What does your gym business pay you to be CEO?
It’s an important question because, as a gym owner, you’ve stopped being a coach and started being a CEO—whether you know it or not. As owner, you must acquire different skills, you’ll wear different hats, and you’ll be paid differently.
The success of your gym isn’t measured by how many members you have. It’s determined by what your gym pays you as CEO.
The kicker? You can make $100,000 or more with just 50 members if you want to. But if you have 500 members and you’re not earning anything from your gym, you’ll close.
Gym owners pay themselves in various ways. Some take salaries, some take profit distributions and some charge their gym rent as a landlord. To avoid overtaxation, some have their businesses pay their bills (like their cell phone or their car loan). Some do all of the above.
Net owner benefit (NOB) is the total of salary, profit and the “extras” your gym provides for you.
For example, a gym owner might make $100,000 in NOB this way:
- $66,000 salary ($5,500 per month)
- $20,000 profit ($5,000 quarterly distributions)
- $6,000 health insurance
- $6,000 vehicle
- $2,000 cell phone/extras
Total: $100,000 NOB (or $8,500 per month)
Here are the top gym owners worldwide for NOB in November 2023 (we publish the names for our clients but not publicly):
How did they do it?
- They did the “unsexy things” consistently instead of chasing unicorns. For example, they built and maintained solid day-to-day systems for their gyms instead of obsessing over the next get-rich-quick marketing tactic.
- They paid themselves first and planned raises for themselves in advance. Using strategies like Profit First, they wrote their paychecks before they did anything else. (Listen: “Why Your Gym Must Pay You First and How to Make It Happen.”)
- They increased gross revenue by increasing their client count, keeping clients longer and earning more per client.
- They maximized ROI on their expenses (instead of cutting expenses).
- They maximized their value to the business by focusing on high-value roles.
In the simplest terms, they measured what the business paid them, and they figured out where their money was coming from, where their money was going and how they were spending their time. Then they worked relentlessly to improve their businesses and become better CEOs.
You can do the same thing and earn more from your business. If you want to do it fast and reach $100,000 NOB in about two years’ time (our clients’ average, regardless of starting point), book a call with my team here.
