I had to make every mistake myself to learn how to grow a gym. You don’t have to.
You just have to leverage the community of gym owners to find out what doesn’t work and what does—and you must ask for proof or you’ll get led astray.
This process was borderline impossible 15 years ago. But it’s simple in 2024.
And it’s critical: 10,000 new fitness pros open gyms or launch careers every year, and 9,000 of them close or quit every year.
We can’t change the world this way.
Why do these people pull the rip cord?
Not because they’ve run out of passion for helping people.
Not because they’ve reached the end of their training knowledge.
Not because they got bored with the industry, not because they can’t grind, and not because they didn’t expect to work hard.
Gyms close because they run out of money.
Trainers quit because they can’t make a living.
Hey, I’ve been there: I came very close to giving up as a trainer when, in my best year, I didn’t earn enough to feed myself.
My solution was to open a gym—and when I realized that my training skills weren’t enough to run a good business, I almost went bankrupt, taking my family and my staff with me.
Now, in 2024, I produce an annual report that gives gym owners all the tools I wish I had back then.
You don’t have to make mistakes and fumble for solutions. You can skip right to the good part of entrepreneurship.
Data-Backed Resources
Our State of the Industry Survey is where you start to build your foundation.
By completing the survey, you help us create tools for the entire industry and provide help where it’s needed most.
Today, I’m going to go over some of the biggest reasons gyms go broke, as proven by data.
When you fill out the survey, I’ll give you solutions to each of these problems right away—no waiting. When you submit your data, you’ll get a link to Two-Brain’s Resource Hub for gym owners. It’s packed with assets you can use to build a better business today.
Here are the Top 6 reasons gyms fail:
1. Not Enough Clients
Gyms are getting better at marketing, but many don’t have enough clients because they fail to keep the ones they get (see No. 3, below).
The second reason gyms don’t have enough clients is they’re inconsistent with their marketing. We teach every gym owner to build four funnels: a social media funnel, a referral funnel, a paid ads funnel and a content marketing funnel.
To grow your gym, you don’t need fancy marketing—but you need to market consistently, and you need to be good at sales.
2. Gyms Don’t Charge Enough
Coaching services should be expensive. Many gyms charge far too little because they price themselves based on local averages (which are always trending down) or because they think lower prices will attract more people (they do, but they attract high-churn, price-conscious people who don’t stay).
Gym owners also fail to offer proper onboarding because they mistakenly believe it will be a barrier to entry (it’s not). Or they fail to offer 1:1 coaching to people because they think everyone wants the cheaper group option (also wrong).
In our Resource Hub, I have some great tools to help you charge what you’re worth. You can only get them by filling out our survey.
3. They Lose Members too Fast
Let’s face it: Gyms keep clients for around eight months on average, but we need to keep them much longer if you want them to become healthier.
Two-Brain gyms keep every client for 21 months, on average. We do that by focusing on retention—I’ll give you some of our top tips after you fill out the survey.
4. They Don’t Pay Themselves Appropriately
You don’t go out of business just because you need more clients. You go out of business because you need more groceries.
I know making money wasn’t your primary reason for opening a gym, but lack of income is still the primary killer of gym owners.
Think about it: Are you willing to ask your family to tighten their belts forever? Maybe you can grind on an empty stomach—but should they? That’s the thought that finally drove me to raise my rates, control my costs and pay myself more.
Gym owners leave too much money in their gyms and they pay too much to the landlord and the government and the staff and the bank. They keep too little for themselves.
You must have a plan to pay yourself an increasing amount over time. If you don’t, then why open a business? Get a job working for someone else.
5. They Don’t Control Their Costs
Way too many gyms try to start with a big space in a prime location, loads of equipment and pro staff. You can have all these things, but if you commit to too many expenses without generating enough revenue, you’ll run out of money.
The biggest error is overspending on space, but overspending on staff is a close second. When gym owners don’t know how to pay their staff members properly and teach them how to “grow the pie for everyone,” gyms fail and everyone loses a job.
If you don’t control your costs, you’ll always feel like your business is out of control—because it is.
You must understand the difference between an investment and an expense, you must understand where your money is going, and you must learn where it should be going instead.
6. They Don’t Hire the Right Staff and Mentor Them
Gym owners often hire friends or whoever’s available, and they have constant staff churn as a result. Or they “trade” memberships with people and then try to manage staff members who behave like volunteers.
You need detailed plans that cover hiring, staff development, career building and retention. If you don’t have these plans, mediocre staff will stay too long and good staff will leave fast to compete with you (it’s happened to all of us).
Solving Your Problems
You can get solutions to all these problems if you read our blog every day, listen to our podcast twice per week and watch our YouTube videos on weekends. Or you can fill out our survey in the next 3 to 8 minutes and get some of our top guides for free.
Want to really step up and fix these things fast? Book a call to talk about mentorship here.
