Mike Warkentin (00:00):
Guys, my mind is blown. I’ve just been handed our July stats for average revenue per member at our top 10 gyms. The verified numbers are from $445 to $735 U.S. Per client per month. Can you believe that? Per client per month. Wow. How did these gym owners do it? You’re gonna find out in this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym.” My name is Mike Warkentin. I’m your host. I need you to hit subscribe because I have the best gym owners in the world on here every single month. They tell you how to improve your business for free. They don’t hide their secrets, so please hit subscribe. Now, average revenue per member per month, ARM for short, $445 to $735. I can hear you saying “that’s impossible.” Tina, what do you think? Is that impossible?
Tina Selix (00:41):
It is absolutely possible.
Mike Warkentin (00:43):
How do you know?
Tina Selix (00:43):
I’ve done it.
Mike Warkentin (00:44):
Okay, so, listeners, this is Tina Selix. She owns Elite Personal Training in South Carolina. She earned a spot on our top 10 leaderboard, and she had $469 average revenue per member per month. It’s doable, and she’s gonna tell you exactly how she did it. Are you ready to share your secrets?
Tina Selix (01:02):
I am.
Mike Warkentin (01:02):
All right. Here we go. First question, how has this ARM number changed for you over time? Like, was it always this high? Have you ramped up to this number? Where’s it been?
Tina Selix (01:10):
It has not always been this high, and as a matter of fact, I should start this by saying that this time last year I found Two-Brain because I was Googling “how to sell your personal training business.” After 14 years of struggling, I was done and I wanted a way out. So I found Two-Brain by Googling resources for selling a personal training business. And within a couple of months of doing RampUp I just got excited and re-energized and realized and saw my potential and gained hope again that this was something I could pull off. So when I started with Two-Brain, my ARM, it was low, three hundreds, and currently I’m at $469, so that has resulted in over $3,000 a month in additional revenue, and I’m on track to increase my annual sales by over $35,000.
Mike Warkentin (02:14):
Wow. So those are huge numbers. So I gotta ask the question, did you sign up with Two-Brain with the intention of fixing your business to sell it?
Tina Selix (02:21):
No. Well, yes. Yes. I intended to sell, and within a couple of months I changed my mind because–
Mike Warkentin (02:28):
You fixed it!
Tina Selix (02:30):
Because I realized there was hope to fix it.
Mike Warkentin (02:32):
Okay. Those are incredible numbers. We’re gonna dig into this, listeners, and figure out exactly how this happened. Tell me first of all about your business model. You said personal training, but what are you selling? How much space do you have? What’s your staffing like? Gimme the 411 on your business right now.
Tina Selix (02:50):
Okay. So as I said, I opened my business about 14 years ago. Went through a couple of bad business partners, lost a couple of best friends in the process. I have stayed in the same location ever since. I’ve got about 1,300 square feet. That’s it. It’s a boutique style kind of a setting mm-hmm. So I cater mainly to middle-aged women and a lot of retired folks. We just, you know, focus on functional type of fitness. I offer one-on-one training and semi-private. That’s it. And I’ve got about 50 clients. So I currently have two part-time coaches. I just hired my first part-time GM. And I also just purchased a 6,000-square-foot commercial building. And we are beginning the process of moving my business there.
Mike Warkentin (03:46):
And is that gym gonna take up the entire 6,000 square feet, or is it just gonna be one unit in a larger building?
Tina Selix (03:50):
Eventually we would like for it to take over five to 6,000 square feet.
Mike Warkentin (03:55):
Okay. So you’ve got big plans for this thing. This is amazing. I’m gonna ask you one question about semi-private training. What is that? Is that where you’ve got people doing individualized programs in a small-group setting of two to three people? Or is it a group of clients doing the same workout that’s modified? What are you doing there?
Tina Selix (04:10):
We write the programs for each individual client according to movement screens and goals and capacities. And then we have all of those programs individually prepared ahead of time. We keep track of their progressions. We coach them individually and they just share a coach during that time.
Mike Warkentin (04:31):
Okay. So, listeners, if you’re interested in that semi-private training, we do have shows in our archives to break down exactly how that works. It’s a really cool model. It’s not a group class with modifications for each person. It’s individualized programming delivered in a group setting that’s very small. So the coach’s attention is divided two or three ways. Very high value. Some of our top gyms are using this to drive revenue. So, Tina, I couldn’t imagine charging $450 per month back when I started because I didn’t understand the value that I was actually providing. And I thought cheap rates would help me get more clients. That was a real mistake that cost me a lot of money. But talk to me about the mindset. So there are people out here right now and they think “I could never charge that much. It’s ridiculous. I just, I don’t know.” So how did you de develop the confidence to charge premium rates and how do you deal with the pressure to deliver and make sure the client sees the value?
Tina Selix (05:18):
When I started my business my ticket prices were ranging from $199 to about $420. That was the highest that I was charging.
Mike Warkentin (05:29):
That’s PT packages?
Tina Selix (05:29):
Yeah. Per person per month. And right now I have ticket prices that are as high as $790. So that’s changed pretty dramatically. It was a struggle to make that happen. It’s been slow and it’s been incremental because my clients are all on three-, six- or 12-month contracts. So I’ve had to do it incrementally. And to be honest, Mike, one of the biggest challenges that I’ve had getting to this point has just been untangling all of the messes that I made from 14 years of not running the business. Well. And it takes twice as long, if not longer, to fix something that’s broken than it does to maintain something that’s working well. So it has been slow and incremental. Many of my clients have been with me for the whole time I’ve been open. My LEG is over 33 months.
Mike Warkentin (06:36):
Whoa!
Tina Selix (06:36):
So I keep my clients for a long time. The good part about that is my LEG is high and I have a loyal following, and I’ve built my brand really well. But the hindrance and the challenge with that has been, it’s been a struggle for me to shift that focus from the personal relationships to running the business well. So Two-Brain definitely empowered me to do that. I can’t imagine making the price corrections and changing the way the business is being run without Two-Brain.
Mike Warkentin (07:11):
So, listeners, a couple of things there. Think about if you had $450 average revenue per member and your length of engagement—LEG—or your retention was 33 months, almost three years. Like, think about the revenue that that drives. And the industry average length of engagement is 7.8 months. Not very good. And that’s not enough time to change a life. So if you have high ARM and high length of engagement, ARM and LEG, you have a really successful business model. It’s really cool what you said, Tina, about how you had to evolve into this thing. Like back in the day were you doing all the personal training at your business?
Tina Selix (07:46):
Yes, I was running the business and doing all of the training, so I wasn’t doing some things well, obviously.
Mike Warkentin (07:54):
What’s your record for personal training sessions in a day? Do you have a big number?
Tina Selix (07:57):
Oh boy. I mean, there’s been days I’ve been in there at 5:30 in the morning and haven’t left till 7:30, 8:30 at night.
Mike Warkentin (08:03):
That’s in Chris Cooper range. I think his record was 14 straight. And that leaves no time to actually grow your business. You’re just serving clients and you’re just putting out fires, selling T-shirts, changing toilet paper, doing all the jobs, and you can’t grow your business. So I’m gonna guess like a key, we’ll get into this more later, but a key for you driving ARM is actually stepping back and saying like “how do I make my business better and deliver more value?” as opposed to “how do I get the squat rack free for this person to train at this time?” Am I right?
Tina Selix (08:33):
Yep, absolutely. I’m doing this video from home today.
Mike Warkentin (08:38):
That’s wonderful.
Tina Selix (08:40):
The lights are on and people are there. Everything is working. And I’m here.
Mike Warkentin (08:45):
What do you charge for an hour of personal training?
Tina Selix (08:48):
We charge anywhere from, for an hour, it would be anywhere from a hundred to $120.
Mike Warkentin (08:55):
Okay. And I guess you’ve got packages and stuff, so that will change if someone signs up for four times a week for three months or something. But still, that’s a high rate. Back when I started, I think we didn’t even offer personal training. I ran a group fitness facility. It was stupid that I didn’t. But I think we charged like 50 bucks Which is not enough. And then you see other people with $70, $120. How do you deliver value to that person? Because that’s a premium rate. So what are you doing there that makes it really special that that client says, “Wow, this is worth it?”
Tina Selix (09:22):
The more that I step away from training people, the more I am able to increase the value that we are delivering. Because somebody is now paying attention to the numbers. Somebody is paying attention to what is the length of engagement, what is the average revenue per member? And those numbers are indicators of the value that we’re bringing because obviously people aren’t gonna pay for something that they don’t value. So I can honestly say that the services—I mean, I’m an amazing trainer. My clients love me. I didn’t think we could do things better because we were doing things so well, and now we are doing things so much better. We’ve unfolded a nutrition program that’s amazing. And now I’m in the position to—I hired my first, you know, part-time GM, so I have somebody else helping to make sure that that value is being delivered and helping to just elevate the level of coaching that we’ve got, the level of services that we’re providing. And now we’re, you know, looking at moving to another location that’s gonna allow us to do just—we haven’t even started. We haven’t even started. We’re great. And we have not even gotten started.
Mike Warkentin (10:43):
Okay. Have you systemized your business? Was that something that you did that supports the ARM and the value that you’re delivering?
Tina Selix (10:51):
Yes. We’re working on that. I can say that getting involved with Kilo, Gym Lead Machine, using that to systemize things … . Writing SOPs, those are not my favorite. We’ve still got a long way to go with it. But there’s been just so many significant changes over the last year since joining Two-Brain. And it starts at the top and it really trickles down into the level of value that we can give to the clients.
Mike Warkentin (11:24):
Because if you were delivering everything and you were doing all the training, and your clients loved you—you’re a great coach—that’s great. But there’s a limit to that, right? And you hit it where you’re working from five to seven, you know, 5 a.m. To 7 p.m. To actually get another person into your business, which is a high-value business with tons of retention, you would have to have that person do a job that’s at least as good as you. And if you don’t have systems, you can’t do that. Was that scary to kind of hand things off to someone else? Or how did you kind of get through the mental space of like “I’m stepping back from coaching every client”?
Tina Selix (11:55):
Yes. absolutely. That has been hard for me. It’s all part of the requirement for the business to be run well, because I did actually very profoundly realize that I was so burned out and so overwhelmed with trying to make the business work and deliver amazing services to the clients that I was not the best trainer. I turned into not the best trainer.
Mike Warkentin (12:24):
And that’s hard, right? As someone who cares, that’s hard realization, right?
Tina Selix (12:28):
So one of the things I’m so excited about now is that with me being able to step back and keep track of numbers and delivery of services and maintaining, you know, the quality of things from a very eagle-eye view as well as down to the numbers, it really has only improved the services that we’re delivering. Because I have coaches who are out there now who are really excited about training people, and that’s all they need to concentrate on, so they can do it really, really well. Whereas there was a period of time there where with me trying to do everything I honestly was not the best coach. I was too scattered, I was too consumed with the problems of the business, and I was, you know, having all kinds of fatigue mentally, emotionally, and in every other way, physically. And so it, really, that’s what got me to the point where I just needed out. I wanted out. And I didn’t think there was a way for me to make it turn around, but it’s turning around.
Mike Warkentin (13:36):
And it’s so neat to hear you say that because if you had left, you know, that’s a great coach that leaves the fitness industry, and your clients don’t get the benefit of that, and they probably quit and don’t become healthier and all these just terrible things. And that’s why Two-Brain exists: to help gym owners get through that sticking point. You mentioned, I think, that you’ve increased some rates over the years. Is that correct?
Tina Selix (13:56):
Yes.
Mike Warkentin (13:57):
How did that go and how did you do it?
Tina Selix (13:59):
So after being in business for 12 years and having not increased my rates one time, I was able to use COVID as my springboard for that. So prior to joining Two-Brain a year ago, I’ve only had one price correction in the history of my business. That went as well as it could have with me being in the mental and emotional professional space that I was in. I let it get to me that clients gave me pushback. Since then, since joining Two-Brain, as I said, you know, my highest ticket was $540. It’s up to $790 now. And I really have wrapped my head around the fact that I don’t have to be the best fit for every client, and the not every client is the best fit for me. And I’m absolutely okay with that. I’ve been very empowered to realize that I just need to go after the clients who need to pay me for what I do. If you don’t need what I do, don’t pay me. I have prospects come in from time to time and I realized they don’t need a boutique-style setting. They don’t need high levels of accountability. They don’t need a lot of emotional support. They don’t need a whole structured system of fitness and people who are gonna go after them and make them do the things that they don’t wanna do and who are gonna support them through menopause and divorces and injuries and know how to navigate those things. And I will tell them “don’t pay me $500 a month. Go to the boot camp down the road. Get your workout on and go on about your life. But if you need those services, then you need to pay me for it, because that’s what I do.”
Mike Warkentin (15:48):
Yeah. And that’s a huge realization because you don’t want every client. You find your niche, you deliver the best value in that niche, and you can have a very successful business. Trying to get everyone is a bit of a trap, and I fell into it, and it cost me, because I was trying to be everything to everyone. I burned out, same as you. I wanted outta the fitness industry. It’s rough. This is a perfect intro to the next question I wanna ask: where do you get these clients? So you’ve got high-value, long-term clients. They’re paying you a lot per month, and they’re staying for a very long time. This is the secret sauce. Where do you get these people?
Tina Selix (16:19):
Honestly, I get most of them from referrals. Because like people refer like people mm-hmm. So my niche being, you know, middle-aged women and retired people that’s who they hang out with. And with my length of engagement and the results that my clients get, they are my walking advertisements. So most of my growth comes through, you know, just organic referrals and Affinity Marketing.
Mike Warkentin (16:46):
Nice. So, guys, Affinity Marketing, that’s when you’re using your current clients to get other clients just like them. There is an exact system. It doesn’t just happen. You can’t just sit there and wait. You actually have to have a system to do it. And if you do it, it works. Tina, I’m guessing that you actually have a system of how you ask people for referrals. Am I right?
Tina Selix (17:04):
Yes. And I can just be honest and say I haven’t been great at it in the past. But since joining Two-Brain again things like building that into the SOP with—when I do what we call “on-tracks,” goal reviews, just telling people, “You know, you’ve gotten great results, and I know that you probably know somebody that’s just like you that could use the services that we use.” And so I just simply ask. We also run some kind of quarterly campaign that we call like an Affinity Marketing campaign. So just something where we are really emphasizing getting those referrals. Either a bring-a-buddy workout or just an email and texting campaign through Gym Lead Machine where we’re asking for referrals. So we try to be specific and deliberate about it, you know, in some small way once a quarter, in addition to just building it into our standard operating procedures.
Mike Warkentin (18:13):
Listeners, that is a huge, huge secret that not a lot of people know. You want to replicate your best clients. And it doesn’t just happen. It’ll happen from time to time. Like someone will bring a friend or something like that. But if you actually ask people regularly “do you have anyone in your life who needs my help?” you are going to get referrals. But if you don’t ask that question or you’re not communicating with your clients, you are not gonna get that. So you called it “on tracks,” is that what you said?
Tina Selix (18:40):
We call them quarterly on-track reviews.
Mike Warkentin (18:42):
Yeah. So that’s like a goal review session or a quarterly consultation, whatever. You’re doing that to sit down with your clients, find out “are you satisfied with what’s happening? Do we wanna make any changes? Do we need to alter course? Do you have any specific goals you’re working toward, any events coming up?” All these things. These sessions have been proven to increase retention and average revenue per member. Two-Brain tracks that data. We know that it works. If you start doing those sessions, your numbers will improve. And then if you add in that simple question—”anyone else in your life who needs my help?”—you’re going to get some referrals. Now, Two-Brain has an even more in-depth system for this with a whole cheat sheet that you can create—like, “where does this client train? Where are their hobbies? Who are their coworkers? What do they do?” And you can start putting together packages and saying, “Hey, I know you’re an accountant. I know it’s stressful right now. Can I do a lunch nutrition seminar on how to eat during stressful times for your accounting firm?” You are going to get some referrals out of that—quarterly events, exactly what Tina just said. Bring a friend, do it once per quarter or twice a year, something like that. Not too often, but every once in a while bring a friend and have an exact system to acquire email addresses and talk to people there. Book consultations. You will get referrals. The point of my long-winded speech here is that if you do nothing, you will not get high-value clients and you will not get referrals from them. If you put these things in place, it’s gonna work, and, Tina, when a friend that’s been there for like 30 months brings in someone else, that person’s probably gonna stay for 30 months too, right?
Tina Selix (20:11):
Yeah. I mean, they’re really warm leads. I don’t even have to sell ’em. The work’s already been done. They come in the door ready to go.
Mike Warkentin (20:19):
Right? And they have a built-in retention system because they have a friend in the business who’s only too happy to say “Tina’s great, this gym is amazing. You should stay. Or do semi-private.” Right? So they’ve got a training buddy. As you put this stuff in place, did you just see that ARM number just increase and then the length of engagement doing the same thing?
Tina Selix (20:43):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s how it’s worked over the last 12 months. You know, as I said, my length of engagement has always been a strong number for me, but ARM was definitely not okay. And so that has been impacted greatly.
Mike Warkentin (21:02):
I’ll give you, listeners, another huge benefit of the affinity referral program. There’s no advertising cost to that. The only cost is your time sitting down talking to a client, which can be 15 minutes every quarter. No advertising costs. You don’t have to deal with a ton of that stuff. You don’t have to deal with Facebook ads, any of the other things. And when you do the use this system, you get built-in retention and you get super-warm leads where it’s a slam dunk in the sales office. So if you’re struggling to make sales to cold leads, referrals are gonna really help you. Tina, I’m gonna ask you this. Do you have anything else that’s built into your ARM number that we’re maybe not talking about? Like, I know it’s based on personal training, but there are lots of gyms, they’ll sell gear or they’ll sell equipment or supplements, or even some gyms will even rent parking spaces and things like that. Anything you do specifically?
Tina Selix (21:50):
So one thing that we did add was a nutrition program in the last year. And so when we have people who come in particularly with body-comp goals, I created a package. And so it’s presented as “here’s what’s gonna work best for you. You need exercise coaching, and you need nutrition coaching, and here’s what it includes, and here’s the price.” So that has helped significantly. The other great advantage to that is that in the past I was trying to provide as much nutrition coaching as I could for people, which meant it was not great because I just didn’t have the time to chase people down and give them weekly, you know, feedback about what they were eating. But now I have a nutrition coach, it’s a specific program, she’s in charge of it, and that means that those people are getting better results because now they have another person who’s actually working with them specifically on the nutrition.
Mike Warkentin (22:52):
When clients get better results, they’re only too happy to keep paying the rate, this high-value rate, If you’re not getting results, you see no value, you leave and your ARM plummets. If people are getting results, they stay longer and they are happy to pay the rate because they’re accomplishing their goals. And, Tina, you did an interesting thing. You summarized Prescriptive Model there very simply in terms of how to sell. If you use this simple system, your ARM will go up, and all it is is you get people in the sales office, you ask ’em what their goals are, and you tell them the exact best plan to accomplish those goals. And that’s probably not gonna be “come to group training when you feel like it for $79 a month if you really wanna accomplish your goals.” It’s probably “one-on-one training with me three times a week, plus nutrition coaching,” plus, you know, something extra that’s worth $790 a month or whatever. If they don’t like that, maybe they’re not for your business, or maybe you say, “Okay, well let’s do one time a week. Or we’ll do semi-private.” Or you just have your downgrades in your different packages. Still high value, but not $79 a month for access to a gym. And have you seen that sales process work really, really well for you, even with not necessarily referrals but other people who don’t have a connection, colder leads?
Tina Selix (24:00):
Yeah, absolutely. I just make it very clear and I’ve learned to just keep it super simple and just really you know, present it in that way that: “based on the fact that you need accountability and based on the fact that, you know, you have some injuries that we need to work around and based on”— so I just repeat whatever they’ve presented to me as their needs. And then I say, “Here’s the best package to get you where you wanna go.” And then I just close my mouth and let ’em think about it.
Mike Warkentin (24:33):
The first time you did that and you presented your $800 package and closed your mouth, how did it feel? What was going on in your head?
Tina Selix (24:42):
I was sweating. My heart was beating. But what’s interesting is the very first client that I presented that package to, about eight months ago, just came up for renewal last month. And I sat down with her to have her on-track consultation, goal review, and she literally sat there and said to me “I don’t know what you’re gonna charge me now that I’m coming up for renewal, but I’m willing to pay pretty much whatever you ask.” And she’s paying $790 a month.
Mike Warkentin (25:23):
What an endorsement of your service.
Tina Selix (25:26):
Yep. She said it before I even said anything.
Mike Warkentin (25:30):
Geez, that’s incredible. So you say you started doing that eight months ago—is it easier now for you to ask for that $790?
Tina Selix (25:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Warkentin (25:38):
Because you see the value, right? And you know you’ve got the right clients. Listeners, it can be scary, but if you have the right package and you’re confident and you know how to present it, it isn’t a big deal. I struggle with this stuff, but the Help First idea—Chris Cooper’s book, check it out—is just. “I’m Helping them by presenting the best path to their, their stated goal.” You’re not helping them by telling them like, “You need $79 training.” You are helping them by telling ’em the fastest route. Have you read that book “Help First”?
Tina Selix (26:07):
I have not read that one yet.
Mike Warkentin (26:08):
It’s all broken up into the Two-Brain training. So you’ve read pieces of it, and the concepts are all presented in our RampUp and Growth program. So she’s gone through it already without even reading the book. But, listeners, if you wanna check it out, this whole concept will change your idea of sales. You are actually not selling to people. You’re selling fitness and health, right? You’re helping people. Check that book out. Chris Cooper, it’s one of his best ones. Chris didn’t think that was gonna be his best, but people often come up to him and tell him that this is the one that helped the most. So do check that book out. I wanna ask you a question. So there’s people out there that are, right now, they’re listening and their ARM rates are far below yours and they’re thinking, “Man, I don’t know how to start. I don’t know what to do.” What would you tell them as a first couple of steps? What would be some baby steps for a gym owner out there right now to take a couple of steps toward a higher ARM?
Tina Selix (26:55):
Well, I remember one time Chris said “don’t give away things that you would normally charge for.” So I stopped doing that. We would run fitness challenges or just little things like that, you know, once a quarter. And I used to give away access to programming and pay my staff to run this program. And now we charge for those things. So if I have to pay a trainer for their time, then I pass that along in some fashion to the client. I think one of the Two-Brain mentors somewhere at one point recently said that your success will depend on your willingness to have difficult conversations. And I wrapped my head around that and I said at first it would sound like “okay, these are difficult conversations that you have to have with other people,” right? Your clients: “I’m gonna raise your rates, period.” That’s a difficult conversation. I realized that’s only one piece of it. The difficult conversation is with me as well. So I had to pony up in my head with some things and pull my big-girl britches up and realize that I am running a business and I have a staff that I’m accountable to and I have to look out for them. And I also deserve to get what I’ve worked so hard for out of the business, and I’m not going to lower rates so that I can lower value. I’m gonna increase value and then charge accordingly for it. So I think just empowering myself through the Two-Brain community and seeing that other gyms and other gym owners have been where I am and they’ve successfully maneuvered through it, and it’s paid off, and it’s allowed them to deliver great services, and, you know, have a great staff around them.
Tina Selix (28:49):
And realizing that every step counts. So my journey with my ARM and other things has been very incremental and slow, but every one of those steps counts. So I’m closing that gap, and I’m getting encouraged by that. You know, I tell my clients all the time “if you wanna look a certain way, do the things that the people who look like that do.” Well, if I want my gym to look a certain way, I need to do the things that successful gym owners are doing. So I have to take my own advice and have that conversation with myself. Really one of the most amazing things that Two-Brain has helped me with has been dialing down on those numbers, the numbers that matter, focusing on the numbers that matter. So I’m looking at my return on investment. I’m looking at my ARM, I’m looking at my LEG. And that helps me to keep having those conversations with myself and with anybody else. Very logical, non-emotional and objective. So those numbers empower me. And they really help me to be able to make the decisions that are hard to make sometimes, but I can make them because this is objective data that I can’t argue away. And I would say the main thing I tell my clients—or I tell my coaches that our clients pay us to make them do things they don’t wanna do. That’s my clientele. I’m not a CrossFit gym. I don’t work with people who want to work out all the time and who want to eat right. People come to me because they’re broken and they’ve got health problems and things aren’t working well. And so I have to tell my coaches “our clients are paying us to make them do things that they don’t want to do.” Work with a Two-Brain coach who is going to make you do things that you don’t want to do as a gym owner. That’s the magic.
Mike Warkentin (30:48):
Listeners, I’m gonna pull out a couple of things for you and I’m give you a first thing to do based on what Tina said. I gave away so much free personal training. I ran a group training program and I would say to people, “Hey, stay after class and I’ll help you with your snatch. I’ll help you with double-unders, I’ll help you with whatever.” I probably should have just said this” “Hey, I can help you with this skill. Or one of my trainers can. Book a personal training session.” How much money would that have been for the business? I would’ve created a career for a coach and I would’ve solved a client’s problem better than if I just stayed 15 minutes after class and randomly on the side tried to solve the problem. Try that next time you feel like saying “stay for after class for a few minutes.” Just say, “Hey, book a PT session with one of my coaches and let’s solve this problem.” You’re helping the client, you’re helping your business. That would be a pretty cool thing to do. Tina also mentioned data. We have tons of it. Our State of the Industry report is coming out Nov. 13. Be sure to get it. You need this report. It will give you business-changing numbers, complete analysis. The biggest package in the fitness industry, Nov. 13. You need this. Next, Gym Owners United. Coming out very soon in the gym Owners United Group—go to gymownersunited.com or hit Facebook for Gym Owners United—Chris Cooper has a guide: 20 ways to boost your ARM. And some of them are very simple, very easy ones. I mentioned a few of them. It could be as simple as renting lockers at the gym instead of providing for free. It could be raising your rates. And I would recommend if you do choose to raise your rates, do it with the help of a Two-Brain mentor. We have a system and a plan for that. There are ways to mess it up if you do it the right way with the guidance of a mentor and support, everything will be fine. If you just randomly do it, things might go wrong. Do you agree, Tina?
Tina Selix (32:24):
I agree completely.
Mike Warkentin (32:25):
Yeah. We went through a rate increase. It was terrifying for me. We had the support of a mentor and it went just fine. We lost maybe two clients, which was okay ’cause they were the ones we didn’t need or want. And I don’t mean they were bad people. They were just like, they were not a great fit for the business. And they were happier elsewhere. So it was a great thing.
Tina Selix (32:42):
Every time I raised, or every time I’ve had to have a conversation with a client about raising rates, if I’ve gotten pushback and they happen to leave, they get replaced very quickly with someone who walks in the door and is just willing to pay what I’m charging now.
Mike Warkentin (32:57):
And that’s a win for your coaches. It’s a win for the business. It’s a win for that person. Everybody wins. Tina, do you think this ARM number is gonna keep going up?
Tina Selix (33:04):
I have not even started. It is absolutely gonna go up. We have some amazing plans. We’re making our nutrition program even more robust. We are getting ready to launch a men’s-specific training program that my new GM is gonna be creating and providing. We’re also gonna be offering a mobility program. I have somebody getting ready to get certified to offer that. So we are just continuing to offer more services. We’re continuing to provide more value and we’re continuing to get more people who are willing to pay for it because they know that that’s what they need.
Mike Warkentin (33:48):
I can’t wait to see where you get to. Listeners, the number one gym in Two-Brain in July, ARM of $735 a client. Can you imagine that?
Tina Selix (33:58):
I’ll get there!
Mike Warkentin (33:59):
Yeah. And when you do, you’re coming back on the show, right?
Tina Selix (34:03):
You got it.
Mike Warkentin (34:04):
Yeah. So, listeners, it’s out there. And that doesn’t mean that that has to be your first target. I’ll give you a first target: first target for ARM for a microgym, $205 a client. Start with that. It’s very possible. I guarantee if you’re charging less than that, you are undercharging for the value that you deliver because you are a great coach with a great facility. Target that. If you don’t know how, be sure to get in the Gym Owners United group. We will give you a simple guide to help you. And if you really wanna supercharge it and get there fast, talk to us about mentorship. Tina, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. And congratulations on the success.
Tina Selix (34:38):
Thank you so much. I am so excited. And I love Two-Brain and I appreciate everything that you guys do. You’re changing a lot of lives, so thank you.
Mike Warkentin (34:45):
Thank you. That was Tina Selix. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” Thanks for watching and listening. Please subscribe for more shows just like this, and make sure you get in the Gym Owners United Group. On that note, here’s Chris Cooper with a final message.
Chris Cooper (34:59):
Hey, it’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. We created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners just like you have already joined. In the group, we share sound advice about the business of fitness every day. I answer questions, I run free webinars, and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I’d love to have you in that group. It’s Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gymownersunited.com to join. Do it today.
