I was visiting a new gym in Boston.
The coach said, “Warm up with double-unders.” I’m okay at those, so I did 100 unbroken.
Then I noticed people were staring.
“You just broke the record!” one lady said. The others were still frozen.
“What was the record?” I asked.
“SEVEN!!!” she said, loudly.
I love visiting new gyms. To a brand-new CrossFitter, I can pull off a bit of athleticism because I have a good skillset even if my fitness isn’t at its peak. A REAL CrossFit athlete can usually lap me on any given day.
The point is that context matters.
The fastest way to 10x your business is to have a really bad business, and then make it mediocre.
It’s very, very hard to 10x a GOOD business, because it’s already doing the things that make it successful. TwoBrain grew by 300% this year–which is remarkable–but it was only our second year. Growing Catalyst, IgniteGym or another of my established companies 300% would be close to a miracle. Because they’re already very successful.
In fact, a 20% growth in Catalyst would be a 200% growth in other gyms. Context matters.
When you’re considering growth, start with what you NEED to earn first:
Being stretched I decided good seed would be investing in a business mentor- Chris Cooper… curious and wondering how long it would take to start seeing some fruit, we jumped in. That first year 2016 with 2BB we made 200K that’s 110K more than the year before!! More than that my family slowly started getting their dad and husband back. My parents started getting their son back… my friends started getting their friend back. My team started getting the leader they needed and wanted. This year we have already well surpassed our last year revenue and still have 2 months to go. The best part is because of this group I am constantly challenged to do all that’s in my heart while making sure those most important to me get the best of me! Thanks guys!
That’s just over 2x growth in a year. Amazing. And even more this year.
But as the gym becomes more successful, percentage growth will go down because the numbers are FAR bigger now. It’s still great if you have the right context. And, frankly, this guy’s top priority is his family; a more important metric for him to track is his family time.
The point of this article is clearly a humble brag about my double-unders.
But my secondary point is this: be impressed by personal growth, long-term retention and profit; don’t fall for the red herrings of high gross, high headcount or “I tripled my revenue in the first month!” troubadours.
