Mike (00:02):
I’ve got a triple crown marketing winner on Two-Brain Radio, Kyle McGough of D1 Training Columbus led Two-Brain clients in set, show and close rates in December. He shares his secrets right after this.
Chris (00:13):
Chris Cooper here, have you got a website designer, a marketer, a landing page software, a calendar, a CRM, and a form builder, communication platform and connecting software? You can get rid of all of it by switching to Gym Lead Machine. I use this platform along with 60% of the Two-Brain mentorship team. The average gym owner saves over 300 bucks a month with Gym Lead Machine and they’ll waive the thousand dollars set-up fee for Two-Brain Radio listeners. Switching is easy and you can go live in a week, visit gymleadmachine.com to watch a demo and book a sales call.
Mike (00:47):
It’s a big show on Two-Brain Radio. Kyle McGough is the GM of D1 Training Columbus, which is owned by former NFL players. Kyle booked a huge number of appointments in October, a huge number of people actually showed up for those appointments and a huge number of them bought something. If you’re a gym owner, you know it’s really tough to check all three of those boxes. So do up your chin strap. Kyle’s going to tell you how he takes the rock to the house in the sales office. I’m Mike Warkentin. I’m your host for this edition of Two-Brain Radio, wherever you’re watching or listening, don’t forget to subscribe, ring the notification bell and hammer a like on this. We really appreciate it. So Kyle from Columbus, welcome to the show.
Kyle (01:24):
Hey Mike, thanks for having me, man. Excited to be here.
Mike (01:26):
Yeah, I’m fired up about this. I don’t get to talk to franchise people very often. It’s often like independent micro gyms. So your perspective is going to help a ton of people because it’s one we haven’t had on the show a lot. So I’m going to pump you for information.
Kyle (01:38):
Yeah. I’m excited to just give back to the Two-Brain community and help people the same way Two-Brain’s invested in me.
Mike (01:43):
Ah, dude, I love it. So `let’s roll right into, so I know like I want people to hear your story. I understand you had a huge membership swing, like you lost hundreds of members, but then you added a huge number of new members at like twice the average revenue per member. What’s the story behind that?
Kyle (01:57):
Yeah. So I mean, there’s a couple of ways you can skin the cat in terms of business models. And with our 20,000 square foot layout, we’ve got a lot of overhead that we got to come up with, pretty much being what we call a legacy facility in the D1, model there’s only four left with footprint as big as ours in a system that’s got 72 open and 127 in progress.
Mike (02:22):
What does that legacy mean? I’m just gonna jump in on that.
Kyle (02:25):
Yeah. Legacy just means, it’s a much larger footprint, much more turf. So we got 60 yards long by 30 yards wide turf, and then we got a big enough weight room to have seven fully equipped collegiate racks.
Mike (02:39):
Yeah. It’s pretty big time. Then the newer facilities I’m guessing are slightly smaller.
Kyle (02:43):
Yeah. The footprints are probably less than 10,000, the smallest 3,500.
Mike (02:49):
So you’re running a big show.
Kyle (02:50):
Yeah, it’s a big show. And I think that led to creativity in the past from old leadership teams trying to make that, you know, 70K a month overhead and how are they going to get there? So, you know, basically from what I came into, I started off here as a coach. I came from Ohio state coaching football and women’s basketball strength and conditioning, and was able to come in and try and provide that same elite coaching for the general public of the city of Columbus. And just saw that there was huge opportunity in the model to shift from this globo volume-based model and kind of changed the focus to the individual and bring and shed light on that elite coaching model. So once I got promoted from head strength coach to GM, I was able to kind of take the reins on that vision and let go of the vine of this volume based idea and really start to invest in individuals.
Kyle (03:55):
Along this process, you know, my background has been division one strength and conditioning. So being able to have that experience, know what it takes to train the D1 way. And then, you know, kind of build it while we fly it kind of the deal here. We just understood our capacity, understood our overhead and trying to find ways to say, all right, this is what we need to charge people in order to deliver this coaching product. And the biggest difference in th coaching products is developing relationships with individuals and kind of being a compass for them in navigating their fitness and performance goals. So, taking a step back and bringing that consultation process, no sweat intro kind of from the Two-Brain model and being able to take each individual and put them into a group training or private training. And now our capacity is about 300 to 350 members. Of that is 180 scholastic and 120 adult. And that scholastic program’s broken up into high school and middle school and rookie, which is called prep, Divo and rookie. And each one of those core programs has 60 spots available. And with that understanding, we can only scale it if we get more coaches, get more space and we can replicate that product.
Mike (05:24):
- So that’s interesting. So you went from, I wouldn’t call it a traditional globo gym model because it sounds like you’re more in that strength and conditioning field, but it was based less on one-on-one relationships and more on groups. Is that correct?
Kyle (05:36):
Yeah. It was just providing access to training. People were able to walk in without really an understanding of what they were trying to accomplish.
Mike (05:43):
Ah ha. So now you’ve pivoted. So when you made this change now you’re looking more at the consultative process or prescriptive model, no sweat intro, the whole thing that Two-Brain teaches, you’re doing that and you’re building these one-on-one coaching relationships with people.
Kyle (05:57):
Yeah. In a group setting.
Mike (05:58):
Yeah. So when you made that shift, what happened to the old clientele and then how did you rebuild that?
Kyle (06:03):
Yeah, so we had to hit a hard reset on culture. If there’s one thing I learned coaching at Ohio state is you win with people. But that being said, you know, we also wanted to make sure that from a team standpoint of staffing, that we had the right people in the right seats. And when we had the people who can embrace the vision and embrace our culture and really, you know, drive that field to the people from leading from the front, once we got to educate them on the why we were making these changes, the buy-in was big and we started with almost 400 members and then we dropped down to less than a hundred and we were able to come back up and finish this year pretty strong. And now we’re up towards the 160s and we’re just trying to keep this momentum going and build that core nucleus of people who really are here to take control of their development, whether it’s fitness or performance.
Mike (07:07):
But those 160 members that just said, they’re paying more now, correct? Because you’re offering a higher value service.
Kyle (07:13):
Yeah, so that was part of what I had to do my first day is my first day taking over here before I even started work, I had to send an email out to 400 people saying that their gym memberships were canceled. We call it the bandaid method. And if they wanted to come in and train, we’re going to have to come sign a new contract. And that contract was more than double the price. And I think that itself, if they pay more, they pay more attention, so it helped with the culture.
Mike (07:42):
So were you with Two-Brain at the time when you sent that email?
Kyle (07:45):
I was not.
Mike (07:47):
So what happened then? Like, was that scary and you must’ve seen cancellations just coming back like a landslide, like how’d that feel?
Kyle (07:53):
At first, even before I sent the email, I was a little intimidated. It was my first time in that managerial role. I did get my MBA while I was a grad assistant coach at Wagner College. But I wasn’t able to really knock the dust off it, put it into much application until I got to this role. But just sticking to my core values, understanding you win with people, I just started having one-on-one meetings with people and I started bringing them in and prescription sale on each individual from the top and just saying, Hey, like, this is why we needed to make these changes. I would love to have you on the team and show you why this is going to be a valuable change to everybody. But if we got to split ways, we’re not seeing eye to eye, then that’s OK.
Mike (08:41):
So you dropped some members. When did Two-Brain, cause this is actually like, you know, the change that you made is very from the Two-Brain playbook, you made it before you even started working with us. Where did Two-Brain come in and why?
Kyle (08:51):
So my managing members are our guys and our ownership team are guys that are, have a vision to provide access to elite training to the city of Columbus. And basically what we needed to do is find a way for me to get up to speed in operations. And that’s the best way we’re going to be able to provide that to the city. So me understanding the Two-Brain method of being able to do the coaching and the operations and the managing of business, my ownership didn’t have the time to help me with that acclimation. So I had to find a way to do it on my own and actually in D1, in the franchise model, a lot of times the franchisees and the franchisors, the difference is the guys who open the D1a don’t necessarily always have the experience in the coaching.
Kyle (09:47):
So they need people like me who come from a coaching background to be able to get their product right. And having something like Two-Brain in the corner to where you can help someone like me with the coaching background come in and implement, execute that from a business perspective, that’s where the biggest value is. So my owners who were kind of footing the bill during the learning curve, were confident that by investing in me, doing Two-Brain, I was able to take it and put it to work cause they were confident in my work ethic and they saw how passionate I was about helping people maximize their potential. They knew they would get the return on investment. And me finding Two-Brain just came from back in the day, Chris, T Nation, reading the old school articles. That’s really where I started. I was, you know, 10, 15 years ago, 40 years ago working the front desk at gyms cleaning the facility to try and get a free membership so I could train for free. And I was just reading T Nation and it started there and then kind of buying Chris’s books as he grew. And as I started to develop my passion and it was, you know, in terms of the industry specific option, you know, there’s few things that could beat.
Mike (11:04):
Chris is going to smile. I’m laughing to myself here cause Chris, those old school T nation articles and some of the old stuff he wrote, he’s going to love the fact that that’s kind of what hooked you back in the day. So I can tell you that right now. This is as good a place as any to drop the names of, I know your owners are kind of busy doing other stuff. Who are these guys and what are they up to?
Kyle (11:22):
Mike Vrabel is the head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
Mike (11:28):
9-time Super Bowl champ.
Kyle (11:30):
So he’s got quite a resume and then Ajay Hall as well, former Buckeye and was able to have some success in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers is now a big part of a podcast. So he’s doing his thing there.
Mike (11:47):
Yeah. So they’ve got a few things on the go. So they let you run the show, which is fantastic. But there are certainly, I mean, having an amazing year down in Tennessee and I love watching them. I’m bummed that they lost their running back, but they still look like they’re doing OK.
Kyle (12:01):
Well, they’ve got good leadership in place so that, you know, there you go, you can move forward.
Mike (12:07):
So tell me now what, you know, taking a step back on the D1 thing for a second, what happens? Like how much support do you get from the franchisor? And I know it’s very different in all kinds of different franchise arrangements, some offer complete playbooks, like a McDonald’s thing when you work in there. I mean, there’s a ton of stuff that’s plug and play, other things, not so much, CrossFit’s not a franchise necessarily. It’s an affiliation. They don’t tell you anything other than a few legal things about how you use the name. So what, what kind of support and resources do you get from D1, if any?
Kyle (12:33):
I think it’s right in the middle of those two models that you described, they are developing a more robust playbook that you have access to. But, what I’ve come to learn is a lot of those playbooks are built for some of these smaller models that D1’s shifting to. So since the original model was this legacy model and they kind of saw the potential for that not to be the best way to move forward as they scale. I think just as they started to shift their focus, they kind of let the legacy facilities have a little bit more rein on how they were doing stuff, just kind of sink or swim. So, that being said, we do use, you know, Frank and have different models where we can go on and get some training in the portal.
Kyle (13:28):
And we have coaching summits and franchise summits. And we have a weekly support call from our facility support supervisors and corporate basically, you know, they, we have a scorecard, we employ basically EOS traction model where we have these weekly meetings and quarterly cadences, these 90 day worlds. But there is a large degree of unique and how you run the show. So you can, you have flexibility in how you do things. And I think that since I had that flexibility, my Two-Brain mentor was able to, he was really good at understanding, you know, what my limitations were and how to put it into reality through the system. And once we got through that ramp up sprint of just digesting a ton of information, he was able to step by step, turn it into execution, and now start holding me accountable to these, you know, more tangible, direct tasks as we move forward.
Mike (14:41):
Yeah. So you’re essentially, you’re in a structure where there are resources available, but you’re one of the, I guess we’ll call it, you know, one of the battleships, right? So there’s the destroyers, but they’re not making, how to repair a battleship anymore. So they’re basically giving you some freedom to play with some stuff. And it sounds like even within the D1 model, there is some freedom to kind of do your own thing to a degree, even though there are resources available. That’s really interesting. And then I love the part about you talking about your mentor, you know, figuring out how these things that Two-Brain does fits in place with that franchise model. So let’s talk about that a little bit. Like when you signed up, tell me what stage you’re at with D1, like, I’m you did the rate increase, lotst some people and so forth. When did you sign up and then what happened as you went through ramp up implementing these policies into the D1 model?
Kyle (15:27):
Yeah, so we started with a really small team and it was basically like the three or four of us were in the farmer, the founder phase big time. And we were just trying to get to the farmer phase. And we were trying to work our way up the ladder. And then, you know, it came to something as small as creating our own SOPs, you know, working our way up the chain and delegating things to, you know, our low level tasks out then as we really started getting into the weeds of, you know, our sales process and things like that is where we started to recognize that we needed the most help. And then we got into that ramp up and at first it was just, it was moving quick and it was a little overwhelming. And, you know, luckily my team has come from collegiate strength and conditioning.
Kyle (16:18):
So that work ethic piece was not something I was concerned with. I knew we were going to be able to do our due diligence and get that done. So even though there was storming and forming in the early phases of the ramp up, we were able to kind of get a grip on things and realize that, you know, although coaching is our passion, that we have to become salesmen and have to embrace this different side of business that we weren’t necessarily used to. So being able to have that flexibility and come up the chain and, you know, Pete understanding, my mentor kind of understanding where I am and my team dynamics and understanding how to take the expectations of, you know, what we use in the Frank and that D1 model and say, Hey, listen, you know, this is what your corporate expectation is. Here’s how Two-Brain would say how to do it. And you know, how can we kind of meet in the middle and make it work for the situation that you’re in? And that’s what we’ve been able to do. Step-by-step piece by piece. And we’re just slowly but surely putting that puzzle together and finding the right pieces to make it stick.
Mike (17:32):
Let me ask you this. Does D1 have like an intake or a sales process you guys have access to, or was that something that was one of those, figure it out on your own kind of things?
Kyle (17:40):
We do have a prescription sale process. I think that’s one of those special things about D1, it’s, that is what they’re teaching and they’re teaching that, you know, it has to be on an individual basis. But when I first started here at this particular location, people were just coming off the street, we’re on a busy road, we’ve got like 72,000 people that drive by. So our location is not our issue, but what was coming in was random people were just pulling off the street, coming in, swiping their card and get access to workouts. And that’s not our culture, right. So we kind of had to take a step back and say, Hey, D1 wants this prescription model and this is how they want to do things. Our first step needs to be schedule a consultation. And, D1 also has their LBO is always that free trial workout.
Kyle (18:33):
So a little bit of confliction would be, you know, Two-Brain says that no sweat intro is the biggest piece. So I kind of had to do both and find a way to marry the two and provide that free trial workout kind of as an option. And then the people who wanted it were able to get a taste and dip their toe in the water. But, but honestly, that big switch in the intake process in terms of time kills all deals, hitting up that lead as fast as possible. Aaintaining that contact and nurturing it through the door and having multiple touch points from phone, email, text message, or even a video, just sending it to them through your phone. And then once they get here being prepared for them, you know, doing your background research on the individual, knowing a little bit about them, maybe looking at their Instagram and having an understanding of where their passion may lie.
Kyle (19:33):
So you can build that connection quicker. And then once they come in and share a little bit about what pain they might be looking to solve, you watch them work out. Then now it’s like, Hey, how do you feel? Is that something you’re prepared to do? Is that going to be a good fit to help you achieve your goals? If not, here are some other things you might be able to sprinkle into that process to help you get there. And you just kind of piece it together. And for us, we do our graduate meetings or our goal review sessions every eight weeks. So every 8 weeks we sit and we revisit that prescription based off of the training and how they’re responding to.
Mike (20:16):
So I love how this is syncing up is great because you’re hitting a lot of the Two-Brain stuff, but it is matching up with the stuff that you guys want to do in D1, where you are using that prescriptive thing, and you do want an intro workout. And the interesting part is, you know, we always tell people free trial is not the way to sell things, but the asterisk beside that is that the free trial by itself is not the way to sell things. Because back in the day when I was running my gym, I just had people come in and do a workout. You know, we all kind of tore our hands and, you know, vomited in the corner and I’m like, Hey, you want to stay? And we’d just let the demon ask. And like, they might walk out, they might sign up, like, that’s the horrible aspect of the free trial, but the free trial, as part of a consultative process to prescriptive model does work. And in fact, Two-Brain does have, the no sweat intro, which has come in and talk. We don’t even work out. There’s also a sweat intro that can be attached to that. Do you use that or do you use like the D1 version?
Kyle (21:06):
So I think the big part with D1 is the community, right? So they want to get people in that team training environment. So, and I think that’s part of the reason why people train here is because they want to train as part of a team, not join a gym, right? So we say that all the time, and I think getting them exposed to that fast, helps with that retention.
Chris (21:31):
We’ll get back to the show right after this. Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by Forever Fierce. Reach out to them to sell more apparel or retail items. Matt Albrizio and his team will save you time with templates. They’ll provide ideas and tell you what’s selling best. And they’ll supply marketing material and preorder sheets. If you want to get serious about apparel and retail, visit foreverfierce.com.
Mike (21:52):
And that’s your avatar, right? Like your avatar is not like the guy in the corner or the girl in the corner who just wants to bench press over there, but you’re more of a it’s sport specific. And you’ve got like the programs you listed off, I’ll call them, you know, definitely a funnel into like, you know, NFL eventually or college and things like that.
Kyle (22:10):
So for scholastics, we want to do two things. We want to increase confidence, you know, unshackle confidence and competition. And we want to give the athletes a chance to get to the next level. And for us, a lot of times that next level might be, you know, from D3 to D2 D to D1 AA, just whatever that next step might be, just help them maximize their potential and do something that they might not think they were capable of doing. But from an adult perspective, we do fitness and performance, to us, anyone that needs a coach to help them reach a goal is an athlete. So we don’t discriminate at all.
Mike (22:52):
But it’s that having that coach, as opposed to like, you know, doing the thing I saw in muscle and fitness in the corner and that whole deal. So I love that. So, how does, I’ll ask you a question about that. So what is your intro work and is it the same for everyone, or is it based on their specific goals? In Two-Brain in their sweat intro has, it’s a very basic workout. That’s just designed to get people moving and so forth, very uncomplicated, easy to teach. What do you do for that intro workout?
Kyle (23:14):
We just ask them if there’s any contraindications in terms of things that limitations they may have, we communicate that to the coach. And after that, we put them into a group workout, that’s scheduled, regular program workout, and we kind of have it where we have OGs in our membership that we kind of understand that, know how to do things the right way. So we look to partner in each session we have a couple of OGs. So we look to partner these free trials with the OGs in that session. And if we need to progress or regress the regularly scheduled programming for that individual, we could always do that. But they’re training as part of the team in our community, a regularly scheduled deal.
Mike (23:57):
And then after that, you sit down and talk to them and that’s where you go through your sales process and it’s got to be that prescriptive thing. So this is where it gets kind of fun because we talked about you as the triple crown leader. So, I mean, you had these incredible numbers, I’ll just pull them up here. You had 106 leads. 57 people showed up and then 44 people actually bought something, which is, you know, a great rate for all of them. You told me that this month in November, you’re actually doing almost as well. In fact, you’ve got more leads. What are your November numbers?
Kyle (24:28):
So my November numbers, my leads are up at, or above 200, we’re setting and showing, setting, I think we’re over 60. And we’re showing enough to have sold right now. We’re at about 47 sold.
Mike (24:46):
- And you’ve still got five or six days at the date of recording here at the end of November.
Kyle (24:50):
Yeah. So we’re hoping to break 50 on the close. So if we could do that, it’d be a nice month for us.
Mike (24:55):
Yeah. And how is the average revenue per member we talked that had gone up. What is the, do you have the exact numbers of what that went up from before in the old model to what it is now approximately
Kyle (25:04):
Went from 85. And right now it’s about three, almost 360 a month.
Mike (25:15):
So that’s like a, you know, that’s a huge, huge increase. So in your model you can, you know, I’m sure you’ve done the math on the overhead and all that other stuff. It’s going to be easier to find fewer clients at a higher rate than to try and get all the, like I’d rather find, you know, a hundred $200 clients than the other way around then having, you know, and I’m sure are you seeing the ease of that, the benefit of that, as opposed to trying to maintain this massive, massive pile of low value clients to use a term that I don’t mean a little value, but you know, low price.
Kyle (25:43):
Yeah. I mean, it’s also a little bit more rewarding for us as the coach, right? So we get to build that trust, understand and go on a journey with these people. And you know, that that solidifies the relationship. But sometimes, you know, people get a little sticker shock sometimes when they come in here to train, but once you frame that value and you show them the results that they’re going to be getting, and they feel that experience and they feel that investment from their coach, that those dollar signs kind of go out the window and they see that, you know, they’re here for a bigger picture. I always tell them, especially for the adults, you know, you gotta try and find a way to train three times the rest of your life. This is the best healthcare plan you could have. So if you can’t, you can’t swing a way to prioritize yourself three hours a week., then you’ve got bigger, bigger fish to fry.
Mike (26:40):
Yeah, so you’re building value there for sure. And you’re explaining to people why this is, you know, it’s not an $85 service because we’re not giving you $85 service.
Kyle (26:48):
Yeah. We’ve found ways to kind of bundle things into a hybrid membership where they’re not just getting access to classes, right. Maybe they’re doing once or twice a month or four times a month goal specific personal training on top of membership, maybe they’re doing a supplement bundle monthly. Maybe they’re doing some type of nutrition coaching and personal training. So just as you have those different options to solve their biggest pain points, that average revenue per member can start to climb pretty quickly.
Mike (27:21):
So what’s the secret to getting a huge amount of leads. How are you getting so many?
Kyle (27:25):
Honestly it’s been a learning curve for us. And what we’ve found is having that local kind of raw content that people can inject themselves into and build that and relate to is what we’re finding is really working and speaking to the individuals about their problems and how we can solve them as opposed to what we do and who we are, and kind of shedding light on D1, just shifting that focus to the individual and the solutions that we can provide and welcoming them into the story. And that’s been our biggest change. It’s really been helping.
Mike (28:03):
You run ads? Are they paid ads or is this organic stuff?
Kyle (28:06):
We do paid and organic.
Mike (28:11):
Nice. So that’s awesome. You alluded to this a little bit earlier, how do you get so many people to show up? Because it’s notorious in the gym industry for people to like book appointments and then never show up. And I think if I recall, you guys said you had a six week challenge, that event that started well, but then didn’t end as well. Like how did you change these things around?
Kyle (28:28):
Yeah. I mean that six week challenge ended up just being a price anchor for us. In the beginning for us, we thought it was a great idea to have that, try and get people in and sell it as this free six week challenge. Oh, but you got to put $600 down to get in, but all that really did was, or you could join membership and membership is this and it, people started to pick it up. So we just realized that, you know, our big opportunity is going to be clearly communicating the expectations and standards and having that solidified a hundred day journey and giving them traction early and support early to help them, you know, stay in the process. And we found that those little things it’s given us a ton of success, especially on the front end.
Mike (29:20):
Did you find, I have this experience in my past, did you find that that six week challenge, the retention was poor when people finished it, that it was very tough to retain them? Because I did.
Kyle (29:28):
Yeah. And you have to be super organized cause you have to make sure you’re executing on all those touch points. And it’s like just another thing that you got to stay on top of, it’s like who’s in the six week challenge. When’s their midway checkpoint. When is it ending? And it’s a ton of work too. So we just try and thematically build our eight week cycles around a theme and invite people into this story. So it almost seems like each cycle is a challenge when it’s just it’s results by design. Right. So yeah,
Mike (30:00):
I stepped a little bit away from the lead nurture there, but how is your process for that? So you’ve got, you know, 200 people, 50 people, leads booking appointments. How do you make sure that they show up?
Kyle (30:12):
Yeah, so we use all the Two-Brain videos. I have my staff watch them, but scarcity and urgency, right. We try to book it that week or 72 hours from the call. Providing the options like, Hey, I got a six o’clock today or a four o’clock tomorrow. And, just how you’re pitching it. Really inviting them into share their stories, solve their problems. Like you’ve called the right place, confidence that this is the place that’s going to give them that breath of fresh air and help them maybe achieve the goals that they haven’t been achieving for the past couple of years. And it’s always a little bit more, it’s an easier pill to swallow when you know, you’re going to work with a coach that’s experienced, professional and is going to help you get there when you might not have the experience or the knowledge to do those things for yourself. So we just try to position ourselves as that expert, give them the confidence and we try not to badger them. So when the lead populates, we try to call it within 10 minutes.
Mike (31:20):
That’s going to be make a lot of people happy, Mateo Lopez will love that one.
Kyle (31:25):
So that initial time kills all deals. Make that first call within 10 minutes, we double dial, we leave a voicemail, and then we follow up with a text message after that. Depending on when we get that call, maybe we’ll call it a second time that day, if not, we’ll call it the next day. We’ll try different times, but basically for the first three or four days, we call the lead, double dial voicemail and a text message for first week after that, it goes to three days, seven days, 14 days. And then drops in the automation, we leave it in the live nurturing a little bit longer, just because we’re big on the individualization of things. Getting that person calling you, I think is going to help create that relationship a little faster. And then once they get here, it’s a, Hey, we’re here to talk about you. We’re booking you for this time. We’re going to be waiting for you at the front door. So it’s just, you know, framing it as it’s exciting, getting them engaged. We have an athlete intake sheet that they have to fill out and bring to us to the to the appointment. So we make sure we get the mat if they have any questions. And this way it just starts to get their wheel wheels turning before they come in here. So they’re excited.
Mike (32:48):
Yeah. So you’re hammering all the best practices there and like, you know, listeners, double dialing, responding to leads immediately, sending video or voice text messages, not just email, contacting them personally and calling actually instead of just letting email nurture sequences take care of all this stuff is super, super important. So I can see why you’re getting results. I’ll ask you a management question cause this one’s interesting. Who does this, who has time to respond in 10 minutes? How do you make sure someone’s available for that? Because I know you don’t have a monster staff. How do you get that done?
Kyle (33:19):
I honestly have had to put my salesman hat on a little bit more as I’ve been learning the importance of that. We used to take for granted our brand recognition and our results-based training and thinking that just because it’s happening, people will show up.
Mike (33:39):
The same exact thing happened to me.
Kyle (33:41):
So, we were lucky. I got a kid Noah on my team who is, he’s just got the personality, he’s a tiger. And if you let him, he’ll talk to you all day long. So he’s just the right guy for the job. And, we get the zaps to our phone, any time a lead populates. So me and, you know, there’s people in my life who do not agree with this, but I will be out to dinner, you know, doing my thing on a Friday night, a lead will populate. I’m making a phone call. So, it’s not, it’s nothing personal, but that’s what it takes for us right now. And when I can delegate, I will, but it just takes the discipline and consistency of doing it. And it took me a couple months to really own that. And it was a little bit of a growth period for me to see the value in that. But once me and Noah bought into it, the numbers do the talking,
Mike (34:45):
Was this all set up with the Two-Brain marketing systems that we taught?
Kyle (34:48):
Yeah. So we use those marketing systems. We have a little bit of, you know, the D1 situation built in there also, but they’re merged. It’s a little bit of both. And, yeah, I mean, it’s just staying on top of the numbers and I just feel like, you know, the more, if you’re not assessing, you’re guessing, right? So it’s like we assess those numbers. We hold ourselves accountable to them and we know what kind of money we have to generate week to week, month to month. And it just is staying on top of it.
Mike (35:22):
The cool part you’re talking about is grinding, right? And like gym owners, like, we can grind. We’re all good at working out and doing hard stuff. The problem is that a lot of us grind on the wrong stuff. So I did like all sorts of silly stuff like painting walls and you know, doing just things I should have farmed out. What I should have been grinding on back in the day was the stuff that you’re grinding on now. The important part about that though, is exactly what you said is that, you know, gym owners, you’re not going to take on this sales role forever, unless that’s your passion and you want to, eventually you’re going to systematize this thing, teach it to someone, offload it, and then your’e going to go on to the next thing. So I love that you’re taking it on right now. And you’re like putting hold on Friday night to text a lead back and you have a plan to offload that at some point, so that you can go onto a different thing and have a salesperson who can take care of that. I’ll ask you the final step here. This is the big one. How do you close these things? You’ve talked a little bit about it, but like talk a bit about those sales meetings. How are you closing such a large percentage of these leads?
Kyle (36:14):
Yeah, I think the biggest piece of that is our ability to establish trust. Like, I had the ability to work with a ton of really good coaches through my coaching journey. And it’s like kind of corny, but it’s like, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And once they sit in here and they see that they’re not just going to get thrown into the wolves and have to figure it out, that we’re going to help them through the process for them. They’re a part of our team now. So they’re a part of our community. They have access to us. When stuff in their life is going on, this can always be that place that they can come and kind of vent and focus on themselves.
Kyle (37:05):
So I think the closing is just really, you know, having the social proof of, Hey, we do this with people like you all the time. And people like us do things like this, you know, just kind of showing them that this is where they are. Once they come through the doors here, it’s a meritocracy and training is the one thing that’s going to level the playing field of, you know, there’s no favorites, it’s up to you. And it’s OK because you’re here with a coach and we’re going to be able to see through the other side. And I think that piece sells itself and parents who especially are trying to remove themselves from that scholastic athlete, nmy kids don’t listen to me, but if you tell them as a coach, they’ll do it. You know, that objectivity is why we’re here.
Kyle (37:48):
We’re here to help kids and adults build their toolbox to succeed in what we call lifestyle and 160. And if there’s seven days a week, 24 hours a day, there is 160 hours a week outside of the eight hours of training that you’re doing that you need to focus on. And that 160 was what’s going to make or break it. So seeing that we’re here to build those tools, not only in here in 60 minutes, but out there for the rest of the time where the real treachery occurs helps them close the deal.
Mike (38:20):
Yeah. And you need, like, you’ve got a high value service and you need a conversation to show that care. Like, what I’m getting from you is a lot of care, a lot of interaction, investment in clients, personal relationships. You can’t just show that with a free workout. You show them, of course, in your program, you have a workout, but you have to talk to them and explain that stuff. And that I think is why the no sweat intro idea and the consultation really works for you guys, just as it’s worked for a lot of other Two-Brain clients, you can’t do that stuff when I’ve got a guy vomiting in the corner, which was me back in 2010 kind of thing. Right. You have to have that conversation and say, I hear you. I know your goals. I can help you. Here’s the plan. Here’s what it costs. They’re like, oh yeah, good, done. You know, easy deal. Last question I got for you is how can other franchisees, and maybe not D1, but in anything, how can they benefit from mentorship? How do you see that being one of the guys that has found that sweet spot between mentorship and a franchise model?
Kyle (39:11):
Yeah. I just think, for example, like I kind of touched on earlier with my situation. I had leadership and ownership who cared and wanted the best for the facility and for the people using it. And they saw an opportunity that, Hey, you know, Kyle’s here, he’s willing to help and he’ll get the job done. He just needs a little bit of support and they didn’t have the time oto give me that support, even though, you know, they have the ability to give me the tools if they could have. So having as a franchisee, having something like Two-Brain to allow you as a franchisee, to delegate and elevate the operations of your day to day, you could be confident that with something like Two-Brain, showing your operator how to take control of that facility and how to build out all these other things, you could be confident that the person that’s going through this mentorship is going to have access to all the things they need to point the ship in the right direction. And as an owner, I think that’s a huge peace of mind. Being able to, you know, take a deep breath and not worry that, you know, where is this person getting their information from? And, you know, it’s coming from a trusted source of people. We’re constantly collecting data, making data-driven decisions and trying to provide gym owners around the world with the gold standards.
Mike (40:38):
What’s your next step? What’s the next thing you’re working on. What’s your mentor got you doing right now?
Kyle (40:42):
So right now we’re just solidifying this this hundred day journey. And I’m getting a bunch of my managerial, like auditing processes solidified in this next year. So when I’m going to audit who, how frequently on what cadence and what that process is gonna look like from our quarterly meetings or weekly level 10 team meetings, and then our one-on-one individual meetings.
Mike (41:10):
Thank you so much for sharing all this information. I can’t wait to see what you guys do over the next few months. These are great numbers and I can’t wait to see them continue. Thank you so much.
Kyle (41:18):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Mike (41:18):
That was Kyle McGough, our triple crown marketing leader in October. He’s on track for a pretty good November too. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. I’ve got a top gym owner on the show every month to share secrets of success. Subscribe for more episodes. Now here’s Two-Brain founder, Chris Cooper with a final word.
Chris (41:36):
Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.
