Mentoring for 9Round and Other Fitness Franchise Owners

Mentoring for 9Round and Other Fitness Franchise Owners

Chris Cooper (00:02):

Hey, guys, we got a great question this week. And that was “how is it possible that Two-Brain works with 9Round gyms and CrossFit gyms and Fit Body Boot Camp gyms. Today, I’m gonna tell you how that is possible and how we do it. And if this is valuable to you, please hit subscribe or leave a comment below and let me know what kind of gym you own and whether you want help. So we work with 9Round gyms. We work with different franchisees. We work with CrossFit gyms. And this question came up because we published our recent leaderboard for revenue. So every month we track metrics in all the gyms in Two-Brain. We find out who the top 10 are in each category. And then we say, “What are you doing?” And for the first time, a couple of franchises appeared on the leaderboard.

Chris Cooper (00:48):

And so people were saying, “How is this possible?” I was also on a call with CrossFit’s interim CEO, Alison Andreozzi, and she asked, “What model do you teach?” What we do at Two-Brain is not so much a model as it is starting from first principles and then tailoring exactly these principles to your specific business. And so we do work with different fitness franchises. We work with martial-arts gyms. We have ninja-warrior gyms. We have women-specific gyms, 9Round that I mentioned earlier, boot camps and CrossFit gyms. And we can do that because we start with the principles that I’m gonna get into right now. So the first thing that we do is we look at the business itself and we say, “Let’s systemize everything. Let’s get everything out of the owner’s head so that they don’t have to waste time micromanaging everything and trying to control everything—and then they’ll have time to work on growth.”

Chris Cooper (01:42):

So we start by writing playbooks, SOPs, client journeys—all the standardization tools that you might think that you would get from a franchise, but you usually don’t. And I’m not saying this is true in the case of any specific franchise, but even with other franchises that I’ve worked with outside the fitness industry, like ServiceMaster or, you know, tire stores, you don’t get a step-by-step playbook that will tell the staff how to replace the owner in daily activities. And so one of the first things that we do with every gym is start by creating this playbook. And there’s a step-by-step process to this. We can give you a template, and then you just customize it for your specific gym. So we start with that. Then we start with metrics.

Chris Cooper (02:30):

Now there are six common metrics that will tell us how your gym is doing no matter what kind of gym you own. If it’s a Pilates studio, yoga studio, Fit Body Boot Camp, F45, Orangetheory—it doesn’t matter. We wanna know how many clients you have, what’s your average revenue per member, how long your clients are staying, the return on investment that you’re getting, your effective hourly rate as an owner (what your time is worth?), and how much you’re paying yourself. There are other metrics that we might use with different gyms, and we’re also gonna track marketing metrics. And these will be common to any type of gym, no matter what you own. So I wanna know how many leads you’re getting. How many of those leads are actually booking an appointment? How many of those appointments are showing up?

Chris Cooper (03:15):

And how many of the people who show up are actually closing? Now, the way that you do your closing meeting might differ. If you’re a CrossFit gym or a personal-training gym or a strength and conditioning facility, the questions that you answer might be different. You might even do a trial option instead of sitting down for a No Sweat Intro. But no matter what kind of gym you own, we can optimize that process. And that’s what comes next. So the next stage is what we call “optimization,” and that is looking for opportunities to improve the systems that you have right now. So, for example, a jiu-jitsu gym: They might find that they can onboard people more effectively one on one instead of just throwing them on the mat. CrossFit gyms can onboard people more effectively and keep them longer if they have a solid on-ramp program.

Chris Cooper (04:06):

So we have a system for that. 9Round gyms can onboard people and improve their retention with some one-on-one sessions. And so we see that opportunity. Many gyms could do better by offering a nutrition component to help their clients get better results. And every gym can benefit from having a referral system, for example. And so while the actual application of these principles might be different in a boxing gym and a CrossFit gym, the general principle is the same. And so we can work with lots of gyms because we’re a one-on-one mentorship practice and tailor these approaches to the gym, no matter what you’re doing. And so any gym can benefit from this program. So optimization might mean adding things like personal-training options or nutrition, but it might also mean adding a referral program to improve your marketing. It might mean training the owner and their staff on how to coach people to buy or creating a sales process.

Chris Cooper (05:04):

It might mean boosting your ARM or looking for opportunities to serve your clients by offering them supplements or other services. And it might be ways just to improve your retention—like, you know, having an onboarding process, having your client journey mapped out, doing frequent Goal Review Sessions, upgrading client packages, et cetera. So we can optimize. The next step is growing the business. So this is really where we learn marketing, and we set up four different funnels for every gym, no matter whether you’re in a franchise or you’re a solo entrepreneur, no matter whether you’re in a big city or you’re completely remote. You know, you’re in like a remote Italian village—we have gyms there, too. We’re gonna teach you four different funnels. The first is referral. The second is an organic, like a free unpaid online funnel. The third is a media funnel and the fourth is a paid advertising strategy.

Chris Cooper (05:57):

And different funnels will work differently depending on where you are and what type of business you have. What you put in those funnels will be different depending what type of business you have. But we have resources for that. And the way that we tailor those resources is through one-on-one mentorship. So while the principle of having four different marketing funnels is the same for every gym. What goes in those funnels and what strategy goes in there is very different gym by gym. And it could even be different for two franchisees. Working in the same system, different owners have different strengths and different weaknesses. They have different amounts of time and priorities. Some owners are great at referrals and talking to their clients about it, and that’s their marketing, and that’s all they need. Other owners, they might prefer to do paid ads, and they need to get good at that.

Chris Cooper (06:45):

But we’re a one-on-one mentorship practice because our mentors can tailor your method and your path to success based on what you’re good at and what your preferences are. And then after you’ve grown the business and you’re making a good income, you can look at the next phase, which is “scale.” And we have a program for this, too. This is really where you’re going from one gym to many gyms. Maybe you’re buying more franchises, trying to take over a territory. Maybe you’re buying out a local gym that’s struggling. Maybe you’re building a new gym from scratch, or maybe you’re reinvesting into other businesses or other investments. This is the Tinker Phase. I really won’t get into that, but we do have even some franchisees doing that right now, buying up bigger territories like down in Austin, Texas, for example. So that’s the way that we’re able to work with all gym franchises, like 9Round, Fit Body Boot Camp, franchises that are heart-rate specific like Orangetheory, or gyms that are independent but license a brand like CrossFit, or gyms that are full-on independent “solo-preneurs.”

Chris Cooper (07:53):

I run my own brand. I’m a strength and conditioning program. We can work with all of them because we start with general principles. And then we tailor our specific tactics through one-on-one mentorship. Our templates can be tailored for everybody. Our mentorship makes all the material and all the principles and all the knowledge and the wealth of curriculum that we have in Two-Brain applicable to your gym. But we don’t force a specific model on anyone. And so sometimes we’ll publish sample models, and you can download a guide that will teach you three different models, but we really tailor the model to your business. And so whether you are a franchise or you want a business that’s as professionally run as a franchise, mentorship through Two-Brain Business is the best way to get there. If this was helpful to you, please hit subscribe or leave a comment below with what kind of gym you own or want to own. And we’ll give you some stuff that will help.

Announcer (08:48):

That was Chris Cooper on Two-Brain Radio. Thanks for listening. Before you go hit subscribe. So you don’t miss a show. Now Coop’s back to close it out.

Chris Cooper (08:54):

We created the Gym Owner’s United Facebook group in 2020 to help entrepreneurs just like you. Now, it has more than 5,800 members, and it’s growing daily as gym owners join us for tips, tactics and community support. If you aren’t in that group, what are you waiting for? Get in there today so we can network and grow your business. That’s Gym Owners United on Facebook or gymownersunited.com. Join today!

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