Mike Warkentin (00:02):
A gym with more than 400 members in classes that have 18, 25, or even 80 participants. That’s Ion Strength and Conditioning in Wales, and its owner is here to talk with me today about huge client counts in gyms. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. Please hit “subscribe,” whatever you’re watching or listening. Two-Brain’s Top 10 leaderboard for clients in May ran from 341 to 941 clients, and these are single locations. Running a big gym is very different than running a gym with 100 or 150 clients, and I’m really excited to talk to Robin Sowden-Taylor today because one of his gyms in the Top 10, but he has a second gym that’s a little bit smaller, so he’s the link between big and small gyms. Rob, welcome from Wales. How are you today?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (00:42):
Mike, brilliant, thanks. Thanks for the invite and opportunity to chat to you. Like I said, I’ve been an avid listener for years of the podcast, and it’s had a fantastic influence on me over the years. So, yeah, having the opportunity to chat here today is awesome. So, thanks for that.
Mike Warkentin (00:59):
You are very welcome, and you get the chance now to have an influence on some of the listeners out there and share some of your secrets. So, I’m going to dig right in, and I really want to ask you this because you’ve got a really interesting situation. You’ve got two gyms, but one on the leaderboard has triple the client counts of the other one. So, I need to know what are the main differences in running a very big gym and a smaller gym?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (01:17):
I think the main difference at the moment is just pure duration. The one facility, our flagship facility, we’ve had for the best part of 10 years where our second facility is very much in that growth phase. And we’ve been operating 18 months now, so we have aspirations of following the same blueprint that we’ve created over the past 10 years in our first facility. And things are moving in the right direction. And the big thing that we focus on is just being process driven in what we do. And yeah, I’m really happy how our second facility is growing. We’ve got a big focus, like majority of listeners on the podcast, around our community. And even though we run a larger model in terms of membership base, it is at the heart of what we’re trying to do, building around those human connections, which is such an impactful part of this industry.
Mike Warkentin (02:10):
When you look at your two gyms, do you see any problems in say the big one that just aren’t in the little one because it’s still growing? Or is everything kind of the same? What do you see?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (02:18):
Do I see a big difference? Not really. I think the biggest influence over the years with what we’ve done in our first facility is just grow things organically, allow things to develop. From day one, did I have the goal of running a facility with over 400 members? Probably not, but I think a lot has changed over the last 10 years. The big saying without, again, too cheesy too, too soon: The man who loves walking will walk further than the man who loves destination. And when you’re enjoying the journey, the goals just happen. And I use that because I think it’s such a perfect way of talking about how we’ve built things. The people are involved with me at Ion, we’re very passionate about what we do, and like I said at the start, it’s about being process driven and just getting things right day to day. And the growth has happened organically. So, we’ve got the desire and hunger to achieve what we’re building in our second facility as our first.
Mike Warkentin (03:22):
Yeah. So, if you have haven’t seen—because when my gym started grow into the 230-member range, I had problems. So, if I were you and I had one gym at 400, one with 100, something smaller than that, I’d be like, “I’m having problems at the big one. And the little one’s probably a little bit going better,” but you have obviously solved some problems that I wasn’t able to solve. So, I want to dig in and figure out how you’ve done this because you’ve got two gyms, which is more than twice the work. This is an exponential thing at this point, and you have a really big one and one that’s coming up. So, I’m going to guess that you’ve got some systems and staff and procedures. So, let’s dig in and figure it out. Give me the first summary, if you don’t mind. What’s the quick summary of your larger gym? Like, we’re talking like what square footage have you got? How much size have you got? Or sorry, how many staff people have you got? What kind of programs are you running? Give me the 411 on this thing.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (04:07):
Yeah, so we’re a 5,500-square-foot facility. We specialize in group training; that’s what we do. We do have personal training, but our sole objective is the group training side of things. And our program really reflects our target market; for me, our target market are those individuals that value their health and wellness, but potentially time precious, busy work lives, busy family lives. And I think that’s what I’ve molded our business around over the years. Certainly, how we look from day one to how it looks now is completely different. In the early days, probably a lot more of a hardcore CrossFit facility where I feel we’ve evolved and brought our own brand and style. And I have to say, one of the biggest points I always like to make in terms of business is the importance of learning from others.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (05:01):
As I said at the start, the influence Two-Brain has had on me, but also probably Jason Khalipa with his model at NCFIT is what we’ve started to mold ourselves around a few years back. And our core program now very much revolves around the duration. So, we have our Ion 60 class, which is our structured strength and conditioning class that we tend to run six-to-eight-week blocks in. That’s probably our most popular program. Our Ion 45 class, which is highly attended in terms of numbers within the class. And that’s very much like our bootcamp-circuit-training-style class. We don’t include barbells. I see us less intimidating, a lot more all-inclusive, so it really helps break down those barriers to entry. And then we have our Ion 30, which is our 30-minute total body conditioning class.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (05:51):
So, that structure works really well for us in terms of fulfilling our ambitions, in terms of servicing the needs of our members. And then, a big part of what we’ve also had a lot of growth in is the specialty programs that we offer. For me, my whole objective with what we are doing and where my passion really lies within this industry is simply having a positive impact on our local community from a health and wellness perspective. And that ultimately is at the heart of what we do on a day in, day out basis. My team is very much bought into that side of things as well and understands that. And specialty programs that we’ve have, we’ve had a huge amount of growth in, which is fantastic to see.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (06:38):
So we run a popular youth athletic development program, which is going from strength to strength. This week, we started off summer holiday, the kids’ summer holidays. And over the past three years, we’ve been able to partner with local-based businesses, and we’ve got a full program, 54 hours of classes over the summer now, which we’re able to offer to children free of charge, which for me is just amazing for us to be able to do, be in a position that we’re able to facilitate this because I know the benefit, certainly, the potential for kids to be quite inactive at times during the summer is potentially there. So, that youth program is a real passion of mine, and being able to see the growth there has been excellent.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (07:23):
The other area, the complete opposite, is our Legends program. So, our over 60s program that initially started out with just my mum and dad post-COVID, my mum and dad, my parents-in-law, and it’s just gradually grown and grown. We’ve got a lady, Sarah, who runs, heads up, she specializes in older generation and strength and conditioning training. And we’ve now got the class to a point where we’re running it five days a week. We’ll have on average anywhere between 15 to 20 over 60s participating in each of those classes. And there’s a real community built there as well. We’ve got a fantastic little coffee bar within the gym, and being able to see that community grow there, again, is extremely rewarding to us, knowing the impact it’s having on these individuals and how important it is for their health.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (08:19):
My wife, she’s my partner in the business as well. She runs—we’ve also got one-year-old little boy. We love him to bits, but it’s also, her passion for strength and conditioning has naturally gravitated towards that area, and she’s started our postnatal strength and conditioning class for mums, which again, been blown away by the popularity in terms of—and it just shows the importance for new mums having a safe space. We’re able to close the gym during quiet times of the day, but seeing—she runs that class three times a week, and we’ll have on average 20 mums coming with their babies. They all hang around for coffee. And it’s, again, it comes back to the whole ethos of what underpins Ion, and it’s about those human connections. So, the specialty programs are what I believe post-COVID has really helped take things at Ion on to another level. And yeah, it’s been fantastic to see the growth in those areas.
Mike Warkentin (09:25):
So you’ve got a great focus on groups, and that’s a general strength and conditioning. Then you’ve got your mom fit, you’ve got your Legends, you’ve got your youth, and you’ve got—I really like this—30-, 45- and 60-minute classes, which I never thought of doing shorter classes than an hour, but as I’ve aged here and become busier, I would gravitate towards your 30-minute classes because I want to get in and get out, and there are other people who are just like me, and you found a bunch of them. I’ve got to ask this: How many staff people does it take to manage all these groups and all these clients? What have you got, and do you share them between locations?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (09:57):
Yeah, so I mean, it keeps coming back to our members’ needs, and that’s how we’ve evolved things. So, with us being YYC, we specialize in group training. So, we open at 5 a.m. in the morning, which is early in the UK. In the U.S., in Australia, it’s a little bit different, but in the UK it’s early. Our first class is at 5:25 in the morning, and our last class is at 7:30 at night. And we have literally classes throughout the day, back-to-back classes, all well attended. This is brilliant, fantastic to see. So, obviously staffing it, manpower, is a big part of it. My background is in professional sports, so I had a 10-year career as a professional rugby player, and alongside building my business I’ve had 12 years working as a professional strength and conditioning coach in rugby.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (10:48):
The reason I say that is I’m coming from a team sport background. From day one, I really realized and understood the importance of building a team and building a strong team. And for me, in the fitness space, in what we talk about in terms of business, the point that a lot of people talk about is client retention and how important that is in the business. And I couldn’t agree more, but I think my focus has certainly become a lot more around staff retention and having a focus on my team. Because what I ultimately want to try and achieve with what we are doing as business is focus on them in terms of providing an environment that they enjoy being in on a daily basis, making sure that their wellbeing is in space, and people aren’t being burnt out in terms of certainly the busy classes that we run, that they’re also earning a wage, a salary, that allows them to see longevity within the business at Ion, and that’s been a big focus for me.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (11:48):
And what I believe from a team perspective, environment is everything. And I know we’ll go on to talk about potentially what things we do from a retention perspective, but ultimately, I’m trying to create the best environment I can. If our environment is strong enough that when people leave at the end of their workout and they’re buzzing and they’re motivated going into the day and then looking forward to getting back into the gym the next day or whenever it may be, that’s the ultimate goal because it’s consistency. You can have whatever program you want, the strength and conditioning, bootcamp, results—I’m not going to say any monkey can write a program. There is more art to it, but ultimately what drives results for general pop is consistency.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (12:31):
Young people to turn up on a regular basis over a long period of time. And that’s what I feel we do well. In terms of the team that I have in place, again, probably a big influence over the years has been the book, “The E-Myth,” in terms of the practitioner, the manager, the entrepreneur, and that’s probably how I’ve really started to mold things. I see myself as my role within the business is now working on the business and having a focus on business development. We’re doing quite a lot now in the corporate wellness space as well, and that’s an area that really excites me. We’re running outreach projects within the community again, so they’re key areas that I’m working on. And my wife, she takes the managerial role where a lot of the admin, the onboarding new members and that side of things, takes place.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (13:20):
And then Johnny is our head coach. So, Johnny’s been with me literally from day one. Started off as a member, got into coaching, and over the years, seen the progression he’s had professionally, personally. He’s certainly one of the best coaches that I’ve had the experience of working with, and seeing his growth has been amazing. And for me, it’s been about trying to upskill Johnny, taking on more responsibility. And now we’ve really—Johnny’s really got to a place where he leads the coach development side of the program, the time tabling, the daily operating procedures, the need to be in place and does a fantastic job with that. So, they’re the three key roles that I see—well, when I say key roles, they’re all, everyone on the team is a key role—and then we have the rest of the team.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (14:04):
So, we’ve got probably a third—not probably—a third of 10 coaches, eight would be close to full-time hours, two more part-time, but there’s real diversity within the team as well, which I love. Trying to get a balance of female and male coaches, different age ranges. One of our coaches, a good friend of mine, is BJ, an American pastor, ex-football player. So, he brings a real energy to the environment. We’ve got younger coaches who have finished university, who are building their careers, like I said, I mentioned earlier, Sarah, who’s our Legends coach. So, it’s a real good environment for coaches to be in. I think the program that we offer ticks a lot of boxes for our coaches in terms of exposing them to a range of different populations, whether that’s the general pop, the over 60s, youth development. We do a lot with sport teams as well, sporting teams. My background being in rugby, we get a lot of teams coming into us and using the facilities and both amateur, semi-professional and professional teams, which is, again, it creates a great environment for them to work in. And ultimately, again, I just keep coming back to that point. That’s what the focus for us is trying to really nurture and nourish the team environment that we’ve created.
Mike Warkentin (15:26):
OK. So, you’ve got a decent sized team of about 10, and you’ve got some management level positions and a head coach. Now I’ve got to ask this one because you have some of the biggest classes I’ve ever heard, at least 25 to 80 people at times. Like how do you manage a giant group like that?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (15:40):
Yeah, it’s challenging.
Mike Warkentin (15:43):
I couldn’t do it.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (15:44):
It certainly is, but you know, for me it’s, like I said, the environment that I’m used to working in is team sports. From early on, it’s where I feel I thrive personally, and it’s also what I’ve wanted Ion to build too. When we talk of those numbers, that’s very much in our Ion 45, our bootcamp style class on Saturday and Sunday morning; we regularly get 60 people to attend these classes. When it comes to more seasonal style, like holiday period, we’ll easily get 80, 90 people in a class. In terms of the day, the running of the classes, the big part for me, two key points: group management skills, and that’s a big requirement from what I need from our team.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (16:33):
It’s not something that you’re going to necessarily learn on a course or from an education perspective; that is experience. That’s what comes with experience. And in order to have group management skills, it all comes down to, again, the systems and standards that we have. So, in order to run these busy classes, it’s a requirement. We have—not just our busy classes, our standard Ion, and our coaching team is, every class has the same experience. So, whenever people are coming into our classes, everything is set up for that class prior to starting. With us, all the racks would be set out with the bars, all the kettlebells put out, all the cardio machines, whatever we are using in that class. We shape the gym floor, manage the gym floor. So, it shows our members a standard.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (17:18):
It shows that we care about what we are doing, and ultimately, we want a member who’s coming into our 5:25 class or the 7:30 in the evening class all to have the same experience. So, managing those classes is challenging. And again, I keep referring back to things that I’ve learned from others. And I listened to the Ben Bergeron podcast at the start of the year, and what really jumped out to me—because I think at times, we also feel a little bit ashamed if we have busy classes because we may feel that we’re not giving the individuals the level of coaching that they need. But again, what’s my aim with Ion? It’s about having a positive impact on our local community from a health and wellness perspective. The more people I can get into our facility training—yes, it’s good for business, obviously—but ultimately I know it’s having a positive impact on all these people’s lives, and that’s what it’s about.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (18:11):
And Ben Bergeron, quite outspoken, was like, “I don’t try to cap my classes.” He’s running classes, 30 people in a class, and that’s something that he’s proud of. I know he talks about the systems, the standard that’s needed to operate. And that’s what it comes down to: organization. If you’ve got all good organization, good structures in place, then that’s what’s going to allow you to operate at a good level. And I have to say, these classes that have the high numbers, the energy that’s there, the environment that’s created, is fantastic to see. In our Ion 60 classes, we don’t push for those sorts of numbers, but still, they can still be highly attended. We get up to 30 people at times in those classes, where we’ve shaped our program. It’s simple, so it’s that whole point. What we try within our strength program, we very much focus on the fundamentals, the key movements, squat, hinge, single leg, push pull. It’s about the virtuosity, the performing the common uncommonly well.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (19:13):
And that’s where we have a lot of consistency. For some people over the years, they haven’t really taken to the style of program that we run. We’ve lost members to other more traditional CrossFit facilities. But I’m very comfortable with that now because I understand the why in terms of what we do. We’re building around functional fundamental movements, and we want people to move as best as they possibly can. And that’s at the heart of all of our programs.
Mike Warkentin (19:45):
So how many coaches would you have in a class of say, 80? Would you have one coach, or can you, do you have more?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (19:49):
We tend to join the 80 class. We’ll always try and have an extra pair of hands on deck, but commonly those 60 classes, one coach is running it. The way our facility is, we’ve got a nice shaped facility. We also have an outdoor training area that, for the larger classes, we’ll also use the extra space. But when we’re running these classes, we run them quite circuit-based style, where it’s moving from station to station, it’s formalized, it has five lanes. Each lane is set up with the right level of equipment. You know, if you are using kettlebells, it’ll have your 24, your 16, so it’s all mapped out. And again, that’s what allows for a good class is the organization, and the coach. The exercise, the movements, that we’re using, they’re lower-skill exercises, so it makes it a little bit easier to move around the gym floor and make small little tweaks if needed. But ultimately, it is about crowd management; it is group management, those larger classes.
Mike Warkentin (20:50):
Listeners, I’m going to point something out to you here. Rob has mentioned systems a number of times. If you want a gym with a lot of people, a large number of clients, you have to have good systems. And no gym owner who makes our leaderboard and comes on this show has said to me, “I don’t have systems.” You have to have really well documented business systems. As you get bigger, those systems become even more important because mine, when I hit 230 members, they imploded, everything fell apart, and I was screwed. If you’re going to go big, your systems must be airtight. The best way to do that is to get them airtight with the help of a mentor at 150 clients, and then grow organically with a purpose slowly and focus on retention so that your systems don’t get overloaded. So, Rob, I’m going to ask you this, and this is the question that I’ve been most interested in since we started chatting that I wanted to ask you on this show: Big gyms generally have worse retention. We know this from the “State of the Industry” report. We see, as gyms get larger and classes get larger, traditionally retention gets lower and length of engagement; people bleed out. So, my question for you, I know that you have relatively low churn: Do you have any retention stats, and what do you do to retain members? How do you do what other people aren’t able to do?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (21:57):
Yeah, it’s just going back to what you mentioned there about the systems side of things. Again, I keep saying and referring back to my work in professional sport. I think, as I said, from an early point, I’ve been forced to implement systems because I’m not always going to be present. I’ve relied on my—and I can’t stress enough, just to back up exactly what you’re saying, we haven’t had things perfect. We’ve made plenty of mistakes over the years, but it’s learning from those setbacks, those failures, that moves you on to the success that you can have. But ultimately, it’s the systems that we have implemented allow things to move in the right direction.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (22:37):
Knowing I was coming on the podcast, we use Wodify as our backend system. So, I had a good look through the number side of things. So, our monthly churn is approximately 3%. I also have to point out, our membership base is 400, roughly around 430 members, currently that’s their memberships. Looking on Wodify yesterday, so we’ve got 799 live accounts. So, a lot of our specialty program isn’t membership based. We do a lot around drop-ins with that. So, in terms of the numbers that we have, it’s high. It’s high in terms of people using the facility. So, we’re 430 members, but we have 799 live accounts currently. Three percent churn should be the 90% daily retention, so what five points out? So, we’re 74%, so 74% in terms of that 90% 90-day retention of new members coming on board, according to Wodify, that’s in a good place. However, I look at that, and that’s a number that I think there’s areas we can improve on that, and we can try and improve that. The LEG, in terms of the average length of engagement, that’s always been something I’ve been really proud of because even though we’ve grown, we’re still at over 40 months in terms of the length of engagement.
Mike Warkentin (23:59):
Sorry, one four or four zero?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (24:00):
Four zero, yeah. So, it’s interesting how you look at it, like the Two-Brain platform that we use with my mentor, Lisa. Lisa, who’s been amazing working last for the last year or so. And that’s been certainly so beneficial for me having that accountability to working with the team, when I’m away from the gym, what things I can be working on to try and improve. So, you know, I can’t speak highly enough of Lisa in terms of working with her from a mentorship point of view. But in terms of the platform, there is a difference between Wodify and in terms of the Two-Brain. We’ve had this right from the get-go, so I’ve always been aware we’ve had a very good LEG.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (24:47):
And we have to—one of the big things, even though we have a high membership base, the big part of our team is to know a majority of our members by name. I want them to know we know people personally. Yes, it becomes more and more challenging, but it’s something I still think that we’re very good at. And it’s being able to have the personal touches with the larger facilities, which are the really, really important things. I like to reference—a big part of where I love the professional development, and I’m currently reading, just coming to the end of reading “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara. In terms of what he talks about in terms of just that, the unreasonable hospitality, and trying to create the best environment for people to be in on a day-to-day basis.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (25:31):
And that ultimately is what drives our retention rates. You know, it’s what do we do to try and drive retention? What systems do we have in place? It’s not being complacent with it, but ultimately our big focus is on environment. When people are coming in on a day-to-day basis, that’s what keeps them coming back is what we expose them to. And I said it’s the smaller touches in and around the facility. We’ve got a great coffee area, our Yellow Chair coffee bar, which just creates a real good post-work workout or pre post. If people are in a rush, grabbing a coffee shoot, being able to have a conversation with others for a couple of moments. But then there are other areas we offer. It’s not something we do compulsory for everyone, but we offer regular member check-ins where we all do a goal setting session using the InBody machine.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (26:22):
But that’s more optional as opposed to compulsory. We run HYROX events, so we’re HYROX affiliated. We did that at the start of the year. The trend in that space is certainly really high at the moment. So, it’s something that we want to piggyback on, and it’s been a great filter funnel into the gym. But we run quarterly events. We have over 120 members taking part each time. We attach it to a charity that we’re working with, and we always make it team-based to make it all-inclusive and a great environment to be. So, there are some of the key ways that we’re trying to drive the retention aspect for Ion, but it’s yeah. It’s the retention side of things is the challenge, but I feel we’re in a pretty solid place. We can always do things better.
Mike Warkentin (27:14):
Do you have a client success manager?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (27:17):
My wife, I’d call. I refer to that as Rach in terms of the managerial role. And I see everyone in our team is responsible for that client retention manager. However, that is a role that we’re in the process of looking at bringing into the team, because I think would be the next step for us in terms of just, again, those smaller touch points. We try to stay on top of that as best as we can, whether that’s birthdays, newborns, weddings, whatever, and recognizing them within what we do. But I think having that client success manager would be something that I think could be really valuable to us.
Mike Warkentin (27:54):
Now, listers, if you’re out there, client success manager is a high-leverage role. You do not need an ultra-skilled person. You need a personable person who can follow a checklist and do what you ask them to do on time, every time, no matter what. And the person’s role is literally to improve retention, drive up length of engagement, and there’s lots of ways you can do that. It can be with simple things like calling absent members: “Hey, I noticed you haven’t been in the gym in three days. When are you coming back?” Stuff like that. There’s also birthday cards, gifts, surprise-and-delight-type things. There’s a ton of different things that a client success manager can do, but every gym wonder that I’ve spoken to on the show who has one says the role pays for itself. The ROI on this position is incredible because if the person saves one or two memberships a month, it usually pays for the wages. So, think about that as you guys are thinking about retention and length of engagement. I’m going to ask you this one, Rob. You said you have stable numbers and low churn. How do you acquire new clients? Do you have any stats you can share on that? Where do they come from?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (28:52):
If I’m honest, and again, it’s not being complacent. A lot of our growth has been organic. Like I said, we’ve been doing this for 10 years, so it’s taken us 10 years to build up the membership to the place it is currently is at. We don’t tend to do a huge amount with paid social media ads. So, a lot of the leads that we tend to have are very organic, come through the website. We’re proactive on social media. We put a lot of content out. So, they come through that, but I would say the big funnel for us also has been through our specialty programs in terms we get a lot of parents who are bringing their kids to our youth program that like what they see, understand when they see in the flesh in terms of what we do on a day-to-day basis. That’s a great way of bringing people in. The mum fit program that my wife runs. That’s been a fantastic funnel also, going from that postnatal training to once they progress, coming on board as members. So, those programs in particular have been a fantastic funnel for our membership base.
Mike Warkentin (30:00):
It’s kind of brilliant. It’s kind of brilliant what you’re doing, where you’ve got, if you get one person, you should be able to get that person’s parent and that person’s kid. And one person should be times three each time, right? Do you have a process set up for that? Like, do you ask them for referrals and say, “Hey, does your mom want to join this? Or does your kid want to join this?” or how do you get those people?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (30:18):
No, to be honest. No, we don’t. I mean, it’s, like I said, a lot of what we have done has been organic in terms of, rather than it being forced or planned. I think the big area is probably also” How can we lower the barrier to entry? I think there’s always a perception around the style of facilities we run—that warehouse style, whereas, when people are used to the health club, certainly in the UK probably, we’re always a few years behind the States, Australia, in terms of where the industry is. And I think there’s still that point. But the functional fitness space is certainly growing, and now it’s about trying to break those down, those barriers down, making people feel comfortable in terms of walking through the doors and understanding what we’re trying to achieve here is about trying to address sedentary lifestyles, nutrient deficient diets, chronic stress, those primary causes of chronic disease these days. That’s ultimately what I’m trying to build Ion around is a health facility, and the more people who can come through the doors, that’s the important part to it.
Mike Warkentin (31:25):
So tell me about that. What is your intake process, and how does it affect retention? How do you get people in the gym easily and get them training, get them to stay for such a long time?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (31:32):
Yeah, so new inquiries we have, they’ll always tend to come through websites or social media or word of mouth. My wife, Rach, she’ll always organize a discovery call. So, the first part is the discovery call. Rach talks about the goals, what they’re looking for. We like to explain our services, our program, what we do at Ion. And then from there there’ll tend to be two options. So, it’ll either there be option one, to come and have a No Sweat Intro where if people are still a little bit unsure, have a little look around, meet someone in person, see the facility, see the class, meet some of the team, which is always a real good way of breaking down that barrier. Or we offer a free taster class for our Ion 45, our bootcamp class.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (32:18):
We always try and encourage them to go to a quieter one. When we say quieter, still one with probably 15, 20 people in it. But it makes it a class, and we’ll always try and find ways of buddying them up, a new member buddying up with an experienced mate, but it’s just so people feel comfortable. Because I understand there’s nothing worse than coming through the door when you don’t know anyone. You’re jumping into an environment. It’s trying to make it as friendly and warm feeling as possible from the get go. So, they’re the two starting points. From there, then—
Mike Warkentin (32:47):
They’ve had a call first, right? Even the trial people have had a call first already.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (32:51):
Yeah, so everyone will have a call first, and then it’s those two options. We have two style memberships. So, we have our basic membership and our full membership. So, our basic membership is for our Ion 45 class, our bootcamp class, and our Ion 30 class. Then we have our full membership that also includes all the other classes and mainly our Ion 60, our structured strength and conditioning class. So, if someone wants to sign up for full membership, we will have two one-to-one sessions where they’ll be introduced to the fundamental movements, the barbell exercises that we use in classes, and it’s about trying to just introduce them to the movement. It’s not about trying to make them experts in them. That’s what classes, consistency, is what’s going to help them get there. But it’s just a real good way of spending two hours with a coach, familiarizing themselves with our program, our environment, the coaches themselves, the cueings that we use, and then they’ll progress into the class environment. With our Ion 45 class, it is about, like I said, lowering the barrier to entry. It is about, it’s a lower scale workout that’s required, so we feel comfortable that people can move straight into that class environment. So, they’re two options. Then from that process, it’s either two one-to-ones or dependent on the membership they have, they go straight to our class environment.
Mike Warkentin (34:08):
OK. So, you’ve got a pretty greasy intake process where you’re trying to get people in there fairly quickly, and you’re running a group model, so that totally makes sense. And then your retention is pretty good. So, you’re doing some good stuff there, and you’re using the No Sweat Intro in a discovery call where you’re asking about goals. So, those are critical things. Listeners, if you’re out there, free trials, just throwing people into class, not recommended. Better retention, better length of engagement, better average revenue per member if you sit down or talk to someone on the phone, ask them, “What are your goals?” and tell them, “Here’s how I get you to your goals with our services. Do you want to sign up?” “Yes.” And away you go. And then you have a 90-day goal review session. That is the best practice to get people to those goals. Do you do goal review sessions? You’ve got a huge crew. Is it possible to do that with your group?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (34:47):
Yeah, we do goal review sessions. As I said, it’s optional though. It’s not something we’ll go through the whole membership base and say, “It’s time to book in.” We make people very aware month to month that we have these times available. If people want to book in for the goal reviews, use the InBody machine, talk about the direction they’re moving with their training, their nutrition, then that’s it. I would say again, on the retention side of things with group training—but we’ve also just brought on a nutritionist, Jen; she’s absolutely fantastic. And for me, that’s a direction that we’re really keen on going down. Because I really see that’s going to help with the retention. It’s going to help members achieve the goals that they want quicker as well. She’s someone who’s very aligned with our methods, our beliefs, in terms of what we’re trying to do as a facility. So again, that comes into that retention model as well.
Mike Warkentin (35:43):
Is there a limit to how big you can get, and why or why not?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (35:46):
Hmm. I think when it—so in terms of the goals, where do I want to take Ion? I think growth 100%. What underpins this business, Ion, is my passion. My passion is what—it’s something I think we all as gym owners have. It’s like having a little child, isn’t it? That you build, you grow and no retirement. For me, it’s a big part of my why. And for me, what does growth look like? I’ve used the term a couple of times, but the phrase in terms of what we’re trying to do is have a positive impact on our local community from a health and wellness perspective. For me, growth is now very much on “How do we expand that to our wider community?” rather than just being our local, the wider community.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (36:31):
So for me, growth isn’t necessarily in the brick and mortar in terms of trying to open more facilities or trying to get more and more members in. I’m never—I don’t want to be in a point that we turn people away, and I think we’ll continue to grow organically in both facilities. But ultimately, for me, it’s areas like the corporate wellness side of things, the outreach programs that we’re doing within the community. They’re areas that I really want to try and grow, because that comes back to what my whole why in terms of what we’re doing as business is about. So, again, that’s where I see growth being, not necessarily within just members and numbers from that side of things.
Mike Warkentin (37:11):
OK. So, you’ve got some interesting programs that you’re going to target. Listeners, I’m going to summarize for you two things that keep coming up in this conversation with a gym owner who has a lot of clients: systems and retention. We’ve mentioned those a ton of times. We mentioned marketing and acquiring clients a little bit, and that’s obviously part of the pyramid. You have to have systems, find your clients, bring them in and intake them and keep them for a long time. But retention is going to be—I would put that in place before you look at client acquisition and marketing, because if you just get a bunch of clients and your retention sucks, they’re just bleeding out the back door while you’re filling them in the front door, and it’s not a good plan. So, retention first and then systems. Start with your systems. Get good systems in place, test them, test them again, then scale up slowly.
Mike Warkentin (37:54):
And when things start to rattle a little bit, you’ve got to tighten them up. And a mentor can help you do this with a specific plan, because I did not do this. I started to scale up, but all of a sudden, everything fell apart. I had no one to help me tighten them, and everything slid back down, and we lost money. That’s when I got a mentor who helped me bring up my systems to the level they need to be at, find the right number of clients in that system, and then make the money that we wanted to. So, Rob, I’m going to ask you this final question: Your mentor, Lisa, what is the most important thing that she brings to you, and how has she helped you most with your business?
Robin Sowden-Taylor (38:24):
I think the word that jumps out at me straight away is accountability. For me, that was—so we started working together last year. I took on a new role in rugby that was going to be demanding, again with the international team. So, I’ve been away with the World Cup for three months away from the business. I just got back from Australia, a month away from the business. So, I was very conscious.
Mike Warkentin (38:45):
It’s still running without you.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (38:47):
Exactly. And probably the worrying thing is it runs, I think it runs better when I’m not actually there.
Mike Warkentin (38:53):
Go back to Australia.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (38:54):
Yeah. But it’s the accountability on me and Johnny and Rach in particular, that is really, it’s been so beneficial for us to have that. And I’ve been … about the Two-Brain for quite a number of years, and quite frankly, it’s really, it’s a no brainer. It really is because it’s—if we want to grow as gym owners, having people who have been there, who have done it, having those conversations, having that accountability in terms of getting stuff done, because there is so much to do when you’re running your own business. There’s so many things to get on with, and the one thing I just come back to in terms of—for me being on this journey, I’ve been in the industry for 12 years, 10 years running a gym.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (39:38):
And I think it can get a little bit daunting at times in terms of your systems, but it is just been trying to focus on doing the best we can do day in, day out, and if we get that right, the growth of business will come, the system side of things. It’s just trying to pinpoint what systems you want to work on at the time. Whether that’s what’s the flow of the class, what do you usually do? How do you want to lock up at the end of the day? What’s your standard? Because ultimately, as gym owners, what we are prepared to tolerate in our presence becomes our standard. And we need to set a standard for the others, the rest of the team, to follow. And that’s what I feel we’ve done.
Mike Warkentin (40:13):
Rob, thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Robin Sowden-Taylor (40:16):
Mike, brilliant chat. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Mike Warkentin (40:19):
It was my pleasure. Gym owners, as you exit, I’m going to give you your first targets. If you’re looking to go big, your first targets are going to be 150 clients, $205 ARM, with a 13-month length of engagement. If you hit those numbers, we have data that shows you can make $100,000 a year from your business. At that point, with the help of a mentor, you can scale up however you want, or you can do something different. But those are your first targets. If you hit those, you can make a great living, and then the world is your oyster, and you can decide exactly what you want to do next. This has been “Run a Profitable Gym.” I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. Thanks for watching and listening. Please hit “subscribe” on your way out. And now here’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a final message.
Chris Cooper (40:56):
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.
