Mike (00:02):
80 new clients after working with a mentor, this number can’t be right. Can it? Dane, is this number right?
Dane (00:08):
It is right. Fortunately. Yes. It’s very correct.
Mike (00:12):
I need to hear the story. And so do our listeners. This is Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. Please subscribe and hit like wherever you are watching or listening. Now. Dane McCarthy is my guest. He runs West Village Athletic he’s in New York City in Manhattan, not far from the Empire State Building. So without further ado, we’re gonna get right into it because I know you wanna know the answer that I wanna know also. Dan, how did you add 80 new clients in 30 days?
Dane (00:38):
Yeah, we really just followed the Two-Brain formula. I had a really great mentor Russell, and one of the most valuable
Mike (00:45):
It’s Russell Francis.
Dane (00:46):
Francis. Yeah. Yep. And one of the first things we did, I think the second week was develop a sales playbook, that clearly articulated what we sell and why we sell it. And, put that into, I think we call the sales binder, create a sales binder, and followed the process. We created no sweat intros. We called them just intros, ran our clients through, the binder and had incredible success.
Mike (01:13):
So this was all through the Two-Brain Rampup program and if so, when did you start that?
Dane (01:18):
Right. Started the rampup program, late last year, but really only in anger, kind of in the start of the new year.
Mike (01:31):
Tell me why in anger. I’m gonna ask that one.
Dane (01:33):
Like I think, I think I signed up to Two-Brain thinking, you know, there’ll be some good tidbits in there and they’ll throw me some content that I could use. I wasn’t expecting the breadth of information and the seriousness to which I had to kind of apply myself to implementing it. So when I kind of grasped that there was some real actions and I had to implement serious changes to the gym, that’s when I started seeing real results when I started really implementing the changes.
Mike (02:02):
Yeah. And one of the reasons I wanted to get you on the show is that Chris Cooper and the Two-Brain staff are always improving our program. So rampup, which used to be called incubator, has evolved. And now it’s designed to be a very swift sprint, which you’ve experienced and to get some action and some wins right away. So in 30 days you got 80 new clients, you know, which is incredible. As you were seeing this happen what was your thought process? Like what was your brain seeing? Like I’ve never got any clients in a year, let alone a month.
Dane (02:30):
Yeah. I mean, I was shocked like, cuz the way we were doing it is we were just sending broad messages out through Instagram, to people being like, Hey, would you like to join the gym? And then we’d provide a link to sign up directly, you know, from our Instagram or our website. And what that did is it took, it meant that we didn’t have control over the process. We were just kind of sending things out and hoping it’d stick. And it did, it got us to 50 70 clients. But having a direct call to action that resulted in a call that allowed us to properly articulate our value proposition and explain why we thought it was a really good thing for these people who were interested, was really just a tipping point. And then as soon as that happened, we just started closing members, really frequently.
Mike (03:16):
So that was a switch in your intake process. Like what did you do before as opposed to a consultation or an introduction? Yeah.
Dane (03:24):
Before we were just posting on Instagram and then we had really convoluted website where they would go to the website, they had to select, which squad and we can talk about how we’re a little bit different in our training style, but they had to go and select their squad, click into it and then buy on mind body. There was no one really holding their hand or guiding them. So I think people go on the website, they’re a little bit confused. They didn’t really understand why we were different. But it was working. So I didn’t really think that it could do any better, you know? Until I sat with Russell and he kind of was like, well maybe there’s a different way of doing that.
Mike (04:01):
You know, your experience isn’t that different from mine because back, you know, I started my gym, I think in 2010 we had a similar thing. We had a, you know, confusing website, too many options, too many things where people would just show up and we weren’t doing any advertising or outreach at that point. This was early on when there were only a few CrossFit gyms, right. So we would just like expect people to find us, which they did. And then they would click through our convoluted website and they would maybe sign up or they would call us or something like that. But we didn’t have that process put in place, that process of sitting down with people and saying, what are you interested in? What are your goals? What do you need? And then giving them a plan in that no sweat intro or free consultation model. It really helped us A diversify, our revenue streams, where some people wanted personal training, some wanted nutrition, some wanted both, some wanted group. And then the other thing it did is it really allowed us to, you know, tailor our service to their goals and build the value proposition, which helped us close more sales. So is that kind of the same experience that you had almost word for word?
Dane (04:56):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And a really important part of that was the sales binder, going through that exercise. Like the binder is what the binder is, but going through the exercise of putting down on paper what is it that we’re selling and why is it valuable was a really good exercise for myself. And my coaches. They were the ones who took the calls and did the great job on bringing members on. And they could only do that because we had clearly articulated what we were selling.
Mike (05:23):
OK.
Mike (05:25):
And what Dane’s talking about here, listeners, is the sales binder or pricing binder, whatever you wanna call it is, a booklet, or it can be an iPad presentation that you use to guide people through these consultation processes. And it lays out your offers very clearly. It helps you showcase your value and it’s not a gigantic 30 page thing. It’s very short, very concise and very pointed. And the act of putting it together, which we lead you through in ramp up, will help you clarify what you are actually selling. Because a lot of people, oddly enough, don’t actually know. I thought I was selling fitness and CrossFit and sweat and vomit. When in fact I was actually selling coaching. And when you start to realize that, your value goes up and you can ask people for $300 a month, not just 79.99 for equipment access and so forth. So, we’re gonna dig into this stuff a little bit more, but tell me a little bit about the history of your gym, how long you’ve been around, what’s your deal? What’s what kind of training styles do you do? Give me the backstory.
Dane (06:17):
Yeah, great. No, I appreciate giving that opportunity. So we started, West Village Athletic kind of during the pandemic. A bunch of Australian expats, all working full time, and were just a bit lonely. So we started working out together, outdoors and the insight we had when training here in the US is that the training style’s great. It’s intense, it’s fun. It’s really entertaining. But in some cases it’s quite transactional. So what we did is we tried to emulate the training style, which we have back at home, back in Australia, which is you train with your 10, 15 closest mates. So what makes us different is when you joined WVA, you join a training squad, you join, that squad twice a week. you have a dedicated coach that oversees the progress of the squad itself and the members within it. And, why we think that’s so valuable is it gives people an opportunity to get to know the people they’re training with, you know, become accountable to one another enjoy training, and kinda get more from just the training than the physical, but also the holistic mental and social elements as well.
Mike (07:22):
Does that come from a military background or is that, something you guys came up with outside that?
Dane (07:27):
No, certainly not military. I played rugby back at home. So really that’s just how we trained when we were training rugby. And I think a lot of people in America can relate to that because there’s a lot of college athletes, lot of high school sports. People finish. And they’re like, now what, you know, I haven’t got a group of people to train with anymore. I haven’t got a team. so it’s certainly just a lift and shift from my rugby days, to be honest.
Mike (07:49):
- And so you opened during the pandemic in 2020?
Dane (07:53):
Yep. That’s right.
Mike (07:54):
In Manhattan no less. So there’s a bit of pressure on you probably financially. I’m guessing.
Dane (07:58):
Yeah, it was scary leap to take. I mean, this is certainly not my full-time job. I have a full-time job that I love and I work at, what we did is we, there was a place that was going under, just during the pandemic. We were able to negotiate a really good lease to maintain it as a gym. So we took that over and we started very small scale. Our squads were five people, deliberately so that we could contact trace. And then as COVID restrictions started to lift, we got the squads built out a little bit more and we hired coaches and a general manager who runs the day to day of the gym.
Mike (08:34):
You do PT as well or nutrition, or is it just these squads?
Dane (08:41):
Yeah, this was another thing that I got from Two-Brain. I mean, our revenue stream was really one dimensional. We were just selling these squads, as part of the sales binder process, we added PT and I was honestly really like, I don’t know, it’s not really our thing. And we sold a whole lot of those and it’s because people are looking for it, you know, they’re looking for more personalized training. And so by offering that, we brought on five or six as part of those 80 members, PT, which diversified our revenue stream completely.
Mike (09:13):
I imagine that in your area, you know, busy Manhattan people, there’s probably a convenience factor that appeals to the PT crowd where it’s like, I can’t make that squad, but do you have a slot at, you know, 2:00 PM on Wednesday? Right?
Dane (09:24):
Yeah. Spot on, spot on. Yeah. And then there’s other people who have come out of the pandemic who were, you know, they just fell behind a little bit in their fitness routines. Yeah. And they were looking for, a bit of a jumpstart in their trainings. We had a lot of people really successfully do some PT, kinda get to a level where they felt comfortable to jump in with the squad.
Mike (09:40):
So we talked a little bit about this earlier and you said there was some anger, which I thought was hilarious, but tell me more about why you decided to do the ramp up. And what was the process like when you started up with Russell?
Dane (09:51):
Yeah, I mean, we decided to do the mentoring because, this isn’t my full-time job. And so I was really needing to be more efficient with managing the gym. Right. This was just before we had hired a GM. So my workload, the gym was increasing and I needed to kind of, be more efficient, so started looking around for help. And really, I was just intrigued by just getting access to France, Russell Francis, because he had been a similar thing. He’d worked full time in finance. And so, I was really just interested in the mentorship alone.
Mike (10:26):
He’s just over in Jersey, close to you guys.
Dane (10:28):
Right. That’s right. Yeah. And he’s got two gyms and he’s an expat as well. So I thought it would be great just to have a yarn to a bloke who’s done something similar, I think, full time when he started. So that was all, I was really interested in. It wasn’t until, I started speaking to the guys over there that I realized it was a bit more to it than just mentoring. And so that’s when I made a decision to jump on board.
Mike (10:51):
So at what point did you realize that this was working? Like, I obviously you’re selling memberships, but were there other points where you were like, aha. Cuz it’s not just like the ramp up is all about systems and staffing and everything, roles and procedures and tasks and some of the boring, like quote unquote making procedures and playbooks and things like that. There is some work involved, but at what point were you like, wow, this is a rocket ship and we’re moving now.
Dane (11:14):
Yeah. I think on that first one or two calls that we had. Where there was members who were looking for to join the gym. And I had such a clearly stated proposition. I was like, wow, OK. This is all I really needed to do. You know, we were doing so many good things, but we hadn’t packaged it or created a process to execute on it. And so it was kind of, well, before we signed 80, it was probably in the first five that I was like, yeah. OK. This is just the consolidation that I needed of all the things that we were already doing.
Mike (11:47):
Do you have any other metrics that you wouldn’t mind sharing? Is there anything else besides the 80 members that you’ve mentioned, you added some staff members and things like that, what else you got?
Dane (11:55):
Yeah. Well diversifying our revenue was really important. Making sure that we were getting, providing more value to our members across different services.
Mike (12:10):
That’s average revenue per member per month for, listeners that’s ARM, as we refer to it. And a bigger number is better both usually for the client and the gym because the client is getting healthier, faster.
Dane (12:19):
That’s right. So our top line grew significantly. Russell really challenged me on our price point, unsurprisingly, well, we started outdoor training and it was a bunch of mates really just mucking around, you know? So our price point was really just a cover costs of hiring a PT to train us. so we were very low and the first thing Russell did was that OK, the new members that you bring on, let’s change that price point so that you can be sustainable going forward, pay your coaches more and make sure the gym lasts.
Mike (12:46):
How much did you add to the price?
Dane (12:48):
$20.
Mike (12:49):
$20. And, was it a difficult sell for you in your mind? Cuz some gym owners, when they do a price increase, they’re like, wow, this is, I can’t sell this. Was it for you? Like difficult to do that? Or, and did you get some confidence when you made those sales or how’d that process go in your mind?
Dane (13:03):
Yeah, it’s funny. I mean, I certainly didn’t go for the rate that that was recommended by Russell and Two-Brain. I was still so nervous. That is so challenging, especially cuz we are mates with the guys that we started training with. Right. Yeah. So there’s that real personal thing that you’ve gotta kind of separate. And I think we’ve got a lot more upside there. In fact that is gonna be a big focus point for the next part of, the mentorship, the changing to 165. I think the process that was described by Russell was for your new members coming on, change the rate and see how it feels. So we managed to do that with all these new members. And then I think we’ll probably have to do a rate rate hike at some point, just so that we can sustain.
Mike (13:46):
And that process has been tested and, you know, I’m sure Russell explained it to you, I’ll just give it to the listeners. But the reason why it’s like that is that when you raise the rates for new people coming in, there’s no fear, well, there’s less fear because they don’t know the rates are different. They just see the rates. And if you start making a few sales at those rates, which everyone does, because we all tend to undervalue ourselves, all of a sudden you realize people see the value. This is what it costs. They’re not telling me it’s too expensive. They realize that this is valuable. That gives you the confidence often to correct some errors. And I had to do this exact same thing because I priced myself way too low. That gives you the confidence to then correct it for your current members and often, and there is a step by step plan a mentor will guide you through, if you need to do that. And there is also a calculation where we have you do it in steps, if you need to go up a lot or in certain amounts. So it’s like, we don’t say, OK, double rates to a hundred, you know, $250 from 125 and lose all your members. It is not like that. There are some steps to that process. So that’s interesting. When are you thinking about doing that? Is that within this year?
Dane (14:48):
Yeah, I think so. I think we’ll need to kind of do it at the end of the year. And what I needed to get over was the mental hurdle. So in calculating the ARM, we really shone a light on my unit economics, and was it gonna be a viable gym, 10 years down the track.
Mike (15:05):
Right.
Dane (15:06):
When we went through that process, I realized, Hey, I won’t be able to service my clients if we don’t raise the rates and that’s a net loss for everyone involved. Yeah. So that going through the calculation of what is required to be sustainable gym was the most valuable process. Not necessarily the rate itself.
Mike (15:26):
Yeah. And it’s great that you’re talking about this stuff because when I started my gym and when others started theirs, they didn’t do any financial calculations. We kind of, I did something similar to you where I was working out with my buddies in the gym, right. Or in the garage, and then we started gym, but I didn’t really do those calculations and ask, can I sustain this long term? And it wasn’t until I realized I couldn’t, then I found Two-Brain that I made those corrections. So it’s great that you’re asking these questions now. Let me ask you this because like everyone knows Manhattan a is a crazy place in terms of rent and lease and all that stuff. How much space have you got there?
Dane (15:56):
Yeah, we’re small. We’ve got, about 1200 square feet.
Mike (16:00):
Yeah. OK. But it’s still Manhattan. So that carries a load to it and you’ve gotta pay the bills. So obviously there’s financial calculations. You’ve gotta make sure that you do them. Whereas, you know, where I was, it was a little easier because we had low rent in a warehouse district of a city that no one ever visits. So I was able to make a few more mistakes. So good for you for figuring, you know, sooner than I did.
Dane (16:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read this from all around. Like it was quite comforting to know that in New York City, I was thinking, goodness, we’re gonna have to spend a whole lot of money on equipment. Now we’re gonna have to flashy lights and we’re gonna have to have influencers and all this kind of jazz and realize that that’s not what people are buying. You know, and I think that’s really clearly, stated in Two-Brain, is people are looking for coaching. They’re looking for companionship. They’re looking for accountability, whether or not you have 20 assault bikes or 10 doesn’t really matter, you know,
Mike (16:54):
Isn’t that a money saving realization, right? Where you’re like, I don’t have to blow a million dollars on all the stuff you mentioned. I just need and Chris has done this video where he is like, I need maybe a plyo box, maybe a barbell, maybe a skipping rope and a dumbbell or something. Obviously you can scale that out based on your model, but you can get effective results just with that. And then starting small, which Chris has also recommended, allows you to become profitable, hit break even, and then become profitable much faster then scale up. And if you need more space at that point, it’s not quite as scary. Right.
Dane (17:24):
Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, New York space is just such a valuable asset. Right. I would like to say we had the room to go and out all this equipment, we didn’t, like we can only have two bikes. So that’s what we’re gonna make do with.
Mike (17:39):
I’m waiting for someone to put a barge on the Hudson river and use that as a gym. Right. Just float that around. I’m sure the city’s figured out some way to permit the hell out of that.
Dane (17:48):
Heavy rent on it.
Mike (17:51):
But someone will do someday, hovering hovercraft or something to get around the municipal guidelines. Talk to me about implementation of changes in rampup, did you have to do any other stuff with like roles and tasks and staffing? And if so, like, how did the staff respond to that or to, you know, if you have coowners or partners, how did they respond to all these changes?
Dane (18:13):
Yeah. We did have to make some big changes there. I’ve always had someone running the gym and I’ve never actually, trained any classes just because at 8:00 AM, I have to clock off and do my full-time job. Yeah. So always had those roles in place, but never had roles, responsibilities, processes for ensuring that, we were delivering the product that we wanted to deliver. So we certainly did. And I think that was a lesson. I approached Two-Brain being like, oh, I’m gonna, I think I said to, Russell, I was like, oh, I’ll smash this out in two months and I’ll be ready to go. And he kind of just nodded. And I realized I had to slow it right down, like each week I kind of did over three weeks to make sure that I could implement.
Dane (18:58):
And we took big gaps between calls, just to make sure that I was getting the most value from those calls, because we had to create a sales binder, you know, that took me two weeks to do really properly because I had to really change my approach to selling, you know, that was a really, big one. And then also we had to come up with a playbook, a staff playbook, and that’s not a small task if you do it properly. Sure. You can throw some stuff on the paper, but if you take it seriously, it does take some time. So certainly had to slow things and really implement.
Mike (19:33):
Did you find that playbook to be a grind to create?
Dane (19:36):
Yeah. We use a software called Trainual and I just used all the content that was on Two-Brain and put it on Trainual, yeah. It made things so much easier, it’s great because it just made the process of, roles and responsibilities. Here’s a role. And then I just allocated it virtually to my staff, and then I can add stuff to that.
Mike (19:58):
That’s interesting. And the reason I ask if it’s a grind is because I know that roles and tasks are one of those things a lot of people avoid, it’s not sexy. It’s not sales, it’s not marketing, it’s not training. It’s not, you know, buying equipment. It’s one of those, like sitting down with, you know, a pen or, you know, a laptop or whatever, and grinding out who takes out the garbage at what time and you know, all the boring stuff. Right. But, you know, Chris Cooper has talked about this and it actually is 100% true. Even for those who don’t wanna admit it, the roles and tasks and systems, they’re the foundation of the business. You can’t do the sexy stuff without that basis. Like, did you find, once you had those roles and tasks in play, you had built this rock solid foundation that it allowed you to scale much faster.
Dane (20:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m not gonna say that we’re there yet. You know, there’s still some work there and that’s an iterative process. I had to change my, like this whole experience. I had to change my mindset around it to get excited to do the playbook, because it is boring, you’re writing out roles and responsibilities and you’re writing out, OK, member comes into class. What do you need to do as soon as they come in, turn the lights on. So that was certainly a grind. But when I was like, OK, this is what’s gonna, there was one quote, you can, you can take a gym and you can buy a job or you can own a gym, you know? And I certainly can’t afford to buy a job cause I’ve already got one. You know? So when I was like, OK, this is great.
Dane (21:15):
I’m creating a proper gym here by having roles and responsibilities. And I got excited about it, and I was able to do it. So I changed the mindset was great. And then I also saved a lot of frustration I was having towards my staff, I was going like, why don’t they just do this? This is so annoying. Come in. And then I was like, when I was writing it out, the reason they’re not doing it is cause I’ve never told them that’s what I think’s important. So I was getting frustrated, then they didn’t know why I was getting frustrated. And it was just, it was a mirror that it got put up to me where I was like, then you gotta be a bit more, specific in what you’re asking.
Mike (21:51):
Yeah. And we, again, we’ve kinda led parallel lives where I had the same thing. I’ve always had a job when I had a business on the side. And so for me to offload tasks, I struggled with it and I did a poor job. And the reason was exactly what you said. I just assumed people would do it the way that I thought it should be done. So whenever there was a shortcoming, it was ultimately my fault because I hadn’t put a policy and procedure in place. And so I did the exact same exercise where I came up with this large staff manual that had everything where it’s like, you know, when you open the back door, be sure to unplug the alarm cable first so you don’t tear it out, like stuff like that. And you can imagine why I put that in there because it got torn out at some point. Right, right. But it’s all those little things. Right.
Dane (22:27):
And I was extremely lucky. Like I have the most incredible staff shout out to Jamie, Katie, Mackenzie, Mitch, Brennar, all incredible at what they do and the process of creating, some like SOPs, I’m not a gym person, you know, I don’t know how to train people. So I sent them to them and they looked at it and provided me some pretty fair feedback. Like Dane, that doesn’t make sense. Why would we do this? They’re the professionals. We changed it together. So then they had ownership over the experience we’re providing our clients. And so then of course they’re gonna implement it because they were part of it.
Mike (23:03):
So you’ve got buy-in there right away. You’ve got staff buy-in.
Dane (23:06):
Yeah. And I’m more than happy to outsource to that team because they’re so good at what they do. And then we could ensure that the changes we made made commercial sense for the gym, and it made practical sense for training. And then together, we were able to come up with pretty, pretty good process.
Mike (23:23):
- That’s fascinating. Tell me about the plan going forward. You mentioned maybe a rate increase at some point or whatever, but what else have you got going on? Like what are the next big steps that you and Russell are working on and how did you guys decide that these were the big steps that would move the needle next?
Dane (23:37):
Yeah. Number one, getting our unit economics to make more sense.
Mike (23:42):
Explain unit economics.
Dane (23:44):
Our revenue needs to be higher. You know, we need to make more money. And we need to reduce costs that don’t make sense throughout stuff that that is not working for us and diversify our revenue streams through nutrition, PT squad classes and private squads. So ensuring that we’re just more viable going forward.
Mike (24:05):
So what’s the big next move? Is it gonna be like adding nutrition?
Dane (24:09):
Without giving away too much of my members who might listen to this –
Mike (24:12):
Yeah, yeah, no, you keep the secrets as you need to.
Dane (24:15):
We’ll probably have to do a member hike, a raise on our prices. I think they know that’s coming. They’ve been, paying very low membership for some time. So that’s gonna be the big one and making sure that we do that responsibly and in a way that’s not gonna offsite our members is definitely the next step.
Mike (24:30):
Yeah. And you know, I’ll tell you this. Like I went through that exact same process and we had had our rates in place for eight years, maybe nine years. And they were way too low. I knew that six years before I put the rate, increase in place. And that was literally a six figure mistake I should have put, I literally put the numbers in our software and said in 2013, I’m going to do this. I never did. And it cost us at least a hundred thousand dollars in lost revenue. Then when I did it, I was so scared, but I had the support of Two-Brain and I had the, you know, my peers in the growth group. And then I had the mento.r when we did it. Our members actually said like, like, thank you. It’s about time you did that. We were worried you guys were not gonna make it.
Dane (25:09):
Yeah, exactly. And, and I want our staff to have an incredible career with WVA. Yeah. And I want them to be well paid. I want them to have health insurance. I want them to love being part of what we’re building and the only way we can do that is to pay them market rate. And in New York it’s expensive and they do some really great work for us. So they deserve to be paid more and they deserve to be paid over the long term for it to be a sustainable thing. So I think that’s going to be the next step is ensuring that we can get people to salary employees and that kinda stuff.
Mike (25:42):
Step after that. Is that gonna be revenue diversification? If so, is it gonna be PT or nutrition first?
Dane (25:48):
I think for us, PT is really important. It’s a great way to fill in the gaps. You know, our real estate utility isn’t great. We load up between 6:00 AM and 9:00 AM. Then we have a big dark spot when evenryone runs off to work or goes crazy. So we can load that with PT. So get more out of our rent spend. Nutrition’s been an interesting one. We launched it. I think we can do a better job with it. And we need to tailor it, I think, to a New York appetite. certainly, but yeah, PT is definitely the next revenue stream. But then in terms of next big goals, I think if we can get a general manager in place and sorry, we have a general manager in place, but have a general manager operating another studio, that would be the next step.
Mike (26:37):
- So that’s cool. And one of the things I’m excited is to hear where you go from here, because I know that gyms and I was one of ’em again, that mostly focused on group training. Yeah. When we started diversifying into personal training and nutrition, everything changed and like Jolene Bingham, who is one of our mentors who also runs gyms. She, at one point I forget the exact numbers, but she was almost exclusively group training over COVID. She changed her model, went really emphasized PT. And now that I believe is like 60 or 70% of her revenue or something, a very high number where she’s added a whole new stream that’s significant. So I’m really excited to see what you do once you start getting these other programs in place. And then the final part of that is that hybrid memberships are where sort of where that ARM number really gets kind of cool.
Mike (27:22):
Right. We talked to some of our gym owners, some listeners will be like, I could never charge $340 for a monthly service. Yeah. But I’ve talked to many gym owners now their ARM is well over 300. And it’s usually a combination of group training plus nutrition and or PT or PT plus nutrition. And those services are highly valuable because it’s one-on-one very personal service. It really does amazing things for the gym. So like, Dane, I can’t wait to talk to you again and find out where you’re at after you get this stuff in place. Cuz it could be again, the rocket ship’s going up.
Dane (27:54):
Yeah, definitely.
Mike (27:56):
Last thing I’ll ask you. People out here are, listening and I always like to talk to gym owners, I’m wearing a Two-Brain hat obviously. And so I’m, you know, gonna tell you the program’s great. But you, I’d like to have gym owners on here who explain it as real people. If a gym owner out there is thinking like, I don’t know if mentorship would work for me. What would be your advice to that person?
Dane (28:14):
Yeah, I mean, without just sounding like an absolute zealot, I would be all for it. I got so much value from it. particularly Russell, he was just great, very down to earth delivery of mentorship. You know, it wasn’t this, big brother kind of thing. And we just had a chat, you know, and we talked through how it might work. And then like most gym owners, I’m good at spending time with members and I love that part of it. And so creating a process and a system just allows me to do more of the stuff that I like and less time focused on kind of the boring stuff. And that’s because I was able to systemize it, create a process or offload it where possible, so absolutely worth the money. I think we made back, what we’re paying for it in the first session, just with the sales binder. So, yeah. All for, it.
Mike (29:07):
Yeah. And that’s why I was gonna ask you because people look at the price tag of mentorship and I know you’re a finance guy. So you were obviously looking for return on investment safe to say that you got what you were looking for.
Dane (29:15):
Definitely. Yeah. Without a doubt. Yeah. And I was ready for it to just be a sunk cost. Like I was ready for it to be a cost to me that I thought was gonna be worth it just by building my network in New York with someone who had done this before me. But like I said, the ROI was positive, within the first month.
Mike (29:33):
Wow. OK. That’s cool. So you were kind of just looking to hang out with Russell a little bit and it turns out you made some money.
Dane (29:38):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I’m really blowing up Russell on this call. He is gonna think I wanna date him or something after this.
Mike (29:45):
Well, you know what, I’ll tell you this. On the other end, I was chatting with Russell, on Slack, just about this before this call. And he said, he had nothing but good things to say about you. So he has the same level of respect for you.
Dane (29:56):
So good to know.
Mike (29:57):
Thank you so much for your time, Dane. That was Dane McCarthy on Two-Brain Radio. I’m your host, Mike Warkentin. I’m all about telling the stories of amazing gym owners just like Dane. Please subscribe for more episodes. And if you’re on YouTube, hammer that like button totoo, I appreciate that. A great deal. Now here’s Two-Brain founder, Chris Cooper with a final word.
Chris (30:15):
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.
