SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vicky. From presidential push-ups to wearable wonders and award-winning academics, he's been called the most connected man in fitness. We will explore the intersection of fitness and technology. From cutting-edge apps to the latest and powerful prompts, this is your go-to source for staying ahead of the fitness tech curve. Spend just 30 minutes with us, and we guarantee you'll learn something new. No matter if you're a new personal trainer or an established fitness brand, Ted and his guests have insights and tips for you to use today. Ready to be disruptive? It's time for the Fitness Disruption Podcast. Here's your host, Dr. Ted Vicky. So I did a semester at McMaster.

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

No kidding. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 0:59

Right on, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

I uh when I got my PhD, um I was doing it in Ireland, and uh there was a professor at McMaster. Kathleen uh Guinness was her name. Like the people. Um yeah, so I I was there for a semester. It was my first uh Canadian football game.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22

No kidding.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23

Tiger Cats. Is that right? Tiger Cats, yep.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26

Yep, uh that's the Hamilton, yeah. Um the gray cops of the Canadian Football Championship was actually yesterday. What was it? Who won? Uh Edmonton. So I mean there's only seven, is there seven teams or six now? Because there's no Ottawa team anymore. So it's um it's kind of rotates through, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Got it. And uh I grew up in Erie, right across from the lake.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48

Yeah, yeah, fantastic, man. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

How close are you to the lake?

SPEAKER_03: 1:53

Well, I'm actually I live where the three Great Lakes meet. So I'm close to Superior. My cottage is on Huron, and like I'm you know, all over Lake Michigan all the time, honestly. But oh, so you're further you're further west than uh Buffalo. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah, if I follow the sh I could get to Buffalo in probably about an hour, but I mean uh by plane. But if I follow the shore round, it takes me about 10. I've gone to Buffalo football games before. Fantastic. So are you ready? Oh yeah, for sure, Ted. Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

All right, let me make sure that it says we are recording. Oh, wrong button. Yeah, that's recording. I'm gonna minimize this so I can see. Okay. Three, two, one. Welcome to this edition of the Fitness Destruction Podcast. Today's guest is someone who's been disrupting the fitness business for a very long time. Chris Cooper is the founder of Two Brain Business, the world's largest data-backed mentorship program for gym owners. And his mission is very clear to help 1,000 gym owners earn at least 100,000 in net owner benefit while improving the health of over 1 million clients. Chris built this mission out of his real life experience in 2008. Is this true, Chris? He was actually exhausted, broke, and close to losing his own gym. He found that he needed to hire a mentor, and that turned everything around and eventually inspired him to help guiding others. I love this part. His early blog posts became the best-selling books to bring businesses and help first. And his system now supports over 1,000 fitness entrepreneurs across the globe. He lives in Ontario with his family and spends his free time cycling and maintaining a backyard hockey ring. We've got to talk about that in a second, too. Chris, I'm excited to have you here. Let's get into it. Thank you. How are you?

SPEAKER_03: 3:46

Thank you. Thanks for that great intro, Ted. I'm really excited to be here and I'm grateful for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 3:52

You know, we we've uh we've been in the same circles, we've been to a number of conferences before, but it seems that whenever you're speaking, I'm speaking. So we never really got to be able to shake the hands, but I've been following you for quite a long time.

SPEAKER_03: 4:02

In fact, thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

Um, I wish I'd had you when I was at the White House because a lot of the things that you teach are things that I needed, and like you, realized that I needed a mentor. And that's really when when my business started to grow. So, out of curiosity, uh, was your mentor in 2008 within or with outside the fitness industry?

SPEAKER_03: 4:21

Outside. He was one of these um Lee Coca industrial characters who had taken shares in the steel plant locally in Sault Ste. Marie instead of um taking a paycheck, turned the whole thing around, took the share price from 70 cents to over$50, and said, okay, that's it. You know, I'm out. And uh as a legacy project, he said he was going to work with five local entrepreneurs for six months. And I just kind of lucked into that program. Um, and of course, we started with things like the emyth general concepts, and it was up to me to apply them uh strategically to my business.

SPEAKER_01: 4:54

Uh Michael Gerber, that was I was at an Ursa show. I was still at the White House, and I met Michael Gerber there, and he was the one that changed it. Wow, you know, his uh working in your business, not on your business, and how much are you worth an hour? That to me changed my entire outlook on business.

SPEAKER_03: 5:10

Oh, yeah. So good, so good. That was a pivot point for me too. Like uh, you know, my first mentor had me read the book, but then you know, it was get this, get all the roles and tasks done by Monday. And so it I often say like it ruined my weekend, but it saved my life. And and that was step one, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 5:27

Oh, absolutely. Now, you believe that every gym owner needs mentorship. Why is that?

SPEAKER_03: 5:35

Well, I think that if you're selling coaching, you should probably take advantage of being coached. And most of us, especially the fitness industry, as you know, Ted, like nobody gets into this for money. We get into this for passion because we've had some life-changing experience. And uh just, you know, like Gerber said in the emith book, like we we take on this um idea that he calls the technician's curse that just being the best fitness trainer, being the best coach, being the best worker outer is going to make us the best gym owner. And that is not true. It's a very different skill set. Uh however, we can still benefit from coaching just the same way that our clients do. And so, you know, what what happens in the fitness industry is very curious because there is no kind of like unifying presence or or body of data that says do it like this or this way is better than you have in most other industries. Um, and so we're all just kind of out there on our own island. And, you know, unfortunately, often we feel like we're in competition with everybody else, and that that creates this kind of you know isolation effect. And um, so our job is really just like unify people, collect data, start from truth, and give everybody that boost up that you see in other industries.

SPEAKER_01: 6:49

Yeah, you mentioned the competition, and and I'm curious, your your thoughts on this. Did you see competition uh during COVID? I felt as though the industries finally started to come together. But once COVID lifted, we went back to the old ways and we're we're back to competition against, I really think it's competition against inactive inactivity. You know, that's who our competition is. It's not the gym down the street.

SPEAKER_03: 7:11

Yeah, I agree. And what happened though is, you know, COVID kind of tested our belief systems along with our all of our other systems too. And so as we were slowly, I think, maturing and overcoming the scarcity mindset of I'm competing with Ted's gym down the street, COVID really put a lot of pressure on that belief. And and um, you know, I know in my town, some gyms were opening and some gyms were following the mandates and some were insisting on vaccination and some weren't, some were following the law, some weren't. And that created a little bit more uh, you don't want to call it hostility, but a little bit more sense of like me versus them.

SPEAKER_01: 7:47

Right. Absolutely. Uh, you know, I mentioned your your mission, 10,000 successful gyms. How do you define success? Is it about money or is it everything?

SPEAKER_03: 7:55

Well, ultimately we have to boil it down to one measurable metric so we can get people across like one finish line. And so if I look at, you know, what gets people into the industry, it's always passion, it's motivation, it's you know, I'm excited, I've had a life-changing experience. Everybody's reason is different. And I was at a seminar this weekend, I said, like, tell me your reason for getting into the fitness business. There were 35 people, and there were 35 different reasons, right? But people only leave the business for one reason, and that reason is money. And they might tell you it's because there's too much competition or I'm burnt out or whatever, but money solves all those problems. And so when we define like a successful gym, what we do is we have the gym owner define what their perfect day is. So, what is the lifestyle that you want? And then how much income do you need to sustain that lifestyle? And most people, like the average is 100K a year. And so we define a successful gym as a gym that can produce that perfect day income for its owner on repeat long term. And so that that means it's objectively measurable. We know when we've done it, we know when it's sustainable, and the gym owner knows when they're able to go off on their own and carry on.

SPEAKER_01: 9:06

And you you you work with with clubs to get to that level. Do you also help them once they get past it? I mean, do you have clubs that are making more than that?

SPEAKER_03: 9:13

Oh, yeah. So so that's again, like that's the owner's income, right? So it the the club might be anywhere, depending on if it's like a small group personal training center, they can be doing 250,000 a year and the owner taking home 100. That's or you know, sometimes with a big club where the margin's smaller, like they have to do 2 million a year for the owner to make 100K. Right. So um I mean, like we definitely work with both. And then once they get to that level, quite often, if they just say, okay, that's it, I'm good, they'll backslide a little bit. And so we have a higher T program for our top 10% of clients. Got it. Uh, and what they learn there is like investment, future planning, and scale. Quite often, well, what we found over time, honestly, Ted, is like I can help the industry more by helping the top 10% uh expand because they will buy up the weaker gyms, they'll employ the unemployed trainers, you know, they'll grow faster than by helping the bottom 10% survive. Uh, and so like, you know, that's what we try to do in that program.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

It's an interesting approach to definitely. Now, one of the things we're going to talk about today is this report that you released. How many years have you been doing this report?

SPEAKER_03: 10:22

This is our sixth.

SPEAKER_01: 10:23

The sixth. And it's a state of the industry report. And there was something in there, the statement that really caught my eye. Business is a science. So, what does this mean for gym owners in practical terms?

SPEAKER_03: 10:33

Well, you and I know as entrepreneurs that when you start off, you you start to feel like this is an art project. I want to be the one to pick the name, and I wanna, I wanna make my own logo, and I'm gonna make my own website, I'm gonna do it all myself, I'm gonna paint my space, I'm gonna love it. And that that sense that this is an art project carries on. Like, you know, I need to make up the perfect Facebook ad, I need to make the perfect brochure, I need to craft the perfect email. And quite often that's paralyzing because we're not artists. What we want to assure people is that business is actually a science. And you're not gonna guess right the first time. But if you take a scientific approach of try it, evaluate what worked and what didn't, try it again, do slightly better. You know, you're getting closer and closer to the truth by slowly paring away what doesn't work. And so what we want to do is give people this massive head start by putting together the largest data set in the industry and just publishing it for free so that they can know uh, well, what should I set my price at? And instead of guessing, they can say, here's the median average in the US or the median average in Australia or whatever, and start from there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:40

The the other line that really um talked to me as a numbers guy, truth over guesses. Um, tell me a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_03: 11:48

Well, I'm sure you're familiar with this, and this is happening in every industry right now. Um, you have a lot of business coaches out there who are producing a lot of content, and now they're doing it in the blink of an eye. Right. And quite often, what these coaches will recommend sounds like a really great idea and it's exciting, but it's untested. They've never done it themselves. The, you know, they've never tried it to see if it's scaled. Or quite often you'll be in a Facebook group and people are jumping in to give advice, and that's awesome. Uh, but like their experience is just their own and they don't know if it's gonna work in any other gym. What we've found is that by giving people a more objective truth, like here's the median average, it really helps them kind of embrace the changes they need to make. So, for example, if somebody says, What are you charging for personal training? And the first response is higher than what they want to charge, they'll say, Well, you live somewhere other than me. I live in a broke, right? When they're seeing an objective data set of like 10 to 15,000 gyms and they see that the median average is X, it's a lot harder to ignore. But the the bigger picture is that like what we really want to do is give gyms hope. Um, what drove me almost out of business was not being broke and starving. It was I didn't see how things were going to change. I didn't see a brighter future for myself. I lost hope. And we know that the first step to gaining hope and keeping gym owners in the business is to start with objective truth. Like, here's where you should be, here's where you are. If there's a difference, you understand the change needs to happen. And when they accept that truth, they are ready for mentorship.

SPEAKER_01: 13:26

Let's take a deeper dive in some of the things you found out about this year's report. Uh thanks. In terms of revenue, you found that revenue is up across all gym types. Uh yeah, very cool. Which is surprising. I I I would have thought the big boxes were still kind of suffering. What do you what do you think attributed that?

SPEAKER_03: 13:43

Well, there's two things, right? The the first is that the boxes that were really suffering are gone. Yeah. And so, you know, may maybe they survived COVID, but they expected like this wave afterward that just didn't happen and now they've run out of runway. Or maybe the next next like lease cycle has come around and their rent is going up, you know. So unfortunately, you lose some weaker boxes. But also, um, you know, what happened was this kind of dip in growth. So 2018 was very, very high. Facebook ads were new, they were cheap, they were really effective, and everybody started to rely on them. Then, you know, 2020, 2021, a lot of gyms worldwide struggled. Then you had this kind of like resurgence, and I think we're still experiencing some of the long tail of that. Like people, people in COVID, uh, Rogue Fitness, one of our partners, they started selling more home gyms than CrossFit gyms in in uh COVID times. And what's happening now is we're a year and a half, two years down the track from that. People are like, wow, this working from home is really depressing. I'm not actually using this treadmill that I thought I would. I got to do something, you know. And so in my mind, it's more of the social effect. And um, we do a qualitative survey that goes out with these numbers where we're asking people, like, where are your new clients coming from? Why is are you seeing this uptick? And that's pretty consistent. Like more referrals coming in, more people saying what I'm doing is not working for me. And and I think this is really exciting, more clients who who use Ozempic lost 30 pounds and now they're comfortable coming to a gym.

SPEAKER_01: 15:17

Yes, yes. There needs to be that that partnership, right? With the medical and and uh the the fitness industry finally coming together and OZEP can can be that that crutch, if you will. Yeah. Um if if you were gonna open a gym today, you Chris Cooper, um, would it be a uh small group gym, one to one, or would you go for a big box? What do you think?

SPEAKER_03: 15:41

Uh it would be one to one built to to scale to a small group. And that's how I started in 05. I had already been a personal trainer for almost a decade. That was all I knew. And so we were selling our time by appointment, by the hour. Yep. And finally, you know, in 2008, we said, this can't work. Like we're working 55 hours a week doing personal training, we're not making enough, and we're not seeing our kids wake up or go to bed. And um, we got to do something else. And so we we jumped straight to like CrossFit or big group training, not realizing there was this middle ground of small group personal training where you're charging close to personal training rates, people are getting customized programs, you're working with maybe four people at a time, but you're not quadrupling your expenses by trying to open 10,000, 20,000 square feet, hire five more coaches, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01: 16:30

I was given a talk uh athletic business a couple of weeks ago, and we're talking about the industry. I said, look, if you're a personal trainer, you make more money by doing one of two things really charge more money, but you're gonna price yourself out of it, or you work more hours, which is not why we got in this industry. And uh, you know, ACSM last year, I think the number one uh trend was data-driven personal training. I love to have you back on a podcast to talk about data-driven personal training. And if you think that that is that is something that that can be scalable, I think it is. So cool. You talk about this this head count. Uh, 150 clients is the ideal benchmark. Uh, why is this the magic number?

SPEAKER_03: 17:06

Well, it's I would call the first benchmark. So there's a couple of reasons. Number one, if you look at how many gyms or how many clients the average coaching gym is getting, it's 129. Now that's up. It was 122 flat for like the last three years. But what happens, especially among our industry, which is very heavy with like CrossFit and boot camps, is people think that they're just going to get two to 300 members. And so they take on this massive space, lots of equipment, 12 volunteer coaches, and they just never reach that number. And even if they get the 129 client average, they're losing money because their expenses have them underwater. And so, what should happen instead? We tell people is like you should be able to break even at 50. You should be able to pay yourself close to your perfect day wage at 100 clients. And at 150, you should be able to pay yourself your own wage, pay a full-time coach and another halftime kind of you know, admin person or whatever. And those are just like benchmarks that people can aim for. And quite often people will be close, but they'll also say, Well, what happens when I do get to 300? And we'll say, Well, you know, build your business on coaching 150 people really, really well. But when you exceed that number, then you can start building your business to scale up, and that's when you add management tiers and stuff. The second reason, Ted, is like what's called Dunbar's number and and history. I guess you knew it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 18:37

Yeah, you can explain it then. You'll do a bit of oh no, no. Well, Dunbar, it's the number of 150. And in fact, it was when I did my master's research, I was looking at Dunbar's number, and it would have something to do, if I'm not mistaken, all went back to like the Roman soldiers of how um one officer could control X number of people. That X number happened to be 150. Um, and I just read an article about how AI can influence Dunbar's number. Fascinating read, but uh tell me more about from your perspective with the Dunbar number.

SPEAKER_03: 19:05

Well, historically, humans tend to organize themselves in groups of 150 or smaller. So you've got kind of like your immediate intimate family circle of you know, five to eight, maybe. And then from there you've got your extended family of up to 20. And then from there you've got kind of like the cousins and the people who would show up to the family reunion, and then you've got your coworkers and your friends. And basically, if you think about the number 150, it's how many people would uh I invite to my wedding, or how many people would I reasonably know what to write in a birthday card to them? And that's you know, I'm I'm not strong in person-to-person relationships, so my number is probably around 120. Some people, like you know, Bill Clinton often gets cited as his number might be around 180, but it's a pretty narrow band. And if you think about where gyms hit these ceilings, it's basically at this point where the original founding members are saying, like, oh, we never see you anymore. How come you're always in your office? You know, and they stop interacting with the owner. That's that's the first ceiling, and that's when that owner has hit their uh interpersonal limit.

SPEAKER_01: 20:13

I don't think that works for my family. Uh Catholic Irish, I think our last wedding had over 300. I mean, first 300 people, we're all related to each other. So that amazing, it's it must be the Vicky number. I don't know. That's right.

SPEAKER_03: 20:26

Yeah. That's great. I'll join your gym too.

SPEAKER_01: 20:30

Well, I don't know if I'd want them though, but that's a different yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 20:35

Maybe that's the qualifier, 150 people you want at your wedding.

SPEAKER_01: 20:38

Yeah, that I like. Uh retention was big in the report. Um, and you have this interesting number that two brain gyms, those that you work with, hit over 24 months of retention.

unknown: 20:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

So what are the what are they doing differently that than the the others?

SPEAKER_03: 20:55

Well, the others have improved quite a bit. Like, so two years ago we measured length of engagement at around 7.8 months. Now it's higher. But I think the industry, especially the coaching business, is getting more savvy at uh keeping people longer. There's a lot of tools out there. What we've always done is measured length of engagement instead of churn rate, because I want to know where people are dropping off, not just how many are dropping off. And so we take a more targeted approach. So the first thing we do is we say, like, if you're running a coaching business, you need some kind of one-on-one onboarding process called an on-ramp or something like that that can last, you know, four to six sessions, two to three weeks. Then from there, you need to have like a very scripted um communication sequence with new clients. So they're never left on their own for a long weekend without communication with from you. And then uh you need a goal review at 90 days so that you can track whether it's measuring. If you leave it to the client to guess, like, is this actually working? They're probably gonna quit because all the pressure that they're getting outside is like, uh, how come you're getting up at 5 a.m.? How come I'm the one feeding the dog? How come you're so tired at night? How come you're exhausted on the weekend? How come you're making two different meals? And they're past the novelty phase. So they need a goal review there. At about 180 days, um, they need to have a check-in and either like a retargeting of their program, like, how are you doing? If it is working, we need to push you for a referral. If it's not working, we need to change your prescription and try again, just get ahead of the um the cancellation. And after a year, quite often, if they're getting results, you need to reframe and give them new goals. Yes, people quit when they run out of future or they run out of friends. And um, if we can address those before they become issues, then we can keep people a lot longer.

SPEAKER_01: 22:49

You know, I'm thinking back uh even at the White House, I I didn't do a lot of training there, but my my biggest challenge was you know, you you every month you're asked for that next check. It's like, well, when does this ever end? And I had a trainer once say, My job is is to get you to a point where you don't need me. Yeah, that was the best trainer I had because it was like, okay, they're they're in this for for for uh for my benefit. I kept them for a long time, but yeah, it was just that change of the mindset that was quite quite interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 23:19

Um yeah, I and I think I think what helps there, honestly, Tess. Sorry, man, you just when you when you said that, I was like, Yes, that's important. When we started training, and I've been a trainer now for 30 years, back then we were selling knowledge, right? So it was like, I'm gonna teach you everything you need to know, and then you don't need me anymore. And that was great. Yep. We're not selling knowledge anymore because none of us can outthink the internet, outprogram AI. What we're actually selling now is this human-to-human connection of like, I will be here at 11 o'clock Monday, I expect you to be also. And um, you know, I think that's maybe even more important now than it was then.

SPEAKER_01: 24:00

I was uh a couple of years ago um at a at an URSA event giving a talk, and I call them tweetable moments, you know, those those things that like it goes viral. And someone asked me the question can AI or technology replace a personal trainer? And I was like, this is my moment. And I said, if a piece of technology can replace you as a trainer, it probably should. Because there's a word for trainer, there's a word before a trainer that's personal. So if you let technology and AI do all the stuff that we don't like doing or not good at, and you focused on what you really got in this industry and has to help others, then you you have nothing to worry about.

SPEAKER_03: 24:34

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 24:36

Yeah, uh, I get those every once in a while, but once a year, I get those good ones.

SPEAKER_03: 24:40

Uh well, that's a great one.

SPEAKER_01: 24:42

You you've talked about uh cancellations. Are you seeing is is there something that that gym owners can see, like, oh, this person is getting close to a cancellation?

SPEAKER_03: 24:53

Yeah. So um, one of our biggest contributors to the state of the industry is Wattify, and they contribute really meaningful data. And after they saw um the cancellation data that they gave us, they had their own analysts go back and say, like, what can we correlate? And the answer is adherence. So it's it's not like how often a person shows up that's that can predict when they're going to cancel. It's are they using the full package that they bought? So, you know, if if somebody is signed up for four visits a week and they come all four visits, fine. If they're signed up for two visits a week and they come for both of those two visits, fine, like equal chance of cancellation. But if they sign up for four and they only come two, their odds of cancellation are very high. And that's adherence. Are they using the package that they signed up for? Most software doesn't actually track this. And so you have to be very wary of like, hey, you know, Ted is paying for five visits a week, 20 a month. He's only using 16. And then your best move is actually let's do a goal review. Ted, you're not using your membership, man. Let's let's get you solid at 16. I'm gonna bring your membership rate down to that, and then in three months, we'll talk about bringing it back up again. Um, you might you know lose$10 a month, but you're probably gonna save a client for at least four or five more months.

SPEAKER_01: 26:15

That I hope everyone, if there's a way to underline and highlight uh an audio, that's that's the piece. That's that's the tweetable moment right there.

SPEAKER_03: 26:24

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:26

Uh because it's it's brilliant. And you know, I I've often thought, and I think I'll of your opinion on it, we didn't get in the industry because we're good business people. You know, I was a scientist. I went to school to be an exercise, I was a cardiac rehab. That's what I was gonna do. Um and it's okay if you're a personal trainer, fitness pro gym owner, if you don't know the business side of it. We were never taught that, but having that mentorship and having access to reports like this really can can make a difference.

SPEAKER_03: 26:55

One of my longest standing clients at My Gym Catalyst is her name is Robin, and she was in a payroll department at a local steel plant several years ago, and they were they were in trouble. And she her job went so stressful so quick. And um, through the summer, which is really short here in Sault Ste. Marie, I said, Look, Robin, like you're not making it to the gym. When you do get here, you're late, you're stressed all the time. What I want you to do for the next two months is get some good fiction, put it on an audio book or whatever, and walk every day before you have breakfast, before anything else happens, like that's your job. And she's like, Well, if I'm not coming to the gym though, and I said, That's we're gonna put your membership on hold for two months, but I'm gonna check in with you, you know, every couple of weeks, and then we'll get you back. And me temporarily downgrading Robin and then building her back up is what's kept her now for over a decade. I even gave her a couple of fiction books that I had on my shelf back then.

SPEAKER_01: 27:51

Uh, I think we all need Robin, and hopefully you do uh if you're listening to this. Yeah. Um Lee Gen, um the the report still suggests that marketing is the biggest determining factor, not location, which I thought was interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:08

Um, what what else? What other insights can you glean from that?

SPEAKER_03: 28:12

Well, there's a couple things. So, as you noted before the call, like um, you know, ad costs, those are going up, cost of acquiring a new client is going up, especially if you are leaning heavily into like online ads, Instagram, Facebook primarily. What's missing, and I think tailing off a little bit, is asking for referrals. And um, at a seminar that I was giving this month, I was describing what that looked like in a coaching gym at least. Like you're gonna grow one connection at a time. And back in 2018, when ads were cheap, we were all running these challenges, and it was like this forest fire just went right through the industry, and there were leads coming everywhere for three or four dollars. And but the way that we've always grown up to that point, and since then, has been you know, my candle is burning brightly with this flame, and I touch your candle and ignite it, and it's one person at a time. So, what what we should be doing more is focusing on like every client that in that comes into your gym eventually turns into two clients that have your cost of acquisition and it brings you in the people who are more likely to stay long term too.

SPEAKER_01: 29:24

So, do you do you have uh programming that would help uh gym owners work on the referrals as opposed to focusing purely on on like a paid ad?

SPEAKER_03: 29:37

Yeah, we actually build four funnels. And you know, the referral funnel is really, really simple. So the first thing is at your initial intake, you make a prescription. Does that sound good? Would you prefer to do this in a small group setting or one on one with me? Great. Let's you know, let's firm up our commitment, you know, take the credit card. Then you say, okay, now here's The plan we're going to do this, this, this, we're going to meet again at the 90-day mark. And at that time, if you're completely satisfied with your results, I am going to ask you to help me bring in somebody to support you on your journey. Ah, because the reality, so you're pre-framing it. But then when that comes up again in 90 days, you take their measurements, you measure the thing that they care about, and you say, Are you completely satisfied with your progress? And if they say yes, you say, That's wonderful. We're so proud of you. The next step on your journey is to build a support network around yourself to keep you stable. So, you know, I know your husband, Ted, is an avid golfer. Why don't we bring him in for a personal training session with you on Friday? And I'm going to teach him some mobility stuff. You know, um, if they say, No, you know, I'm happy with my results, we're going in the right direction, but it's not as fast as I'd like, great. Let's let's change your program. You know, let's let's add on nutrition coaching or whatever. And if they say, No, I'm really not satisfied with my results, I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere, perfect. You've probably just saved that client. You're going to give them a completely different program. But that that's how the referral process works. It's really easy.

SPEAKER_01: 31:07

Um, just out of curiosity, we when you do that in your gym, how many people come back and say no, I'm not satisfied with my with my results?

SPEAKER_03: 31:15

It's very little, you know, call it 15%, you know. But the thing is, if you don't ask them, those 15% are gone. And here's here's the the real kicker. Like they could be getting amazing results, but not seeing it. So, you know, I had this woman, uh, she's a local news anchor woman, and she came in to lose weight. Her, you know, her on-air clothes were getting tight and whatever. And um, you know, over the next three months, I trained her really hard. And it turned out she was a natural athlete and she was soon deadlifting like 250 pounds. Like, yeah, you know, she ran her first 5k and just she did all these new things in her life. And I was like, Man, I'm so proud of you. And she said, I quit. And I said, How what are you talking about? Like, you've made all these gains. Look at the record board, look at my husband said that my arms look like a man's now. And I forgot, like, my goals for her were not her goals. And um, you know, if I had said, Are you completely happy with your results before she told me that, I would have been able to course correct a lot earlier. Yeah, I think a lot of us are really self-conscious about doing that because we don't want to feel like we gave them the wrong answer. The reality is every time you do that in course correct, you're adding to the sunk cost of working with you. And so they're less likely to want to go start over again with somebody else.

SPEAKER_01: 32:39

Oh, yeah. So it's it's it's hurting them, it's hurting you as a gym, but it's also in in some cases hurting the industry because they don't want to work with someone again. Totally. Yeah, that was, you know, I I I've never been good at sales. I I always thought, oh, it's like a used car salesman, and I just hate that mentality. But yeah, I I I never thought of it. There's another tweetable moment. There, Chris Cooper. What's your Twitter name?

SPEAKER_03: 33:04

Uh at Coach Chris Cooper. Sorry, I was like, uh, I have to think of that for a minute.

SPEAKER_01: 33:08

But I don't even remember. I I haven't used Twitter in such a long time. I'll have to get back on on look at that. But speaking of social media and uh I want to talk about leads. This one, this one blew me away. 14.6 percent of gyms still never call a lead, and the numbers increasing.

SPEAKER_03: 33:28

It's self-consciousness, Ted. Like what you just said, I don't want to feel like a salesman. So a lot of us felt that way from the beginning. We thought that the service should sell itself and it doesn't. What we need to understand, and this took me probably a decade to sink in, was sales is the first act of coaching. Like you're not you're not tricking anyone, you're not convincing them to buy something that's not going to live up to its promises, you're coaching them to commit to their to themselves. Like if you know that your program works, you should have no qualms in coaching somebody to buy it because you know that you have the the answer. And um, that's the thing. And so when you get back to like 14.1% of gyms aren't calling their leads, that's why deep down, they don't believe that their prop their product is going to solve a client's problem. They don't want to feel like a salesperson because they don't want to fail. And um so they just they avoid it, right? And it's a subconscious block. But when you realize like that person is in the water, waving their hands, and I need to grab that hold and pull them into the boat. Man, you are quick to pick up that phone and call them back five times until they answer.

SPEAKER_01: 34:40

Uh, you know, I I I got out of the day-to-day operations. Well, we went out at the White House back in 2005. But I just recently moved to Houston, Texas with my new fiance.

SPEAKER_02: 34:52

Congrats.

SPEAKER_01: 34:52

And thank you. We're opening a new functional medicine lab. And this is this is brilliant. This is exactly it because uh I would I'm gonna use this, I might have to get some coaching from you. Um but the other thing that we're looking at doing is having an AI outbound call to help with that. And I'm uh I've gone back and forth and I'm thinking, well, some people aren't gonna want to talk to an AI, but I'm thinking, well, first of all, I teach AI, so everyone knows that. But I think I think it happens all the time, and we're just afraid to adopt it. Um so I'm gonna I'm gonna do a little analysis on that, and I'm gonna I'm gonna pick your brain after we get this open. I don't know. Last time you went through a construction project, but it's hard. And every time I mention Christina's name on the podcast, uh you know, she takes me out for a steak dinner. So that's twice.

SPEAKER_03: 35:40

Oh, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01: 35:42

You deserve it. Speaking of staffing and Christine, that's three. Um, your report would suggest that many gyms have too many coaches relative to the number of clients that they have.

SPEAKER_02: 35:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:55

Why why, why are, I mean, in my mind, uh payroll is probably one of your top five, if not number one, expense. So why is why is there overstaffing?

SPEAKER_03: 36:05

Well, and dedication too. So what quite often happens is that people see that payroll expense and they think like, oh, that's scary. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna trade this coach or this staff person against the value of their membership, and you know, we'll balance out and I won't lose any money. But they forget to count like, well, actually, that person is paying you a membership right now. And if you don't write some kind of formal agreement, there's a chance that you're gonna wind up overpaying them. And that happens quite a bit, especially in the gyms that we work with. You know, they'll have six to 12 staff, and some of those people work one to two hours a week. And and then quite often, too, is like they're they set up their class schedule when they first opened and never changed it. And so 10 years later, now they're running this class at 10 a.m. that used to have seven or eight people. Now it's got two, they're losing money. The owner doesn't want to come in for it. You know, I'll trade another member to run it. And you know, they wind up with this massive staff that they have to manage. Instead, you should be focused on having one full timer if you can, one halftimer, and maybe a couple of part-timers just to you know spike some energy in the gym once in a while.

SPEAKER_01: 37:20

Uh, let's go back to the Dunbar gym number. What's the best staff structure for a hundred and fifty member gym?

SPEAKER_03: 37:26

Well, we would say that it's the owner, as long as the owner is still an operator and still enjoys coaching. So you've got a full-timer there. Um, the owner's spending half their time coaching and half of their time actually growing the gym if they're focused and they can do that really well. If not, that person's gonna spend all their time trying to grow the gym to mix results. Then you need one full-time coach who's basically gonna cover, you know, the majority of your schedule. And then you might have a part-timer or two, you know, quarter timers who are taking like the very early, very late, or the weekend classes, and that's about it. The problem, the more coaches you get, the more like the standard of excellence or the average standard tends to drop. And you wind up like micromanaging people. Why can't you be more like that guy? You wind up making rules to address the weakest people that affect the strongest people. And frankly, like your best people don't want to work with your worst people. So there's a whole spiral of of excellence uh that goes downward there.

SPEAKER_01: 38:27

Um, are you ready for my next tweetable moment with you? This is this is brilliant. Salary cap. You say that gyms would treat payroll like the pro sports salary cap, 44%. Now, I don't remember what the Toronto uh Blue Jays were this year in terms of salary cap, but uh they almost pulled it off against the Dodgers, so there's something to this. Yeah, that's right. What is what tell me more about the salary cap?

SPEAKER_03: 38:50

Well, what happens is that gym owners are typically very generous people, and so they will starve, they'll pay themselves last. So they're starving, they're martyring themselves, their coaches are making more. Uh they don't know how to sell personal training, so they'll they'll tell the per the coach, like, you keep all the revenue from the personal training, or they'll um work like just guess and make up this 80-20 split. The reality is that they are doing 90% of the work to get and keep the clients. So they're providing the coach with the space, the insurance, the equipment, the payroll, like the you know, payment processing, the warm, inviting atmosphere, the brand, the website that the client signs up on, all of that. They're probably eating like the transactional cost of the client. They're they're paying for everything, they're creating this massive opportunity platform for a coach. And what they're what they're doing then is like they're they're giving up 80%, 70% of their personal training revenue to the coach. They might even be losing money on that. And in some cases, it's even worse because they'll just like sublease to the coach. So the coach benefits from all of that for the low, low price of like 500 bucks a month, and the coach gets away with doing whatever they want, they don't even have to clean up after themselves. We had to we had to give people a number to aim for, and so the high watermark is like 44% of your gross revenue goes to payroll. If you think about it, now that that percentage turns some people off. So when you're talking to your staff, you got to talk in dollars instead of numbers. But as the owner, you really do have to know what these numbers are. If you think about it, at 44%, your top-earning staff are earning way more per hour than they could earn at any other gym. You're actually being enormously generous. Quite often that's double what they would earn for a personal training session at Equinox. And you are providing all these other things, but they might not understand what all those other things are because they are not the entrepreneur, and you are.

SPEAKER_01: 40:51

No, you know, you know, you even mentioned something there, like they don't have to clean up. Well, that's a cost. You know, you gotta pay you gotta pay for someone to clean up, you gotta pay for someone to buy the supplies, you gotta pay uh the credit card processing fee. Yeah, people don't realize it. And I think um, you know, just opening the book to say, hey, look, this is how much this is where my 20% or 40% goes. And I think that that's a great message to have. Uh, I know we're getting close on time, but I want to talk about the future. Uh so what are the biggest threats that you're seeing that we're not talking about yet in the industry?

SPEAKER_03: 41:30

Well, I think fear, you know, the first one that you named is is probably the biggest threat. People see AI coming in and they're terrified. The reality is exactly what you said, Ted. Like it's the personal part of personal training that is probably, you know, even more important and valuable in the future. Um, so that's that's one thing. It the threat is scarcity, right? The threat is like fear, the the and the threat is like competing with the wrong thing. The second threat is um our inability to like tell a better story than say like Ozempic. So because every gym owner is an island and there's very little connecting us, we are out there on our own throwing spears at the woolly mammoth that is the drug companies, and they've got a better budget, you know. And yeah, Coca Coca-Cola is great at storytelling. And if if we're not better at storytelling and can't tell a better story, our species will continue to live longer and sicker. Like, you know, lifespan will increase while health span decreases. We're the only ones out there. So the the threats are uh people quitting the industry right now. Every year, there's 10,000 new gyms in North America and there's 9,000 gyms going bankrupt. Like that is a big threat. Um, you know, there's also like most of the threats are in here. You know, you're scared of your competition, you won't collaborate, you won't work with a mentor, you won't learn from data, you'll keep guessing, treating it like your sixth grade arts and crafts project and trying to bluff your way through. Like, you know, when when something happens like COVID or a recession and the tide goes out, you know, we get to see who's wearing underwear and who's not. I forgot who said that, but you know, so um I think what's probably gonna happen as commodity prices tend to go up in North America over the next year or two, you're gonna see some people suffer. And I hate to say that, but like, you know, people who don't know how to run their business very well are probably gonna be out of the industry.

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

Yeah. Well, and it's it's it's a tough lesson, but it's it's one that that it's the survival of the fittest, no pun intended. Uh if if we have a moment right there, Ted. Good one. Good one. Yeah, if you had to boil this down, this it's a 70-page report and it's available for for free. You said what's the website?

SPEAKER_03: 43:52

Two brainbagis.com forward slash data.

SPEAKER_01: 43:55

I'll make sure that that's the show notes. But if you had to boil this down to one truth for the gym owners, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03: 44:01

You're undercharging. Probably that's simple. Well, I mean, that's that's the starting point for 80%. What happens is, you know, I own the first CrossFit gym, I own the first Fitbody Bootcamp, I own the first whatever gym in town. I set my price based on a wild guess. Three years down the track, the next one opens and they're gonna do it for five bucks less. And this this trend just continues, right? Yeah, yeah. And um, and so what happens is you you've got your 150 clients, but you can't afford to pay a coach. So you're working every hour of the day. There's there's no margin. Your rent goes up by five percent, and you're angry about it because you're, you know, um, and soon you're you're starving, you're martyring yourself, you're getting burned out, you're starting to resent your clients, and competition keeps rising. And you say, you know what, I think I'm gonna try making hamburgers for a living. Uh but really, like if you fix your price or at least your ARM, all that new revenue drops to the bottom line. The the pilot is well fed, and so the plane keeps on flying, you know, and and uh if you don't have that kind of margin, you won't have resilience to make it through the challenges that we're all gonna face over the next 30 years. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 45:13

Well, Chris, I appreciate you hopping on the podcast. If uh listeners want to go and learn more about you, what what do they do?

SPEAKER_03: 45:20

Best option is just to join our free group. It's gymownersunited.com. It's kind of like this union place for gym owners. We have about 11,000 in there. It's absolutely free. Every couple of weeks, I drop uh like a new tool in there that they can just use for free. And you know, the goal is really to get to those 10,000 gyms um that are sustainable long term because I think it's necessary to reverse this tidal surge of unhealthy behavior that we see in our society.

SPEAKER_01: 45:47

You know what I'm gonna do for you and your and your gym owners if you want, I'll I'll add some AI component to it. So I'll uh I love it. I'll get you, I'm gonna send you a copy of the book. Yes. And I and we'll uh, you know, if you want me to hop on, I'd be happy to do that. So yeah, Chris Cooper, thanks for being on, and I hope to talk to you again real soon.

SPEAKER_00: 46:05

Thank you, Ted. Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vicke. Don't forget to connect with Ted on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you love the mix of fitness and tech as much as we do, make sure to subscribe, write us a review, and spread the word. Got a topic you want us to cover or a guest you'd love to hear? Let us know. Stay tuned for our next podcast for more tips, tricks, and trends. Be disruptive, stay innovative, and most importantly, keep making waves.