, you know , and being able to bring that many members in, it was just kinda proof for me.
Mike Warkentin: 7:20
OK. Well, there you go. I shout out to Kaleda Connell, one of our mentors. I gotta ask you this now. So take me a little bit further back in time. Take me to the time you decided to open a gym and then to the point where you signed up for the Two-Brain StartUp program, how did that whole thing come about?
Jason Tebedo: 7:33
Yeah, so, you know, opening a gym has always been a dream of mine, you know, from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan to just serving in the military. It was just always kind of a long term goal for me, all the sacrifices I made were gonna be one day for me to open a gym. So when I got in the military, I worked for a couple tech companies. I worked for a company called Salesforce, who’s brilliant with the cost-relationship management, which kind of like started that kind of , that passion for not only opening a gym, but being able to open a gym that served its members. So time fast-forwards, you know, a couple years after the military, I’m working for a “global gym” that offers CrossFit classes. And we did a member survey and at that member survey and the members identified maybe two or three little changes that they wanted to implement, you know, maybe a couple grand worth of changes that would greatly enhance customer satisfaction and the gym failed to do that. So they started hemorrhaging people, hemorrhaging people left and right, and losing that long term engagement with them , and the revenue that they might have brought in just for a couple of small changes. And that was really the catalyst for my change. And I reached out to Two-Brain. I was immediately plugged in with your amazing business template. I don’t care if you’re a gym or anybody. You need to look at the free template you guys offer, it’s phenomenal. With that business template, it really was a forcing function for me to kind of do the next steps in order to really kind of prepare me to work with a mentor. Now I feel, I feel like Joleen could have really guided me. My mentor could have guided me through the business plan and stuff like that. But the fact that I used some free resources that you had up front that kinda really put me a step forward and we could start focusing on higher level things.
Mike Warkentin: 9:22
So when you started with that free resource, that’s available on the internet, we’ll put that link in the show notes. You guys can check it out. What made you decide then to take the next step and actually sign up for StartUp? And again, ’cause we’re talking about StartUp, you’re looking at balancing a ton of costs. So why invest in that?
Jason Tebedo: 9:38
Yeah. So I’m a very skeptical person, you know, after being in sales, you know, I know that people can be a little shady and when you’re, you know, you hear all the stuff on Two-Brain’s podcast and other podcasts, this is the best, this is the greatest thing. But hearing continual people emphasizing the importance of working with you guys and going to multiple different CrossFit sites and seeing the No-Sweat Intro, which is, you know, that brand, that you know that they’re probably working with Two-Brain and seeing how successful some of these gyms are. That was really the catalyst that kind of brought me to Two-Brain and kinda got that started for me.
Mike Warkentin: 10:13
So now when you get to the StartUp program, what else did you learn in there? What did Joleen teach you that, that maybe you didn’t have a clue about or maybe something that you tweaked and did a little better and how did that stuff help you?
Jason Tebedo: 10:24
Well, I tell you, StartUp is not just, you know, working with a Two-Brain mentor, but you also have your marketing team. Which was, you know, absolutely amazing, you know, working with them , given these true and proven social media posts that just people flock to or respond to was really kind of, you know, the big thing behind bringing clients in and then having Joleen there with me and taking me through Ramp-up or Startup and having me, you know, crossing my Ts and dotting my I’s administratively, developing SOPs, you know, getting a program for our on-ramp program, developing all these different things. And you know, really holding me accountable was huge. You know, Joleen would give me , “Hey, I want you to work on these three things.” And next call, right away. “What’s the status of this? What’s the status of that?” And here I’m investing, you know, a significant portion of my revenue into this mentorship, but yet I felt like I was working for Two-Brain. And that just kind of got me going, you know?
Mike Warkentin: 11:24
Did that process, did that link up with your mindset as a military guy? You know, you’ve got a task, you got a plan, you gotta report on it, you got accountability. Was that a part of it?
Jason Tebedo: 11:32
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, there’s a right and a left side of the brain, you know, military people tend to be very left sided. And we tend to focus on the task and we like to see what’s already been done and just emulate- model what has been proven. And I think that was the power of Two-Brain. And I mean, I’ll say this all the time and I hate to kind of go off the track here. But Anyone who’s listening- you know, sometimes you just gotta shut up and just listen to someone who’s done it before. Listen to someone who’s made mistakes. You know?
Mike Warkentin: 12:02
I didn’t do that. You know, when I started the gym in 2011 I think we actually put in a building but it was around for a couple years before that- I just tried to figure it out myself and it didn’t go super well. Like, we managed to survive and get through it, but wow. Did I ever make some mistakes that I didn’t need to! And it’s kind of, I look back now and I think if I had had some resources or if I had been smart enough to use the resources that were available, there weren’t many, but there were some, I would’ve been in a different spot. So it wasn’t until I started connecting. The tweak for me was really when I sat in the stands at regionals, and we’d always talk as gym owners, we’d talk about, “Hey, do you have this problem, that problem,” and so forth, and we’d solve some problems there. It never occurred to me that this could be a bigger thing. And then Chris Cooper figured it out and put it all together and solved the problems for everyone and replicated essentially those, you know, offhand, slightly drunken conversations after regionals ended <laugh>. You wanna know what my marketing plan was?
Jason Tebedo: 12:58
Yeah.
Mike Warkentin: 12:59
Nothing! People will come and it didn’t work. And you know, and that’s not true. They did come to a degree, but I didn’t have the success that other gym owners can have with an actual marketing plan because my marketing plan was, I’ll be a great coach. They’ll show up and it just didn’t happen. Right. Maybe I wasn’t as good a coach as I thought, but even if I was, they still didn’t show up in the numbers that I needed for it to make a difference. But then when we started marketing with a plan, it worked. So tell me about this. Did you set a marketing budget and hit the ground running with this thing? Because it took me like eight years to ever look at marketing. So did you just start with that?
Jason Tebedo: 13:30
Well, I really kind of did a couple grassroots things on my own. One, TikTok is a phenomenal platform for just putting videos together. It’ll put music behind it, it’ll create a 20 minute snippet of what’s going on, you know, showing people the gym, doing walkthroughs, talking about the Founders program, that was instrumental in bringing a lot of people in and that’s a zero cost, you know, effort right there. So-
Mike Warkentin: 13:53
You can actually trace some of that to TikTok?
Jason Tebedo: 13:55
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yep . Yeah. It’s been a great success for me and it allows you the ability to download the video and then post it to other platforms as you wish. So that’s been awesome and people, you know, going back to the Dale Carnegie, you know, people love to hear their names. People love to see themselves, you know? nobody watches the videos for any other person, but theirselves in it, and that kind of keeps them , you know, involved into it . In addition to, you know, working with the Two-Brain marketing team, we set a budget. I believe it was like $ 15 a day, if I’m not mistaken. And we were just inundated in leads. I had so many leads. I had so many No Sweat Intros, that I had to start turning them away. I mean, it was just a phenomenal response. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: 14:42
So let me ask you this. Did you have the systems in place then? Because when I started getting leads, I didn’t have the systems in place to manage it. Were you able, and I know you had to turn some people away, but were you able to, you know, you had a plan for when people come in, this happens and this happens and this happens. Did that actually happen? Cause it didn’t happen for me.
Jason Tebedo: 14:59
Well, absolutely. I think another thing great about Two-Brain is you have a lot of resources, you know, a lot of documents there. That No Sweat Intro form completely printed off, a monkey can fill it out, ask the questions, really dig deep into what’s bringing a person in and kinda uncover what the psychological reason is behind it. And then cater to that. And then you have your pricing binder, which is available, which will show all your programs and is clearly outlined for people. And then a little, Robert Calvinney, the six principles and influence, he talks about reciprocity. I’d make sure I’d give a water bottle. Like you guys mentioned or a sticker, you know? And then that would build that trust with them . And I think that was just absolutely crucial to them.
Mike Warkentin: 15:40
It’s interesting because as entrepreneurs, there’s a tendency to just wanna do your own thing. Right. And I realized that’s why a lot of us got into it, but there’s also a reality that if you do the research and accept some guidance, you can sure save yourself a lot of time and money, you know? And I find it interesting because a lot of the stuff that you’ve talked about here verbatim is stuff that we’ve recommended, like to the point of like giving a water bottle away, having the No Sweat Intro forms, doing the marketing like this. Often when we see people make mistakes, it’s because they don’t stick to the plan. Right. Yeah. And it’s kind of funny because people say, well, my marketing’s not working and I’ll listen to the marketing mentors and they’ll say, well, did you use the exact thing that we’ve tested and tried and said worked? No, I changed it. Aha. Right? And it’s hard sometimes though, as an entrepreneur to give up that freedom, especially for me as a media guy, I’m like, I could take my own pictures. I don’t need to use the pictures that they supplied, but when I did, I got better results. So how did that mentality shift work for you? Like, did you have any parts where you’re like, “Man, I just wanna do my own thing” or how did you get your head around the fact of taking guidance?
Jason Tebedo: 16:36
Well, I think it’s always a challenge as you’re setting up a business, you feel like nobody understands, you know, the trials that you’re going through. And you know, fortunately Joleen was a little patient with me as I, you know, probably tried to work out some of my own kinks and made out some of my own mistakes, but you really have to trust the process. You have to sit back and say , you know, we talk about higher value positions, right? Don’t waste your time getting caught up in taking photos, the exact right photo for your website. There are things that have been proven that work, Two-Brain has vetted them . They have worked for other gyms and the things that haven’t worked got thrown out the window. So being able to step back and say, “Hey, I trust you, mentor. I trust what you’re offering to me and I’m gonna implement this.” But it works. It works, you know, and I’m sure we’re gonna get into it in the future, you know, with the, our conversation here. But the return on investment’s been huge, you know mentorship is not cheap, you know, but in comparison to the revenue that you’re gonna bring in with mentorship, it’s absolutely crucial. It should be like the number one thing on your list as far as gym owning.
Mike Warkentin: 17:39
So let’s talk about it. Talk about, tell me some other metrics. What have you got for me? Anything interesting. I know that you managed to start with 83 members, which beat my total by, you know, 72 or something like that. What else do you got for me?
Jason Tebedo: 17:49
Yeah, so we typically bring in, I would say on average, probably five to six members a week right now. All levels. I would say probably 75% of them have never done CrossFit before, brand new to the ecosystem, you know, kind of fit that client avatar and then maybe 25% are either coming from another gym or they’ve done CrossFit before, and just kind of come in here to find out, Hey, why is everybody so interested? Why do I see this everywhere? Why is it completely in my face, all over social media? We bring in probably about 11- in revenue right now.
Mike Warkentin: 18:22
Say that one more time? It cut out for a sec. Give me that number one more time.
Jason Tebedo: 18:24
Yeah. 11,000 a month in revenue, our overhead is about $5,000 a month. So we’re looking at about $6,000 a month in profit, which has been great. You know, it helps pay the mortgage and kind of keep the lights on.
Mike Warkentin: 18:37
Profitable from day one. Is that correct?
Jason Tebedo: 18:39
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: 18:41
Okay. So that’s, that’s- congratulations on that because that took me a while to get to that.
Jason Tebedo: 18:45
<laugh> Yeah. You know, and I hate to kind of digress into some other avenue here, but you know, working with a mentor, you know, and Joleen and kind of talking about how much space I would need, we have this inkling as , you know, future CrossFit box owners that we want this 10,000 square foot space and it’s absolutely necessary. And we need brand new this and that stuff like that.
Mike Warkentin: 19:06
Turf, and –
Jason Tebedo: 19:08
Yeah. We have 2500 square feet , 2500 square feet and we’re almost at hundred members. That fits us perfectly fine . You know, the rent’s like $ 2500 a month and it allows you to be profitable right off the bat. And it allows you to provide something back to the members . So they see, “Hey, this guy cares about me. He’s giving back for my effort of coming here every day.”
Mike Warkentin: 19:27
Yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s interesting ’cause Chris Cooper wrote about that in various places now. But one of the things he says is that bigger gyms aren’t necessarily more profitable. There are some very successful, large gyms. They are definitely out there, but buying large, in the micro gym industry, you know, the sweet spots are in that 2,500 to 4,000 square feet. And that’s not to say, you can’t go bigger or smaller. But the idea is like at the StartUp phase, if you signed , you know, a 12,000 square foot lease and you’ve got this vacant thing and your 6 o’clock class is full and the rest of it’s dead, that’s gonna be a money losing proposition and to the point where you might sink, you know ? So to be able to hit the ground running and start with a smaller space, you can do all these different things. And then Chris’s advice is always move when you’re bursting at the seams. You don’t need as much space as you maybe think you do. Right. It looks nice. And it’s maybe a little bit of an ego thing where you’re like, ah , I have a gigantic gym, but bigger isn’t necessarily better. So I love that you’re in 2,500. Looking at what you’ve got there is this your NoSweat Intro sales consultation room?
Jason Tebedo: 20:18
Yeah. Yeah. This is the first thing that they see. One thing that we really tried to keep here is a Starbucks feel, you know, Starbucks puts a little bit of value behind, you know, their environment, you know, values every customer, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, whatever it may be. You know, I want everyone to feel extremely comfortable when they come in here and I don’t want them to be surrounded by dropping barbells, barking dogs and you know, the traditional bravado CrossFit.
Mike Warkentin: 20:43
Did you do that woodwork yourself?
Jason Tebedo: 20:45
I did. Yeah, I did.
Mike Warkentin: 20:47
Very cool, looks great.
Jason Tebedo: 20:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.
Mike Warkentin: 20:50
And the reason I ask again is that one of the recommendations is to get a building with a space where you can do these consultations because again, a lot of us in the early days were like, you know , you come in, there’s the warehouse, there’s the toilet where you vomit. Do you wanna sign up? And it’s not the way to sell gym memberships anymore. We’ve kind of figured out, but these consultation processes, the No Sweat Intro done in an office just like yours, that looks like a fitness professional has a great effect on people. It’s all about building that trust. So I love that you’ve brought that up for the spacing and so forth , other startup expenses. Did you, how did you pick out your equipment and so forth? Did Joleen give you any advice on that? Or was that something that you took care of?
Jason Tebedo: 21:27
Well, her biggest piece of advice I think was a phenomenal message. This is something that you wouldn’t know as a new gym owner is it takes time for equipment to come in. You know, you need to start ordering equipment months out and especially with , you know, the COVID disruption, so supply chains and whatnot . You know, we got ahead of that really quick. And now I did opt for a little bit more expensive equipment. We did go for Rogue stuff, but I’m a strong believer in supporting American owned companies. That’s kinda an ethos that I had . That’s fair. And I wanted to, you know, yeah. And I know that they’re, you know, true and proven in the CrossFit community. So we kind of stuck with that and just kind of , just kept it with one vendor. So we knew everything that would fit together.
Mike Warkentin: 22:05
It’s funny. I spoke to a guy, Mike Turnquist in central California a couple weeks ago and he was sitting in his second location of his gym and he had done the painting and laid the flooring and he was just literally looking out the windows to wait for the Rogue truck to roll up.
Jason Tebedo: 22:18
When they roll up, they roll up.
Mike Warkentin: 22:20
<laugh> It’s pretty exciting. Yeah. It’s pretty, it’s pretty exciting. It’s Bill Henniger over there and he, I know the American-made things are important to a lot of people, and that was something that was important to him as well. So now, talk to me about the trajectory of this thing. Your official opening was what?
Jason Tebedo: 22:32
So it was , let me think here now, when was it? It was last month. I wanna say April 23rd .
Mike Warkentin: 22:41
OK. So call it April 23rd . Started with 83 members. You’re adding five or six a month. Where are you going from here? And the question I wanna ask is how did you set your rates and how will they support that journey?
Jason Tebedo: 22:52
Well, I obviously, you know, another thing that we talk about in Two-Brain is value your time and value what you’re giving to everybody else. So there was an initial inkling with me that I’m gonna undercut everybody in the area and just be best rates, but you know, like within a CrossFit community or any micro gym type of community, it’s all about community and people don’t move because they’re gonna save $5 or whatnot. They go where the value is, whether that be, you know, their friends or the facility or what you’re offering, you know, you talked about quality coaching , you know, that really kind of helped us dictate our prices. And once I kind of determined what our value was, my time as a CEO and what I could offer here and I cash flowed a lot of things around my gym. So I just kind of took that all and backwards planned. And it really kind of came in line with what people were offering in the area. And another great Two-Brain thing is figuring out what your best day is and how much money you wanna make and then working backwards off of that. And that was a phenomenal exercise that Joleen did.
Mike Warkentin: 23:48
So give me an idea if you don’t mind, what’s an average rate for you? What’s an average package for you? Or if you wanna share it on your website? That’s cool, too.
Jason Tebedo: 23:56
No, I would love to talk about it. We offer $145 a month. And then we do , that’s unlimited. And then we have a hybrid AF package, which is 24-7 access, which is great. People love it in the area, which is $15 more a month. And then we do 12 times a month for $125 and nine times a month for $105. And I really- you know, a lot of people come in and say, “Hey, I’m not so sure about this.” We usually sign ’em up for 12 times and you know, the bug hits and then they go to unlimited nearly immediately. So it’s kinda that kinda low cost entry point with an upgrade right around the corner.
Mike Warkentin: 24:28
OK . And you started by thinking, like, “What do I need to make to be happy, what do I need to make to support this place, this family, all this other stuff?” And then you set your rates based on those calculations.
Jason Tebedo: 24:39
Absolutely. Yeah . And my mentor had a lot of input to , you know, <laugh> what I should do .
Mike Warkentin: 24:44
OK. This is good. And from here, talk to me about the revenue streams that you’ve got. Is it mostly group classes in a traditional CrossFit model, or do you h ave personal training and other things? I know Joleen’s big on personal training. What else have you got going on there?
Jason Tebedo: 24:56
Well, right now, I’m the only full time coach <laugh>. So I, yeah. You know how that goes? I coach six classes a day, but I absolutely love it. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of stress upon me. So my mentor suggested when you start feeling burnt out, that’s the time that you really need to start hammering down to find new coaches, but you know what, within the coaching sphere, building this awesome environment, a lot of people come to me, so starting next month, we’re gonna have almost seven coaches on staff and training them up and getting them to fulfill those positions. And then that’s gonna take me out of the group class role, and we’re gonna start offering more personal training, more nutrition, coaching , more higher level type of things. You know, you know, where I can focus on marketing the business, growing the business at large, you know, and just, it’s gonna be great to kind of elevate myself within the ecosystem of CrossFit.
Mike Warkentin: 25:44
Yeah. And that makes perfect sense. So you’re starting with that group model, which is what a lot of us did, but then the idea is as soon as you free yourself up and “climb the value ladder,” as we like to say, you’ll be able to offer personal training and nutrition. These are all add-on services, hybrid packages or high value services all on their own, which starts creeping that average revenue per member up, you know, on the 200, 250, 300. I know Joleen has some pretty high numbers that she’s, I can’t even believe she did that. And how much personal training she’s able to do at her gyms. But that’s, it’s neat that you have that perspective because I, again, going back to my history, I didn’t realize ignorantly that you could do personal training in a CrossFit style workout. Like one on one I thought it was just group classes. Right? Wow. Did I ever miss out a lot of revenue that I could have helped people get double-unders, right. <laugh> you know?
Jason Tebedo: 26:27
Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: 26:28
Could have helped my clients, could have helped my gym, the whole thing, but I didn’t even realize it . So I love that you have that idea in place. Third leg is nutrition programs, which is a great, great one because it scales very quickly. Any plans for like a kids program eventually or anything specialty like that?
Jason Tebedo: 26:41
Yeah. Absolutely. One of the coaches that’s coming on board next month, she’s coming from another gym. Offers kids programming, she’s bringing all of her, you know, her methodology over. It’s a great market here, a lot of working parents. So I think it’s gonna be great to get a lot of, you know, youth in this place. And you know, it’s really the legacy, you know, that we leave behind is how do we keep this business going? How do we keep this fitness trend going? You know, people talk, “CrossFit is dead or CrossFit is dying.” That is not true. We just need to put in the effort to keep what drew us in, you know, drawing other people in.
Mike Warkentin: 27:13
The program works. You know, it gets results. Like I don’t think anyone can argue with that. It certainly 100% gets results. In the world, you see what people can do when they stick with that program. And Greg Glassman, Crossfit founder back in the day, he said like, “Eat what we tell you to eat, work out how we tell you to work out and you’ll be fine.” And for a lot of people, that is exactly the prescription. And then in your case where you’ve got all these different ideas of person training and nutrition and so forth, you can certainly alter the prescription as the need for the individual. And you’ve got the best of all worlds at your fingertips.
Jason Tebedo: 27:41
Absolutely.
Mike Warkentin: 27:43
OK. So let’s close this out. There are people that are listening to this that are probably thinking about starting gyms and they are , you know, maybe like you were back in- a little skeptical saying, “Ah, Mike’s full of crap.” Jason, what do you say to those guys that are thinking about starting a gym and they’re thinking about mentorship or going on their own. What’s your message for them?
Jason Tebedo: 27:59
You know, going back to my sales background, you know, if you wanna make money, you need to trust the process. You know, if you wanna have a successful gym, if you wanna be open for two to three years and survive the long haul, you know, you have to trust what’s already been done. Don’t make the same mistakes that other people have made. I mean, there’s a playbook. You guys have the playbook, you know, step one, do this, step two, do that. And before you know it, you open your doors with, you know, 90-some members. So, I mean, just really kind of put all your woes to the side, just kind shut off your brain and just really trust the process . And I guarantee you people will have success.
Mike Warkentin: 28:33
Jason, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. I know you’re busy. You’ve probably got a class to coach in a couple minutes. I’ll let you go, but I really appreciate it. I really wish you all the best. I wanna see where you guys are at in a year or two. I think it’s gonna be incredible.
Jason Tebedo: 28:46
I think it’d be great. Thank you, Mike.
Mike Warkentin: 28:47
That was Jason Tebedo on Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin, I’m all about telling the stories of amazing gym owners all around the world. Please subscribe for more episodes. And if you’re on YouTube hammer that like button and ring the notifications bell for me too. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe for more great shows just like this. Now here’s Chris with a final note.
Chris Cooper: 29:13
If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook. This is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in and I’m in there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.
