Run a Profitable Gym
Run a Profitable Gym is packed with business tools for gym owners and CrossFit affiliates. This is actionable, data-backed business advice for all gym owners, including those who own personal training studios, fitness franchises, and strength and conditioning gyms. Broke gym owner Chris Cooper turned a struggling gym into an asset, then built a multi-million-dollar mentoring company to help other fitness entrepreneurs do the same thing. Every week, Chris presents the top tactics for building a profitable gym, as well as real success stories from gym owners who have found incredible success through Two-Brain Business mentorship. Chris’s goal is to create millionaire gym owners. Subscribe to Run a Profitable Gym and you could be one of them.
Run a Profitable Gym
When a Nearby Gym Closes: How to Help Its Members
When a nearby gym shuts down, its members risk losing their momentum—but you can step in to offer them a welcoming community where they can continue their fitness journeys.
That’s just what Matt Michaud, owner of EverProven, did when two gyms in his area closed their doors.
This influx of new members helped his gym earn a spot on all three of our sales leaderboards: set, show and close rates. In one month, Matt's gym closed a whopping 22 sales in 28 appointments.
The key is that Matt led with a Help First mindset: He and his staff focused on helping displaced members keep their fitness on track, without being pushy or “salesy.”
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin talks with Matt, who details the exact steps he took to ensure a seamless transition, from initial communication with the previous gyms’ owners to adjusting his systems to handle rapid growth.
You never know when a gym near you might be forced to close, so tune in to ensure you’re ready to help.
Links
“Help First” by Chris Cooper
Gym Owners United
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01:08 - Helping displaced gym members
08:12 - Mechanics of outreach
14:15 - Prescriptive Model with groups
20:46 - Avoiding staff overwhelm
23:51 - Long-term lead nurture
Two gyms shut down and ever proven stepped in to help the members that in part landed the gym on two Brain's. Top 10 leaderboard for set Show and close rate. Today on Run a Profitable Gym, you're gonna learn how you can help people and grow your business. If nearby gyms shut down , I'm Mike Kin , and please hit subscribe. So don't miss an episode just like this. My guest today, Matt Micho of ever proven , he scored a trifecta on our sales leaderboards. Three of them, set rate, show rate, close rate, very quickly, set rate the number of people who book appointments at your gym. Show rate, the number of people who show up for those appointments. Close rate the number of people who show up and buy . These are three really important leaderboards because they're your funnel into your gym for new members. Now, the top numbers on our leaderboards this month, 91, 68, 54. So that's 54 closes after 91 appointments set all from a gym in Mexico, which is really cool. Matt at his gym did 47, 28 and 22. So that's 22 closes with 28 appointments or people showing up, pardon me. And there's an interesting wrinkle. He had two gyms nearby closed, and Matt offered a home to the members. Now, it sucks when gyms close down. We need more of them, not less, but it does happen. And regularly we see strong gyms say, how can I help out the members nearby when they lose their workout homes? This of course, benefits the gym, but we're not talking about rubbing our hands together here and hoping that other gyms fall down because we really want more people working out rather than less. But that said, it's your duty as a gym order to keep people working out. And if their gym closes, you should step in to help. So Matt, let's talk about helping other gyms. How do you feel about that? I feel
Speaker 2:Great about it.
Speaker 1:All right . So first, gimme the backstory. What happened with the other gyms that closed? Like what's the story and how do you fit into this whole thing?
Speaker 2:Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1:A pleasure.
Speaker 2:So the first thing, I think what that would happen was there was a , a local chain gym. It's an orange theory . And , uh, from what I understand, the franchise itself got bought out by a corporate. Um, and then like Anytime Fitness, like big corporate chain came through and purchased a bunch of these, or like the , the major majority of the chains. And , um, they took and looked at what gyms were underperforming and they shut down the ones that were not performing to their new standard, I'm assuming. Um, there was another one down the road that just was struggling a couple towns away from us, happened to have a few other people in our town that we were also able to kind of attract as well.
Speaker 1:Okay. So did you have any inkling that these things were happening or was it just like they're gone?
Speaker 2:Uh , yeah, and like, honestly, I don't think they communicated these very well with their clients to be , first of all, I think feel like the rug got pulled out on both these situations. Like I think people will felt , felt stranded to be honest with you. Um , and I saw that . Yeah .
Speaker 1:And you see that. Yeah. And that's the thing that I was getting outta the intro when like, you know, we often think of that, you know, scarcity mindset, that the gym down the street is our competitor, but it's really not. We're competing against couches and screens and all those things that keep people on, you know, from gyms. And when people are working out and a gym goes under and they, they , like you said, the rugg gets pulled out. What do you , you gotta keep 'em going, you know? So here's the thing though. It , it feels awkward. We see this in our, in our private groups for gym owners regularly. They'll say, A gym nearby closed out. What do I do? I don't wanna look like I'm, you know, pecking at the remains, or I don't wanna look awkward. Like how did you navigate the awkwardness of trying to help people keep their workout habits, you know, when their gym went down?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. And to be honest with you, I think it , a lot of it had to do with leading, with kindness, leading with a help first mindset and leading with, Hey, let's put ourselves in their shoes and see how they feel. Right? And I think I , I got a unique way to answer that and I can think of it in my own personal way from experiences I've had in my gym. So I wanna start by saying it this way. Um, I think gyms are a lifeboat for many people. And until you experience that, until you experience the ability , uh, the, the , the responsibility that you have to create this atmosphere for somebody and the ripple effect that you can have on their life is really important to a lot of people. We , this isn't just working out for so many, right? And I think we know that if all of us here, maybe that isn't like, you know, a bigger section, but I think the gyms that we're talking to here in the , in the micro gym world are a little more personal, right? So story I like to share that makes me really cement that fact in. Is this, maybe about five years ago I was in my gym. I don't coach as much as I used to, but I was still pretty active on the floor then . And a client came to me at the end of a session and said, Hey, once everybody's out here, I , I need to talk to you about something. And I was like, okay, you know, I thought, you know, maybe it's a membership dispute or something like that. And I was like, this person's been with us for a long time. We got a great relationship. So I was like, all right, well no problem. We'll we'll sit down and we'll talk about whatever it is you need to talk about. And um, so they waited for everybody to clear out and it was just me and that person that was left. And they handed me a piece of paper and they said, please read this. I want you to read it and I want you to tear it up and throw it away.
Speaker 1:Oh , it's on that paper <laugh> .
Speaker 2:I start to read through this paper and I start to like get emotional. I start like even right now talking about it, I get goosebumps, right? Because this person's still in my gym and they, it was their suicide note and they said, I want you to be the person to throw this away and tear this up. 'cause I don't need it anymore. Because five years ago when I walked into your gym, it was the last ditch effort. It was my lifeboat, it mos my ring of life. It was the last thing I tried to fix my life. And because of all the things I've gotten from it, I don't need this anymore. And that's the type of impact we're talking about. It's serious. Wow , that's heavy . So, you know, obviously it's heavy and it's a real experience. And so at that moment it cemented my reason for doing these things that I do, you can help somebody without even knowing it. And the ripple effect that helps their life is insurmountable. Like, I can't measure that. Right? So everyone
Speaker 1:Who knew that person, you helped 'em all.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. So the impact on that, that person's children and their families and everything like that. So like that was heavy. It took me a lot to wrap my head around it. So that leads into what we're talking about today, right? So maybe there's somebody else that just got the rug pulled out from underneath them that's in that situation that doesn't have their lifeboat anymore, right? So if you think of it that way, you think of the impact that you can have by simply inviting somebody in and being kind because they're in a situation where, you know, they're not, they've lost their their home, right? So put , I put myself in their shoes, I asked my staff to put myself in their shoes and I said, can we look at these people instead of trying to be ultra salesy and ultra come into my gym and expect them to already think that they know what we are and who and we , and expect us to think that who know we know who they are. Let's, let's lead by asking 'em , how are you doing? I'm sorry this happened to you. I understand how important that community was for you. I understand what you had there. How can we help you? How can we make a difference in your life? I know it's not gonna be the same. We're not promising you that it's gonna be the same, but maybe we can keep the people that you care about together with you. Maybe we can help you a little bit more. Maybe we can , can help you continue the thing that you started. So that's what we led with, that's what we wanted to think about. I think in this world we get really wrapped up a lot of times and you have to, you have to pay attention to systems, you have to pay attention to numbers and metrics and those things. Those are very important and I know that. But if we don't forget about the human side of this, you're gonna be more successful moving forward. You're going to be able to take something that once was a stoked fire and that person got water dumped on them and hopefully maybe help 'em out a little bit. So that's kind of the lead of how we got into this and how we approached this whole situation with everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can't lay out a better example than you just came up with. That's one of the most powerful things I've heard in that, in that sense. So we'll just let that one sit. But I will tell you listeners, if you want to take this, this further, help First is the book by Chris Cooper that will help you understand this concept in greater detail. I don't have it in the stack behind me because I'm reading it in another room, but check that out. We'll put a link in the show notes for you. The idea is you're not offering to sell people stuff. You're helping them. They have goals , they wanna lose weight, they wanna get stronger, faster fitter. You are the expert, you know how to do it. And all you do is tell them , I can solve your problems like this. And if you offer that help, some of 'em are gonna buy. And it doesn't feel like slimy sales, but that book will be in the show notes. Matt gave the greatest example, I think I've ever heard of that concept in practice. So with that in mind, Matt, like we've covered the emotional end of it and you're, you know, you're trying to help these people because of that note that you dealt with and so forth. But let's talk, we'll , we'll move like delicately into the mechanics of this because that's important too. Like, how did you connect with these people and how did you, and again, we're not talking about targeting these people to steal their members. We're talking about helping them continue their journey. How did you get in touch with them? Or was it a natural thing or did you have a plan or what'd you do? Yeah,
Speaker 2:So when I first heard the rumor, I , uh, I kind of wanted to solidify it. So I reached out to a couple of people I know that maybe have a family member , the people in my gym that had family members that are going there, and they confirmed it for us. So I said, okay, well what I want to do is contact the ownership. I want to contact the coaches first, and I wanna say, Hey guys, I understand this is abrupt. I understand I'm out of nowhere, but I'm extending this olive branch to you as well. And I want to make sure that you have a place to go also. And I want you to , and like I want you to know that we're going to try to reach out to your people. However, we don't want you to think that we're just like taking advantage of your situation. I don't want to kick somebody when they're down.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How was that received?
Speaker 2:It was received really well because the way we did it, way we did, it was not in a way of like, again, it wasn't slimy sales. It was, I'm trying to help you, we're trying to be kind and we led with like, we know that you guys made a humongous impact on these people. We know that you were important to them. We know that we are a different entity, but if you need a home, we're happy to take you on. You know, it even went to the point of like, we, one of their coaches responded back to us and was like, I would love to talk to you about what it takes to coach for you. And , um, so we ended up hiring one of their, one of their people. Oh ,
Speaker 1:So you saved a job too,
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah. So the mechanics of that were really like simple as far as like just being nice again, kindness and grace and like just be nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But people don't always know, like the , the way you said that seems very natural. But we see gym owners in our group say, what do I do? Yeah, well be a human being. Let's start with that and go to the owner and say, oh man, can I help you? And I, I love the way you said that. I'm not trying to kick you down when you're down, you know, how are you doing? Right? Probably they're dealing with like a floundering business and then there's a shame and all that. Like, so you're helping them out too . Did they put you in contact with members or did they tell their members? Or how did that go?
Speaker 2:So what we did was they gave us, they gave us the okay to start some marketing towards 'em . So we openly put a public post out. Um, and we knew a few people that were like over there, so we asked them to share it and things like that. So we did kind , we went down the route of affinity marketing a little bit through social media, things like that. We had just started doing targeted paid ads for the first time ever in our long history of being a gym. And um, so that kind of coincided with it just coincidentally. So that was , uh, we didn't try to target any ads towards them because I felt like that might be a little bit like mechanical , uh, if you wanna put it that way. Yeah . I just wanted help first. So I wanted to be, I wanted it to be personal, right? So if if, if we didn't, you know, if we didn't put it out there as a , uh, as a general cast, the net ad, I think it was more, more one-on-one. And then when we were able to have these conversations with 'em , it was much more well received. You know, like, again, we wanna talk about you first, right? So what can we do to help you?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that makes sense. Like I had a couple of experiences similar, Jim , uh, shut down nearby and one of the members just found us 'cause we were the next closest one and they brought in a few of them and they tossed that down and we talked, we sat on Medicine Balls, had a chat, and they, it turned out they were like the test people who came in to see if we were cool or not. And then they brought their friends afterwards. So I'm sure with you, you know, you help a few people out to start and you get a few other ones. And uh , when we moved , uh, our gym, like our business, we shut it down the physical space , uh, during Covid and moved online. We felt really, really great that we had a couple of other local gyms that we knew were solid, where we could say to our members, Hey, we're not doing this in a physical space anymore, but these people will take care of you. And we could trust and say like, go see this person. And like, you know, maybe not that person over there. We didn't do it exactly like that. But there , you know, there are gyms where you know, your people are gonna get treated the way you want them to be treated. And so you can help them out and at least give them that option. So it sounds like you really did that. You gave me in the intro a little bit of , uh, hints about your sales process here, because obviously this is gonna be a little bit different. You're not here, you talk about helping and, you know, talking about some feelings before you got into sales. Tell me a little bit more about that free consultation, which we call intimidating no sweat intro, which is a sales meeting, but for you it was a little bit more than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we definitely deviated a little bit from the traditional one-on-one, no sweat intro with this one a little bit. Um, it was way more about how they're feeling again. And you know, I think I've talked about that a little bit here, but I think , um, one , one thing we really did really different was we did it in a , a group setting as well. Oh, did you? So we brought in coaches. Yeah, we did. So we did , um, we were doing up to four people, considered it small group and then , um, kind of went from there because now it's more than one person coming in. It's not, it didn't feel as dark and lonely as like, I'm just going in here by myself, right? So we encourage 'em to come in with people they already knew, right? It's people that were already, and everybody's feeling similarly. Like we had all lost our community. We're all, we're all looking for this collective space . Uh, when we had these conversations, we led it the same way, but it was, it was almost like, well, how are you feeling? And then next person, next person, next person. It , it was good for our coachings, our coaches staff , our coaching staff as well, because they were not overwhelmed , uh, because we were getting like 50 people all of a sudden doing these intros and things like that. So doing it in a group setting was a little more capable for this particular time. And that's atypical. That's not how we want to normally do things. However, we did find the benefit of being, having a , an already established community walking into ours. We're just showing 'em what we're all about. We didn't , and we didn't have these expectations. Like they would know us already and we knew that, you know, we are gonna be different. We're not going to assume that you guys already all know what we do. We're not gonna assume that you are a , you are our typical avatar. 'cause some of the , uh, some of the people may have never found their way this way unless this happened. But I feel like we did a pretty good job of trying to mend that community from the get go .
Speaker 1:Okay . So that's interesting. So it was a group setting and it was talking about like feelings and you know, what these people had lost and kind of, I , I'll call it almost a counseling session for lack of a better term. And then you get into like the , the sales stuff down the line. Yeah . Did that go in the same kind of direction though , where it's like, what are your goals? Like what is this the prescriptive model that two brain prescribes where it's like, what are your goals? Here's how we solve them. Would you like to join? Was it kind of that thing at the end? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly. It was, and like when if anything got really personal, then we were gonna like, okay, let's, let's save that for a side conversation just for you. But I think that's definitely the way we went with it. I mean, the prescriptive model works and each and each group was gonna be a little bit different. Uh , our conversions were really high on these ones. So you know, we've, we had like 38 immediately, almost 38 of those people went right into an on-ramp program. And we did it as small group again because we didn't work , we didn't wanna overwhelm staff and uh, and things like that. So, you know, we usually run with PT first, which we did small group first this time.
Speaker 1:So if you had a high conversion rate, obviously what you did worked really well. So Chris Cooper always talks, but looking at the data, you look at your sales data there for this new , this group of members who lost their gym home, you converted at a really high level. That means what you did worked really well. So listeners, there , there's the proof that this is not just I did it and you know, this is some numbers to back that up. I'll ask you this 'cause this is interesting ever proven . Uh , is your brand, you , uh, are also a , uh, CrossFit affiliate? Do you just do, is it group training, pt, semi-private, or what's your, what's your offering there?
Speaker 2:So we're , we do everything. We do group , large group, small group , uh, a lot of personal training, a lot of young youth programs, things like that, you know, with a lot of sports teams nearby. But we do have those things as small group and specialty courses. Uh, so definitely big on the personal training and the small group training for sure. Yeah .
Speaker 1:Okay. So you've got some flexibility in your model. How did that work when you had people coming over from Orange Theory , which is a very specific brand and another coaching team , did they just slide right in because you were able to say, I get your goal, here's how we solve it here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I think the one thing that was very , uh, apparent and with the , they were very impressed about was the level of coaching they were receiving to come to us and the level of like diving in because they were going from a franchise where, and it like, first of all, I never want to talk back poorly about another gym. Orange Tree does great things. They're just not the same as us, right? They get people
Speaker 1:Moving, they do a good job that for
Speaker 2:Sure they, and then and , uh, certainly do that mm-hmm <affirmative> . Uh , so I don't, I'm not saying anything bad about them. However, the level of involvement from our coaching staff is a little bit different here. We're not just cheerleading and saying Go faster, go harder. We're getting into the weeds of like the , this is gonna direct you to the things that you told me about. This is going to be the pathway that we talked about in your goal setting meeting, right? We're gonna be really specifically dialed in on those things. And obviously movement is a big thing of that, you know, a big component of that coming in and making sure that like correcting, teaching, seeing, doing, and all those types of things. Very, very involved in in those things. So , uh, feedback I've gotten so far is like, man, I've never been coached like this before and we're still doing the cheerleading and the making people in the high , the fist bumps and the high fives and all those things too. So I think that , uh, you know , uh, one of them told me is like, man, are your coaches exhausted? At the end of the day , I was like, no , we all are. We , we , we , we are . Yeah. Anybody who's coached a cat class and really dives in and uh, and and gives that, they're all, you're gonna be exhausted by the end of it . <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Wow. So I mean, what essentially what you've got is you're selling coaching and that coaching can be for, you know, power lifting , CrossFit, high rocks , whatever that can be. You're just picking the method in your toolbox. It'll allow you to coach this person to their fitness goals. Orange theory, we'll call it, you know , commoditized intensity for lack of better term. And it's a completely different thing. They're doing a good job getting people moving, but it's not exactly coaching, which is what you are selling. And that allows you a ton of flexibility to use whatever method and model you , or sorry, whatever method you want to get results for the client. In terms of pricing, this is an, an interesting one. Were there differences in price between what they were paying and what you sold them, how they
Speaker 2:Act ? Yeah , there is, you know, obviously our small group training is gonna be less expensive than , uh, one-on-ones are personal training, things like that. I think our monthly is is quite similar from what I understand and I could be wrong. So , uh, please don't take this as, you know, absolute fact. But from what I understand, each orange three is pricing is a little bit different. Um, so it's not like the same at one franchise to the next one. But I know that we are similarly priced as far as large group pricing goes. I think they were very happy to know that we do offer those extra things. 'cause I know that's one thing they don't offer. Like if you want to work on your specific goals, like Orange Theory is not the place to do it. If you wanna do one-on-one training, they don't, they don't offer that. So, you know, backed a little bit. One of our full-time coaches that works for us currently , uh, he's been with us for a couple of years now. Used to be a studio manager at a Orange theory when he first was making the conversion to us. So that was helpful in this situation too. But at first he was making the conversion over to us. He started seeing personal training clients from Orangetheory at our gym. So that was a , he was part-time and then, you know, do work coaching at both places and then eventually just coming on over with us. But , uh, you know, that that was a big, big thing to see that they were happy to be involved in , in something like that and be able to have that offering.
Speaker 1:Did most of these new members from the other gyms go into a big group program or did some of them go into those smaller groups or p pt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it's about, it's about , it's a split. So some of them are going into a large group. Some of them are continuing with small group in their or established group, but a lot of them are doing a higher model. So some of 'em are doing like large group and doing some small group over here , uh, in some one-on-ones. And so what we're trying to do is integrate the , and when they do attend a large group, because they're sometimes, you know, they're in that circle. Like anytime like you go to, you go to a , a meeting with a bunch of unfamiliar faces. Most of us, if you're there with three people are gonna sit at the same table with the people you know, and aren't gonna branch out and sit with other people. So we've been intentionally trying to be like, Hey Jim, this is Bob Bob's new here, can you be a mentor for Bob today? And go ahead and take him through the class with obviously with the coach, but make sure he doesn't get lost. Make sure he knows what the foam rollers are, make sure he knows where the dumbbells are and things like that. So that does two things. It creates a friend for the new person and it makes that already established member not feel like all the attention is going over here. And I , and also validates, hey, I trust you as a valued client of mine to go and help this person. So that's one of the other things we've been trying to do with those hybrid people that are coming in and doing both. Make sure that they branch out a little bit and extend their circle a little bit.
Speaker 1:Okay. Because that's a danger is when you put a whole bunch of people in your gym at one time, and I've done this, you can get some weird vibes and if you don't have the right people, like it gets weird and all of a sudden your existing members can start to look over there and say, why is that new client getting a , a new free toaster and I'm not, not, you know, and that that's a <inaudible> . Did you have any , uh, like you obviously put something very specific in place where you had like kind of these workout buddies, for lack of a better term, that were like kind of leading them through the , the business. Did you do anything else in just to make sure that your staff didn't get overwhelmed, your systems didn't , didn't get overwhelmed and your members didn't get upset?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so start with starting with members. I think we just encouraged our coaches to start reaching out more. And so we increased the amount of , um, we, we use , uh, A CRM just like , uh, we use , we use Jim Lead machine and we started increasing our contacts on there and making sure that hey, we, we know there's a influx of people here coming through. How are you feeling too? And you know, that's been well received and making sure we're having those communication touch points , you know, for them to be able to say, Hey, I love this. Hey, I don't like it so much. Um, you know, a couple of our classes are impacted by it because we're seeing, like in a large group, we're seeing more people, right ? So , uh, we're having discussions on the backend and our weekly coaches meeting about how the coaches are feeling with that and then discussing like, Hey, how do you think everybody's receiving this ? But, you know, reaching out and making sure that we're having that open line communication on , on all fronts As far as systems go, you know, we get to obviously keep reevaluating what's working and what's, what's not working. So I'm working closely with our GM on making sure that everything is still going the same way. She's got a pretty good ear down on the railroad tracks on that. And uh, I think things are going pretty well. We're gonna have to make some changes , uh, with that influx of people. Uh , we're gonna probably adding some more coaching to some more large group sessions and then , uh, more opportunities to offer small group and personal training and things like that. You know, my gym is busy. We , I , I put up a post in one of our groups recently and , and there was a lot of people in the gym at once , uh, but there was all different things happening. So I had a large group, a small group, three PTs and an and a no sweat intro happening at once. And that was last Wednesday. And so, like, good, good things to be have happening, but gotta take, take care of the staff too and do pulse checks on them and make sure, Hey, I appreciate you. Hey, thank you. So one of my goals for today is to go get them some coffee gift card and be like, Hey, I know you're busting your butt here. Have a have a coffee on me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's wise because it can happen. We did a , a challenge , uh, a six week challenge back in the day. Uh , the ads worked just great, brought an a ton of people. It was a revenue PR month for us, but the gym was outta control. The systems were starting to rattle, screws were falling out , everything was going wrong, staff was stressed. Our members, our existing long-term members are starting a little weird about the whole thing 'cause the gym was over full and coaching wasn't up to the right level. You gotta have your systems in place, you have to have your staff on board do . If you're in this position, listeners and you see a gym that's closing the offer to help make sure that you've got a whole plan for your business so that you don't see the screws rattling outta the machine because once they're out, it's a big problem. Very tough to fix on the fly. So the weight of new members needs to be managed carefully and Matt's giving you some great tips for doing that. The best thing, communicate with your staff, with your existing people, with the new people. That's a huge start. Just communicate and then put some plans in place at our firm. So Matt , we're gonna move out of , uh, you know, the, the mechanics of helping a gym, members of a gym, the shutdown . And I wanna ask you about your sales funnel in general. Uh , we'll just go back to like the general thing. So like your day-to-day, I have an appointment, I have a sale. What would you do differently to improve already great numbers in your funnel?
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that we could do a lot better at is specifically when you have that client that comes in. So running new , new running ads, now we're getting some leads that are coming in and they might be a little colder than normal. So once we get those people that come in, it's not our warm and fuzzies that we normally have with everybody. Sometimes those people are you , you have those five, first five minutes, you know that person's probably not gonna buy something from you today and that's okay . What we need to do better at is making sure that we follow through and make them have an incredible experience. Even though you're not, you know, they're not gonna be making a purchase today. So that when they do wanna make a purchase, they think of us and remember, hey, they were nice to me. They were kind, they took care of me when I came in. So little touch points of like, Hey, can I grab you a water? Hey, thank you for coming in today, where'd you come from? And know , getting to know them a little bit. And that way we can also have some meat to follow up with in , uh, in our touch points . You know, like, Hey, I remember that your told me that your daughter had a dance recital. How'd that go? You know , little things make sure we're investing even in the people that aren't gonna make a sale. We we're not gonna make a sale with that day. That's okay. 'cause then if we're kind and we're nice and we take care of 'em , they're gonna remember that those guys were pretty good to me. And when it's time to make a decision, hopefully they remember us and we've had , we've seen that work in the past, but we could be better at it for sure .
Speaker 1:Do you have a , a long-term lead nurture sequence or anything like that that helps these people? You know, we , they connected, sorry, stay connected to those people , uh, after they don't buy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we do definitely have like a system of making sure that we do , uh, reach back , texts, phone calls, emails, things like that. If they're in our system, we're gonna keep contacting 'em until they tell us not to. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . But it's gonna be , you know , you know. Yeah, exactly. And, and that's the whole point is like , Hey , I still want to help you. Um, if you want to be able to connect with me, here's my info. Here's the things we can do. And then a lot of times too, we run some social media groups where we're able to kind of like, Hey, remember you did an intro. That's okay that you're not coming in with us, but here's a group that's super helpful. Maybe it'll help you reach your goals. And we post a lot of helpful things in there and a lot of times that's uh , get gets traction.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's something to remember. That's a great tip , uh, that Matt brought up listeners, is when you start to run ads, like if you're doing affinity marketing and referrals and things like that, you're getting slam dunks a lot of times in the sales office because my best friend came , came in and I've told them for six months that this gym is amazing and I've lost 20 pounds and I look stronger. That person is almost certainly gonna join. And sometimes that can obscure holes in your sales process because you're getting these ultra hot leads that are just like throwing credit cards at you. When you start getting down the chain further and getting into like people who are stuck to a couch or have some reel fears about gyms or any of that other stuff will call it colder traffic that comes from a lead. You're gonna have to do some stuff to nurture them. You might not hit it outta the home run or hit the home run in the first sales meeting. And again, there are sales skills that you can learn a two brain metric and teach you how to sales sell and close. And that help first mentality. Again, get that book in the show notes. But some people are just gonna leave and if you just say, ah , they're gone, they didn't buy, that's a mistake. You can put 'em into a long term near, I love what you said, send 'em a text. Hey, I just wanna let you know, thanks for the meeting yesterday. I, I know , I hope you made it to your, you know, the sun's ballet recital on time or whatever. If you ever need, I'm here Anytime you have a question, just a personal note like that is a huge deal. Feed them into your automated sequences, whatever you need to do. But keep in touch with these people because if you keep sending them info at some point they might see the thing that they need to see to get moving and get off the couch and come see you. And again, the help first mentality, you're not annoying them because you want their money. You are , you came in for a reason, you have a health concern or a fitness problem that needs solving. I can solve it. And when you're ready, I'm here. That's the mentality and that changes everything. Help first book in the show notes. Matt, any other advice that you would give to gym owners? We covered a lot of stuff here. Is there anything else that you would tell them? Uh , either sales or gym nearby, shut down .
Speaker 2:Uh, I would say just keep your ear to the ground and make those connections ahead of time, right? So like that's a good one. You know, I think one thing we've done really well is I'm kind of like the type of person that knows that we're in a , we're in a Tri-City area. We live three small cities and there's a lot of people here and there's enough for everybody. Like if somebody down the road opens a gym, cool, like go make that connection with 'em because you never know what's gonna happen and you could make, it could be something that brings you people later on. And so in the past we've actually done that. We were very kind to another gym and when they, this is previous probably right around covid, two of those people now that own their own gym, they work for us now and they work full time for us. That's cool . So , um, and they've both said that, you know, if you wouldn't, weren't so kind, maybe wouldn't have landed there, but there's enough for everybody and you can learn from each other and you can , uh, you can help them be better because if somebody in your neighborhood is better, you're gonna look at , look better for everybody else . So if we're all putting out really good stuff, I think it rises, you know, like what does it say? Rising tide raises all ships. Like if you've got these skills you can share with somebody, it will never hurt you to be kind and be helpful to somebody else in the same world as you. There's enough for everybody, I promise.
Speaker 1:How big is your town or that Tri-City area people? What are we talking for? Population?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're in the city of Dover. We're about 40,000 and then there's two other cities about the same size. So you know, we'll say like between all the small towns and everything, probably even a 10 50 mile radius, it's probably 150,000 people. So , uh, there's two, 320 coming to my gym, right? 200 CrossFit members and then 120 or so small group and personal training members. That's a drop in the bucket. There are so many other people that we can help and all of us have, there's enough for everyone again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's so tempting and especially in a smaller town, it's so tempting to say, there's only so many people and I want all of them. And I , Jim , down the road is my enemy, but that's really not the way to do it. And so I would encourage you , Matt said a great like reach out to other gym owners just to say hi, you know, have a referral network. It might come down to us where it's like you get someone in no sweat intro and you're trying to help them and you can't help them at your gym and you say that gym down the road is gonna be perfect for you. And a good example for me. Yeah, we had that at my gym. I didn't wanna deal with competitors anymore. It was not a focus for you . There was a gym that did. And so whenever a person said, I want to go to the CrossFit games or I wanna do this and come up competition, I was like, that's an amazing goal. The best place for you is that gym over there and that's where you should go. I, I'm just not the the best option for you. They're gonna solve that problem. And it was great because eventually things came back the other way and it works out nicely like that. So know your local gym owners and again, you guys are united against the couch and screens. It's not fighting against each other for those few clients that are already working out, that's kind of a sucker's game, right? Because it's just, it doesn't work like that. Matt's the example in the proof <laugh>. Alright Matt , I'm gonna let you go. I know you gotta go get some co uh , coaches coffee, so I'm not gonna hold you here any longer. Thanks so much for sharing this, this episode is gonna help some gym owners, especially when another gym goes down. We don't wanna see it, but we want the members to keep working out. Thanks for being here. A
Speaker 2:Hundred percent . Thank you for having me. I'm really appreciative of , uh, two Brandon being on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we love having you in the group. This is Matt r Show Run a Profitable Gym. Thanks for listening. Please hit subscribe in the way wherever you're watching listening because there's more shows like this coming and we're gonna solve problems for you as gym owners. And now here's two brain founder Chris Cooper with a final note.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness every day I answer questions, I run free webinars and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.
