Five-Figure ROI on Mentorship: Charlie Lima Invests and Wins

Charlie Lima

Mike (00:03):

Here’s a better question. How much can you make with a mentor’s help? Today I talked to a gym owner who’se return on investment in mentorship will blow your mind. First here’s Chris Cooper,

Chris (00:13):

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Mike (00:47):

This is Two-Brain Radio and I’m your host Mike Warkentin. Charlie Lima, of BoomFit in College Station, Texas, is getting better ROI on mentorship than anyone else in Two-Brain: $10,000 per month. That’s his ROI. He’s literally spending money to make way more money. That’s not hyperbole. And Charlie is here to explain how he does it. All right, Charlie, I am told that you challenge yourself to justify all expenses to your operations manager every month. I love that. So what do you say when you get to the line for mentorship?

Charlie (01:16):

Yeah, no. I saw that you had sent that in an email prior to our call and this is something we started doing back in July, so about a year ago, and I just really felt like it was going to be—moving forward, I wanted to be a little more transparent with kind of expenses. And so not only my operations manager, but the whole staff kind of knows what our expenses are, what our staffing pay is and what our profit is. And so but with my operations manager, we kind of go a step further. We go item by item and you know, every bank statement, if there’s a credit card expense that we put on the business credit card. And a lot of that is helpful for me because it just, it really kind of just allows me accountability. And it just really says, Hey, here’s this expense, here’s this expense. Now for mentorship,

Charlie (02:04):

Here’s the way I justify expenses to me. The expenses operationally are things that if I was not the owner, would absolutely have to be an expense. So utilities, rent obviously, Zen planner, you know. Now to me, mentorship is not a mandatory expense. So I actually put that under profit, which is owner pay and kind of owner expenses. So when I meet with the operations manager, we go item by item. I don’t do that for my owner benefit expenses. I only do that for the operational expenses. Now he knows I get mentorship. So it’s not necessarily something that is hidden or secretive. I just don’t want to penalize what I’m going to say our numbers operationally me, you know, if I was the owner, I can’t necessarily guarantee that the business would pay that fee for mentorship. I don’t know if that answers your question or if you want to ask another question to help me elaborate on it.

Mike (03:09):

No, that definitely does. And what it shows is that you have a real tight grasp of your expenses, you know, what is absolutely essential and what is, you know, quote unquote discretionary, and in the terms of the mentorship angle of it, you could certainly choose not to make that expense, but the cool part about what we’ve kind of looked at here on our leaderboard is that the expense that you’re spending on mentorship is generating over $10,000 in return, which I think is just such a cool thing. I’ll ask you, I asked you this a little bit before the call started, but I’ll ask you to think about it again. Did you, when you heard that, that was your return on investment for mentorship, what did you think of that?

Charlie (03:46):

No, I didn’t hear that number until you just told me right before we jumped on or at the beginning of this call. So it, to me, everything’s changed since I started the Two-Brain mentorship plan and incubator. And so it is definitely not surprising. And if I’m completely honest, I think that number’s probably short, really if we started actually looking at the difference that this has been for my business.

Mike (04:17):

Tell me about some of the major differences. Like what are some of the greatest things? I’m going to add, we’re going to dig into a little bit, how about how you use mentorship, but what do you see right off the top, what is the greatest return on investment for you without having to run the numbers on it?

Charlie (04:35):

It just taught me how to be a business owner and how to run a business. So that’s like a very generic overarching theme to what it did and the actual mentor, right. Cause I’ve actually gone through three mentors and and that’s been great, you know, I love that, you know, I can grow with Two-Brain, right. So one time I heard a podcast that Chris did and he kinda mentioned like, Hey, it’s not bad to switch mentors. And I remember reaching out to Eden and just kind of saying, look, this is kind of a new focus that I have. Who’s the best person on y’all’s team that can help me accomplish it. And so, you know, in the beginning we’ll call it stage one. I went through the incubator with Jeff. He was amazing. He was like the perfect dude for me because, Burlingame. Yeah. And he just really helped me to, I mean I related to him really well, you know, he was easy to talk to, but you know,I’ll say this, the modules are really the meat and potatoes, right. So like the mentor comes in and he just helps you talk through some of the stuff that you’re doing. But I loved working through the modules and I loved getting all the information and then getting to talk through it with him was very beneficial because I could, you know, it just gave me somebody to actually like to bounce ideas off of, because you can’t do that with the modules. And so, but I had kind of gotten to that point where I felt like man, we’d gone through COVID. And he was, you know, he was helpful, but I think even the Facebook group was super helpful during that time.

Charlie (06:17):

Right. All the different things that were being posted in the group. And, then at some point I realized, OK, what I really want to do. And this was right after COVID for us, May of 2020 is I want to develop an operations manager and I need to really get a better handle on my numbers. And so I felt like Jeff was great for the period of time that, you know, he worked with me, which was really like December to May. So I reached out to Eden and she gave me a few different mentors names. And then I didn’t really know who they were, what they, she gave me kind of a general overview of what they specialize in. And then she ended up putting me in with Josh, who she said was over all the mentors. So I actually did a couple of calls with him.

Charlie (07:01):

And it’s interesting how, you know, for anyone who’s out there who has a mentor. I really think like a lot of it has to do with like, you have to be so open and so honest of what you need, because ultimately the mentor probably has access to all the tools to help you. But if you’re not completely open and vulnerable with what your needs are, it’s really hard. So me and Josh, I think had a little difficulty in the beginning connecting because I wanted a specific thing. But I don’t know if he just didn’t understand that. Well, finally he ended up saying, look, I know what you need, you need this sheet. And it was a big sheet. And he was like, let me show you how to use it. Well, I’ll tell you what, that was like, transformational. I have literally fallen in love with my big sheet.

Charlie (07:52):

So like, if I’m honest, like the biggest thing I got from those two months with him was that big sheet. And, you know, I think Chris Cooper says this, you know, if he pays whatever, $900 for mentorship or for seminar and you get one big idea, it’s totally worth it. And so for me, Josh was great because he essentially introduced me to the big sheet, which I had not used. And then I felt like, OK, I really now, and he kind of also helped me with the operations manager development a little bit, because he had a gym that he had completely been removed from, but it was running on its own and kind of explained to me some things. And our gym is pretty, I mean, we do a lot of revenue and we’re pretty big. And so it’s hard to find another person who understands dealing with those, that size numbers in this space.

Charlie (08:43):

And so I kind of still felt like, man, I still needed something different. Well then, Eden connected me with Anastasia, and that’s who I’ve been with for, I guess since maybe August or September. And here’s what I’ve learned and I’ll call it phase three of mentorship because here all along, I’m applying all the things that Jeff and I worked through in the incubator, all the things that you know, Josh kind of and I talked to her about developing the new operations manager and the big sheet, and now it’s with Anastasia. And what I learned with Anastasia was I’m only going to get as much value out of her as I come to that call prepared to share my biggest struggles in that season, which is, you know, we do a 30 minute, every two weeks. I kind of requested that because once a month, an hour, for me, I’m a relational person.

Charlie (09:36):

So I kind of need a little more, touchpoints. And so I asked her, I said, look, I’d rather do two 30 minute calls a month than one hour call and it works for her and we did it. And so we get to check in every two weeks and you know, I got to come to that call and, you know, every two weeks you’re, you know, as a business owner, entrepreneur, you’re struggling with something. And for me, I’m such an optimist that it really I have to really think about what am I struggling because I paint positive pictures to every struggle, right? So I could easily tell you, you know, how this thing that’s not good is good. And so, but that’s honestly not why the mentor’s there, the mentor’s there for me to say, Hey, this thing that’s really not good.

Charlie (10:20):

It’s really not good. And I need your help. And so, you know, that’s been really, kind of what I would say, development for me kind of in the being mentored space. And I’m also most of the time in my life, a mentor in everybody’s life, you know, I’ve got staff, I’ve got a lot of people that I disciple. I’ve got, you know, people that I lead and yes, I’m mentored by certain people in my life. But most of the time we’ll say like nine out of 10 people in my life I’m kind of pouring into. So it’s really hard for me to just receive that mentorship. And I think with your Two-Brain coach, like, you just have to receive it, but the only way they can help you is if you really are honest and you just open up and you say, man, this thing really sucks.

Charlie (11:09):

Like an example of that, an example of that was with Anastasia, it was so good. Like I was feeling really stretched in my schedule. Like I had very little margin and that can be stressful is when you go from thing to thing to thing, and you love it, you know, it’s not like I’m not coaching 13 classes or hours a day like I used to, I’m doing like really great things. Like, you know, I’m just meeting with people or doing these, but I’m just filling up my calendar. Like I’m just, you know, like white space in my calendar for me is like, yeah, I’m like, man, I got to put something in there. Well then finally she helped me to realize that, like, you know, you need to kind of like be OK with actually saying no, you know, I remember like how empowering it was.

Charlie (12:00):

Cause after that call, this was probably in April. I went for the next like four months and just like actually like marked certain days in my calendar, just out of office and like, you know, certain things like that. And I would say that prior to that, I had a lot of good boundaries. Like, you know, I’m off certain days at certain times I start certain days at certain times. So it’s not like I was just this kind of like, you know, 5:00 AM to 8:00 PM. No, it was, it was already what most people would say, like, man, you’re pretty disciplined, but at the same time, you know, if you get to the gym at eight o’clock in the morning and you leave at 4:00 PM, but you never had a moment to breathe or to sit down and, you know, just really kind of get caught up with different tasks.

Charlie (12:46):

Then you start feeling that stress because you get home. And you’re still thinking about the thing that you didn’t do when in reality you had all the time in the world from eight to four, you just filled it with stuff that you shouldn’t have. And so it was really empowering to kind of say, you know what, I’m just going to put a flag in the ground. You know, I remember a big thing was like, I would feel guilty if I was going to go out of town. And now I have some personal training clients and they couldn’t work out or maybe I had to put them with another trainer and that was still makes me feel bad. Well, then I remember my wife, we have four little kids, you know, if we’re going to leave on a Saturday, we go to Florida for a week.

Charlie (13:24):

Well, Friday before we leave, I would like stack my schedule. In reality, I really needed Friday off. Cause I needed to kind of be home to help pack and help with the kids and kind of just support her right. And support our trip, but I’d feel guilty cause I’m going to be gone the whole next week to take that Friday off, you know? And then I was like, you know what, I’m just going to go in. And I’m going to take that Friday off in advance, like, you know, two months before I have to even make the decision so that I already know I’m going to communicate to those people I’m taking that day off. And you know, it was amazing when you go in advance and you actually kind of set these boundaries. And so I, again, that’s just one example of the value of mentorship. You know, another example would be like Fridays, you know, I like to end the day early, but I would end up having little things that I, you know, because I have kind of white space in my calendar and my cutoff time is technically two. And Anastasia’s like, why don’t you make it 10? And I was like, what do you mean? She’s like, well, just make it 10. And then I’m like, what do I do from 10 to two? She’s like, whatever you want. And I’m like, I can do that.

Mike (14:29):

Yeah. I mean, I’m just going to jump in and unpack a couple of things. You’ve covered a couple of really important things that I want listeners to jump on. You’ve talked about working with three different mentors and addressing three different aspects of the business, which is so cool where you’ve got like first you’ve got the foundation in place, then you’ve got a focus on metrics. And now with Anastasia, it sounds like you’re really focusing on like managing your time, finding some extra net owner benefit, which would be like more time off, more lifestyle stuff. And just all the things that make you a better, not just a gym owner, but a better person, a better father, a better husband and all the other things that come into that. And it’s really cool. The thing that you said that I really thought was interesting was about even as an eternal optimist, being honest about things that aren’t going well. So I want to use that to jump into this next question here. Some people don’t really understand how mentorship should work. So you’ve broken your calls out into two 30 minute sessions. How do you prepare for those? Like how do you decide what you’re going to bring to your mentor? And then how do you ensure that that half hour and the entire hour over the course of a month, how do you ensure that that generates measurable results?

Charlie (15:39):

Yeah, so I, you know, there’s certain things in my life that I have already, that I realized provide value. And what I’ve learned, exercise is one of those things is, you know, not every workout am I looking forward to it. You know, I mean, I can tell you there’s been way more workouts than I would like to admit as a gym owner and a person who loves working out that I am literally like dreading this thing in the first 10 minutes. Right. So it’s kinda like, and then it never fails by the end of it. It’s always like, man, I’m so glad I did that. Right. And if we measure that workout, like, I mean, I could have performed very poorly in the scope of all the workouts that I’ve ever done in my life. And so what I’ve realized with this experience in Two-Brain is, you know, I can’t judge one call and kind of be the end all be all.

Charlie (16:34):

And it’s like, you know, if the call necessarily wasn’t measurable in like return on investment, like at the end of the day, the next call will be, or maybe the fifth call after that. Right. So it’s like some of those calls, what I really think it has more to do with me and my honesty and my vulnerability and just my cry for help than it has to do with her. Cause you know, she’s just there to help me. And you know, I’ve had times where I’m like, Hey, you know, and I would say with Anastasia, it’s great because she also knows her role. Right. So she’s very much like she wants to help. And she kind of, I think now as at this stage is getting to understand me a little bit more and kinda knows, you know, it’s just like me and my personal training clients.

Charlie (17:26):

Right. Like when they show up, I know if they need what I’ll call a easy workout, a moderate workout or a hard workout. And I know that because I know them so well. Right. And so the mentor role is right now, I feel like in this season of mentorship, I need to open up about my challenges as they come with my mentor. And so, yeah. So in this season, like let’s just say, I mean, and I’ve always said this, like when things are good, which I’ve been there, it’s almost like you are laying back on the beach, you know, sunny skies, you know, you just gotta get ready. Cause that storm’s coming and you just, you know, you don’t know why and you don’t know what’s going to cause it, but it’s like when it comes OK. That’s, you know, just, and again, that’s when having a mentor would be be very helpful.

Charlie (18:21):

And for some people that was COVID, I think for all of us, that was COVID. And that, you know, is very valuable that whatever that storm is, maybe somebody quits, maybe somebody goes and starts a new gym or maybe, you know, you’re feeling discouraged or whatever it is, you know, those things are gonna happen. And so I’m in that season right now where like, I need to be aware every two weeks of OK. Or in the same light is like, OK, what do I need to do? What do I need to, you know, say out loud to Anastasia that I need her to hold me accountable to, you know, and that might be, you know, Hey, it’s kinda like a client that needs to stop drinking sodas. Well, if they’re drinking them in secret and not telling me, then I don’t even know

Charlie (19:06):

I need to tell them to stop drinking soda. Maybe I need to tell Anastasia like, Hey, I need to post this job ad, you know, and I need you to hold me accountable to that. So two weeks I got to get back to her and she does a good job of like taking notes of everything. And then she’ll email me like a summary of the tasks based on the conversation. And so that’s kind of helpful just because I’ll save those emails and I’ll refer back to them and, you know, make sure that I’m at least working towards that. Sometimes I’ll send her a random email and I’ll say, Hey, this is done. This is in progress. This’ll be done into June.

Chris (19:43):

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Mike (20:04):

I’m going to jump in here and I’ve got to point out something you said that was just genius. It’s an analogy that every gym owner should get. And it’s the one that you said about, it’s like a nutrition client that you’re working with, who maybe doesn’t tell you exactly what he or she is eating, and you can’t fully help that person if you don’t know what the intake is. And that’s just an incredible way to look at the mentorship thing because in the last month or so, we’ve talked a lot about it in our private Facebook group, about vulnerability as gym owners and how we’re in positions where we have to be leaders. We have to have mentors. We have to be strong for our staff and our clients, but inside there’s tons of fear in every entrepreneur. And unless we kind of address that stuff and talk about it and talk about our challenges and then be honest, even about some of the stuff that we aren’t doing, maybe it’s like, you know, everyone has excuses for why certain things didn’t get done.

Mike (20:54):

If, unless we’re honest about that as mentorship clients, we’re not going to get the results. So it’s really cool what you said, because I remember there’s so many, you know, I don’t work as a Two-Brain Business mentor, but I know that there are times when they have, when a client will say, everything’s great, but the client actually doesn’t want to say, oh, I’m struggling with this. Or I didn’t do that. Or I slid back because it’s embarrassing as leaders and as Type-A driven people who do hard workouts and lead huge groups of people, it’s hard to say I screwed up, but when you do that and when you take ownership and tell the mentor, that’s when you can actually fix stuff. Have you had any experiences like that?

Charlie (21:33):

Oh yeah. I mean that’s basically what I would say, crying out for help. You know, it’s like, I tell my wife and we’ve been married 12 years. We have four kids ages, 8, 6, 4, and two. And you know, we dated six years prior to marriage. So we’ve been together 18 years and long. It’s like, you know, I realized I can not read her mind, you know, I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. But I told her I’m so good at following instructions, right. So if you just tell me, I can help. And so, you know, it’s the same thing in mentorship, you know, they’re really there just to help you, but they can’t read your mind. And so when you get off your way, let’s say, you know, as a gym owner, you’re right. It’s ego, it’s pride.

Charlie (22:21):

It’s, embarrassed. I don’t wanna admit that I suck at leadership. I don’t wanna admit that I suck at, you know, training staff. I don’t want to admit that I suck at coaching. And so well, you know, if you can just admit what you suck at, then the mentor has access to so many resources, right. Through the Growth ToolKit, the modules, other mentors, or maybe their personal experience. And, you know, and I always find that it’s so cool to like talk to people who have sucked at stuff that have gotten better at, but, you know, remember what it was like to maybe I’m sucking at, you know? And so that’s how we grow and that’s how we challenge each other and encourage one another.

Mike (23:08):

Even the act of asking for mentorship takes a bit of ego diminishment, right? Like Chris Cooper’s written about this. It wasn’t until he finally decided I can’t figure this out on my own, I’m going to ask for help that his business and his career and his life took off. When he was, you know, running into the brick wall over and over again, he was getting the same results and he had to just dial back that ego a little bit, ask for help and when he did, everything changed. And that’s kind of the cool part about it. Listeners, if you take nothing else from this conversation, it would be to be vulnerable and open with your mentor because he or she can help you through your problems. And it’s the exact same thing as a nutrition client, who doesn’t tell a nutrition coach about the bucket of ice cream.

Mike (23:49):

Right? So Charlie, I want to thank you for that analogy because it’s brilliant. I’m going to steal it for all time with credit to you. Of course. I want to dig into one other thing that I thought was really cool that you do. Career Growth ToolKit sessions with staff members. We understand now, as you know, as a single person, you can only do so much to grow a huge, successful, very profitable business. You’re going to have to scale up your staff is the key to that staff in the right business setting should not be an expense. They should generate revenue beyond what they’re paid. So career Growth ToolKit sessions, key part of the Two-Brain plan. Not everyone holds these meetings, explain why you meet with staff, what you share with them and how you get return on investment in those meetings.

Charlie (24:31):

Yeah. And so I wouldn’t say that I look at it like return on investment. So this started several years ago, way before Two-Brain. I think what Two-Brain allowed me to do was implement a little bit more structure to it. So I called these quarterly reviews and I remember exactly when I started doing them. It was 2014 and I hated doing this prior to then, I mean, I really avoided it cause I’m like, I don’t like telling people they’re doing a good job or a bad job. That’s just not, I really just, I value people. Relationships. That’s like what I really care about. So when I would have to meet with somebody awkwardly with this survey evaluation scoring system, it would just, you know, so annual review, you know, all those things, I just hated it. So somebody had kind of given me some advice back in that time.

Charlie (25:22):

And said, well, just, you know, ask them kind of what their goals are in the next three to six months, ask them kind of, is there anything major going on in their life, ask them you know, where do they want to be in a year and just check in? I’m like, well, I can do that. Like that’s fun. And I’ll never forget, like actually meeting with, in the first round of those at the time I had a lot of part-time staff. So I was doing probably, you know, almost 10 or 12 per quarter, which turns out to be a really busy week, you know, cause I would allocate an hour per quarterly review and relationally, it connected me so much with my staff. It allowed me to kind of really understand where they were. It allowed me to kind of play a bigger mentorship role in their lives.

Charlie (26:04):

And that was great. And I pretty much would do that regularly, consistently. And then when I got to Two-Brain and they talked and they introduced the career Growth ToolKit, I thought, man, this is actually a way better way to do it because I think what I had been doing was it was too focused on connecting relationally. So it’s like my mentor in Two-Brain. I mean, I appreciate her, she appreciates me, you know, we appreciate each other, but also she’s here to help my business. Right. So it’s like, I understand that. And she understands that because if we get on the call and we just talk about, you know, my family, kids, my, you know, her personal life, my personal life, then it’s kinda like, well, why am I doing this? Not to say that in a rude way, but it’s, you know, cause I appreciate people, but I actually, I think it’s better in the Two-Brain that that is the way it is, that it’s focused on the business.

Charlie (27:04):

Right. And it’s focused on me as a business owner, her as a business mentor. Well, I kind of had turned that quarterly review into like a hundred percent relationship and zero business. Well, career Growth ToolKit on the other hand is really more career-focused quarterly review, which employees, they like that. And they want that. And so it gives me, gave me some structure. So actually, you know, that last May, 2020 is when I kind of had introduced this new role of operations manager going back to earlier in the call, which is kind of what I wanted some help developing this person. And he is the one that does those career Growth ToolKits. And so, it’s based on the outline, given to us in the Two-Brain. And it is, you know, a great way. Cause it almost like here’s the problem with me.

Charlie (27:54):

I am so relationship focused, right? If I did those, we would end up going 95% how are you doing in your life? What’s going on? And then 5% career and focus on. And so I’m almost the problem, you know, it sounds so terrible, but that’s how I’m wired. I’m wired to just, you know, love people in relationship. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that like, if you don’t do that, you don’t love people because part of loving people is like really focused on the career side and talking about the things, how are they going to achieve their financial goals and how are they going to continue to develop in their role in the gym and you know, in the career. So, I just found out that I’m probably not the best person to do this. But having a little bit of a blueprint really helps in guiding my operations manager to do that.

Mike (28:49):

And when you’ve done that stuff, you’ve got a couple of things accomplished. So you’ve got relationship building, obviously just meeting with someone. I’ve heard this from other gym owners, regardless of what you talk about, just doing a one-on-one meeting regularly with a staff member, every quarter is going to build relationships, open lines of communication, all the stuff that you said you were excellent at. The second part of that now is the career Growth ToolKit where you actually have someone according to a plan, trying to figure out, is this person happy? Does he or she need and want more? What opportunities can you provide? How can this person make more money? What ideas do they have? The whole thing. And you map out this exact route to success and what that does. You’ve got the relationship part covered. What this does is ensures that that employee and staff member now has a path to a career as opposed to the dead end.

Mike (29:36):

You know, I’m not making enough, there’s no opportunities and I’m going to go into anothjer industry, which we’ve seen all too often in fitness. So I love that you’re doing these things that I love even more, that you’ve delegated them. Because again, that frees up like 12 hours of your schedule, but it also ensures that, like you said, if you’re just a relationship guy and that’s what you focus on, this ensures that the relationship is built through someone else, but the business end of it is also covered. So that’s really cool. The other thing related to that I want to ask about is your daily huddles. Meetings are notorious time-wasters. And like, I just used to cringe when I would have to, when I worked in an office and had to meet with people because it’s generally just nothing really gets done, but you do daily huddles. So tell me where they come from, what happens in them and how do you get a return on that investment? Because if you think about 50 minutes with your entire staff, that’s actually a lot of hours.

Charlie (30:28):

Yeah, several years ago I had a guy who was kind of mentoring me. He owns a big law firm, and I remember saying to him, man meetings are just dreadful and they’re just I feel like I don’t have good meetings and he recommended Patrick Lencioni’s book called “Death by Meetings.” And this was probably eight years ago when I first read the book and I remember reading it and thought, man, this is awesome. And I think what I got the first time I read it was like conflict in your meetings is a good thing. You know? Cause I had come in and previous to that, my meetings was like basically a speech. I was giving a speech and there’s not a lot of interaction. And definitely when you’re giving a speech, there’s no debate and no conflict. And so that was probably the takeaway I got is a great, it’s an easy read.

Charlie (31:22):

It’s like four and a half hours on audible. And then I read it again about three years ago and I think what it did the second time, it just, it helped me to just really like better understand the agenda and having like a little more structure and don’t just wing it and, and, you know, come in with a plan and you know, actually have strategy. And so that was kinda what I got. Well here recently I read it again. There’s a guy that owns a gym that I kind of mentor and I had recommended it to him. And so I in recommending it to him, I re-read the book. Well, this last time, this was like December ish, this past year. So 2020 December, it was like light bulbs went off and I had already been having meetings. We would have a Wednesday leadership meeting.

Charlie (32:18):

We started having the daily huddle in like October, September, October, this past 2020. And then we I think that was it. We were doing Wednesday meetings with the leadership meetings, full staff. Every Wednesday we meet and the second Wednesday, our CSM would jump in with our full-time coaches, but every other, all the other Wednesdays were just leadership. And then the daily huddle we started because we were really trying to focus on sales. And I had heard and read books about daily huddles, but we actually, now we only have full-time coaches. And so it actually works for us to have a one o’clock meeting, it’s 15 minutes and we really just have a whiteboard and we go over person by person like, you know, who are you talking to? Who have you signed up?

Charlie (33:10):

You know, what package are they doing, who has dropped? And then reading the book again in December, just affirm the daily huddle. And I restructured it and kind of made it where there’s three of our coaches that are kind of more needing to focus on outreach and we’ll call it prospecting. So on Mondays they identify three old members and three new people who they’re going to reach out to that week. So that’s six people. That’s huge. And then all they’re responsible for throughout the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is kind of getting, giving the update on how those, and then my operations manager and my lead PT are kind of more so focused on just over bigger arching, you know my, my operations manager does a lot of the lead nurturing and sales. And so he gives a report kind of on how that’s going.

Charlie (34:02):

And then the lead PT gives a report on how any new clients that are coming in. And so it just creates this really neat daily kind of team-building, but very focused on numbers, very focused on sales, very focused on sign-ups and awareness amongst the team. So the death by meeting, I think just really gives you a good blueprint. And I structured based on that book, me and my operations manager kind of, we now do a different structure to our meetings based on that book, we do a weekly tactical meeting, which is kind of, what’s talked about in the book for an hour, which we were kind of meeting, in May, when he started operations manager to December, we met three times a week for an hour and a half. And that was me developing him into the role he’s in. In January.

Charlie (34:48):

We shifted to one hour once a week and then two hours once a month and then all day on every three months. And that’s kind of our strategic planning and that’s kind of the format. And then we still have our Wednesdays, Wednesdays we don’t meet at one for the huddle. We just meet at 1:30 to 2:30. And we have that where once a month we record a podcast as coaches. So that’s very laid back, right. It’s kind of fun. We’re just kinda more hanging out and talking. Another one of those meetings is that second Wednesday as a full staff, which is the CSM comes, that’s where we review the numbers. We kind of go off of the Two-Brain meeting agenda, right? And then we review the numbers from the previous month and how many members we lost, how many members we added, what was our expenses?

Charlie (35:37):

What was our revenue, what was our profit? And then, you know, anything specific like SOP wise, one or two that we want to talk about. Bright spots. And then the other two meetings are kind of more focused on development. So other coaches will research a subject or topic and then just kind of share with the group what they’re working on. And right now we’re reading the pumpkin plan. And so that’s a seven week, discussion. So today at one, at 1:30, we’re going to be discussing chapters three and four of the pumpkin plan.

Mike (36:12):

Charlie, I got to ask you this, I’m giddy to know the answer. When you have your staff members reach out to clients, do you get new members or do you get old members to return?

Charlie (36:22):

You know, I will say this. I’ve been doing this. I’m 39 years old. I started when I was 21. I feel like for 18 years, you know, I’ve been doing two things, prospecting and selling, and I’ve always said, like, I don’t consider myself a great salesman. I just 1000% believe in health and fitness and nutrition. And I want to share that with the world. Right? So that’s why I’m always prospecting. And that’s why I’m always selling, right. Well, when you get a new trainer who just started or who’s, I mean, three years into it, they do not understand that they have no way of actually understanding the importance of what I’m going to say, that skill or that muscle. Now here’s the thing that I’ve learned. If you take all the people that I’ve talked to, that I’ve prospect or that I’ve sold or tried to sell in the last 18 years, like my percentage is probably really low.

Charlie (37:29):

I mean, in the number of people that I’ve, I mean, I’ve gone to places and spoke to 200 people, right. At one time and I mean, maybe signed up zero, right? Maybe it was just there to share information and give a seminar and nobody was interested. Or maybe I’ve had a day where I’ve met with three clients like consultations and signed all three. So you can say that was a very successful day. Well, here’s the deal, what this is doing. Yes. It may bring new customers, but what I’ve loved that it, I know it’s doing 100% of the time is it is getting these trainers, these coaches who want to do this as a career to exercise that muscle, to develop that skill. Because what that skill requires is you can’t get your feelings hurt when somebody says no, you know, like that’s the thing that rejection is what kills people when it comes to this.

Charlie (38:21):

So it’s like, I mean, you might reach out to six people and you don’t even get anybody to call you back, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to reach out six more people next week. And it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna reach out six more. So I need to kind of train you to get really good at taking rejection. Yeah. Every now and then you might catch a fish, right? I mean, that’s part of the game. And at the end of the day, you have to know that the person is not just a name. This is a person’s life who needs your help, who ultimately needs our help that won’t do, unless we’re helping them do it.

Mike (38:56):

By career development, right? Like this is staff development and a little bit of sales because you are going to get some of those people back. Either way, though, the return on investment of that is huge. Right? You get you know, a staff member, who’s now more comfortable with your business. Who’s learning to do the things that you did, which is that outreach and connection with the community. But they’re also potentially going to sell something. And so you can see huge return on investment in that. Charlie, I want to ask you one other thing. You’re the leader. I want to ask you what would be your first step and we’ll keep it short here because I want to make it super actionable for Two-Brain clients. How would you recommend that they get more out of the money they spend on mentorship? What is like the one or two things that you would advise them to do on their next call?

Charlie (39:40):

I feel like if you want to keep it short, I think it was already said is before that call, you need to be ready to admit your biggest struggle with your mentor and then just listen. And second part to that is do what they say.

Mike (39:57):

I love it. That’s sounds simple, but it’s not so obvious to everyone because we have all these emotional things going on. But the reality is exactly what you said is be honest. And then listen, and take action. Those three things. Again, if you take only two things from this episode, that’s the second one. It would be, be honest, listen to the mentor and then take action. And if you fail to take action, be honest about that too, then complete the cycle. You go back to the beginning. Charlie, I know you’re a super busy guy. You’ve probably got four kids that need your attention and a whole bunch of staff members. I’m going to let you go. But I really want to thank you for your time and sharing with us all the different stuff that you do to make return on investment in mentorship. Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie (40:37):

Thank you.

Mike (40:38):

I’m Mike Warkentin and that was Charlie Lima. FOMO alert. You need to be in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook. Other gym owners are helping each other solve problems in there and Two-Brain mentors offer all kinds of free tips. Don’t miss out on peer support and industry insight. That’s Gym Owners United on Facebook. Join now.

 

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