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 they stayed away.
This is exactly what’s happening in Baltimore. There are a half-dozen gyms in Baltimore, and they’re ALL in the TwoBrain family. Not only do they get along well, they support each other’s events. They share staff when one gym needs help. They cross-refer clients. They meet up every MONTH to discuss what’s working for each in their gyms.
And they ALL do better for it, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There’s no fear anymore.
Imagine every gym in your town working together to spread the CrossFit message, instead of fighting over every client. It’s possible. In fact, it’s part of the grand vision for the Movement. The only thing stopping us, usually, is money.
That’s where I want to serve MOST. I want each individual box owner to be a millionaire (I said this on the CrossFit podcast on Tuesday.) But I want you AND your local boxes to be successful together, because that turns incremental growth into exponential growth.
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