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 Your Coaches Don't Suck: The Rewards for Developing Staff
What happens when every coach at your gym operates at an A+ level?
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin sits down with Two-Brain Business mentor Kenny Markwardt to discuss the massive rewards of developing your training staff.
As the owner of Sandpoint Strength Conditioning in Idaho and co-host of the “Strength Coach Collective” podcast, Kenny is passionate about coach development and shares how investing in his staff’s growth transformed his gym.
He breaks down how coach ascension improves retention, gym culture and revenue—in fact, one of his coaches now generates a third of the gym’s total revenue!
Mike and Kenny talk about how to evaluate and mentor coaches to build long-term careers at your gym, how to shift from a transactional to a relationship-based coaching practice, and how to establish a structured training system for your staff.
To hear interviews with some of the top coaches in the fitness industry, subscribe to the “Strength Coach Collective” podcast, using the link below.
Links
Coach Ascension With Karl Solberg
Strength Coach Collective Podcast
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
01:13 - All coaches delivering at A or A+
05:02 - Good coaching helps all
09:33 - Evaluating your coaches
13:10 - Improving your coaches
18:14 - Get results today
My coaches only like my classes. It feels great to say that, but it's actually bad for your business. So how do you ensure a high level of service delivery across your entire coaching staff? And what are the rewards for doing so ? You get the answer today and run a profitable gym . I'm gonna host Mike Warton . Please hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. Do me a favor, if this show is helpful, hit a like on this video so we know we're doing the right stuff. Kenny Marquardt is a certified two brain business mentor. He's one of the big wheels at Sandpoint Strength and Conditioning in Idaho with his wife. He's also the host of our Lifting Buddy podcast, strength Coach Collective, where he interviews some of the top coaches in the fitness industry every week. So check out that show. We'll put a link to it in the show notes so that you can watch that if you're interested in developing your coaches. That's exactly what we're talking about today. Kenny, welcome here. I know you're heading off to Mexico in a matter of hours. We're gonna whip this off and help some gym owners. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Love it man. Excited. Alright .
Speaker 1:And the Strength Coach Collective is going really, really well. You've had some amazing guests on there, so I'm kind of curious to see what your take is now that we are , you know, you're talking to experts. We're gonna take this right down to ground level at the gym where the rubber meets the barbell, so to speak. So let's talk with it . I like rewards. I always wanna talk about what's in it for the gym owner . So we'll talk rewards. What happens to business metrics when all the coaches in the gym are delivering at an a or a plus level?
Speaker 2:It's magic. I mean, it legitimately is, you know, whether it's personal training, which is kind of an obvious one to have. The, the universality of the quality and delivery and authority of good coaches of, of the staff , uh, being able to do those things. Like that's an obvious one on the personal training side. But the specialty stuff too is where I've really seen personally the benefits and, and my mentees have seen the same thing. Like, so for example, my youth coach who's phenomenal, he's built such a big authority in our community through the work that he is done with the youth, that he's built a huge arm of our business , uh, to where it's like a third of our income now. Really , Jim , a third of our revenue is our youth stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he's
Speaker 2:That good. Yeah , that's great. And it's one of those things. Yeah, he's that good. He's, it's one of those things like I think some of us as, as owners and coaches, we try and say, oh , my coaches are just as good as me, or they're actually better than me. And they try, we try and kinda , you know, shed or take some of the light off of us and put it on our staff. Like, this is legitimately, I have that , uh, not just with him but with all my staff and it just, it's just magic.
Speaker 1:Wow. A third of your business. So all of a sudden you find a guy who's incredible, you put him in a great spot, you give him the , the model to succeed. You tell him , you know, this is how we run the business and so forth, but you give him this, you know, playing field and stay where in the lions and so forth. And he just crushes it and all of a sudden it's a third of year business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's phenomenal. And again, it's just, it's, it's rewarding financially, but it's also rewarding as like, so I'm a , I'm a father as well, but it's like seeing your kids flourish in the ways that you hope them to. And I don't mean that in a pedantic, like I'm trying to, yeah . You know, he's my child or anything. But at the same time, to see him and my other coaches too step out into the light and let them really truly shine and hear the feedback from their parent , the parents of the , the kids, the kids themselves. And then for the other coaches, the , the clients that they're working with to hear what they're experiencing through the coaching that they're receiving is the, the greatest thing I could ever hope for.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And like we all , we often it's, it's tough to track length of engagement and tie it directly to one thing 'cause there's so much that goes into that number. But, you know, we have to say without, you know, quoting it was 2.5 months increase or whatever, better coaching is gonna produce better results for clients and people are gonna stay longer. Have you seen that too, just in a general sense?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. It's such a less of a, it's very, the transactional erases and it's more of a relational, like these people , uh, see this as something that is a , a have to in their life, the relationship they have with their coach. Whether it's, you know , just having the support but also seeing the results that are provided through those, through that coaching is just, it's not a, it's not an option for them anymore. And so yeah, they stick around forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The worst feeling. And , uh, tell me if you've had this back in the day. The worst feeling for me as a general owner was when someone would come and a great client would come and say to me, you know, Hey, can I talk to you quietly? And they'd bring me aside and they'd say, this coach kind of sucks. Yeah . And it wasn't a personal thing. It was, it was like a concern for the business where they were trying to help me out and say like, I'm not trying to be an. I'm not trying to like dig into someone or cut someone down, but like, have you got a problem here? And I was like, oh , have you had that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. I think we
Speaker 1:All have. Definitely,
Speaker 2:We all have. And I think there's some, there's two sides of it. One is that as owners step out of the light, like there's always a little bit of the emotional disconnect that people feel like, they feel like, oh man, we had this, we had this thing with you. And they look up to you as the , the only person that can deliver the service. And so there's a little bit of that. I think that owners just need to kinda wrap their heads around that. That's always going to happen. But there's also the quality side of it. Like there is probably some truth to what they're saying. What I found to be the most effective in that is actually being transparent with what we're doing to develop and evaluate our coaches on. Ooh ,
Speaker 1:There you go. We'll get in . I'm not gonna ask you what that is because that's coming up in just a sec. I'll ask you for a couple more examples. Have you seen anything, 'cause you men , you're a mentor and you , so you talked to lots of gym owners. When you see them improve their coaching and their service delivery at their gyms, do you see any other metrics improve as well? I wanna make sure it's not just you
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah, I mean qualitatively their lifestyle improves, like the owner, like there's just so much better. Like the sleep that you get at night, knowing that you're not worried about that next, that morning coach who's who you're not super sure about <laugh> , like that's, there's a lot of , there's something that's , uh, un quantit but qualitatively , uh, about that, that's so, so nice. But yeah, the same thing with mine. Like I've seen that where, where coaches develop their specialties, they develop their qualities, like the revenue grows, the length of engagement grows, I think, I mean honestly everything just gets better.
Speaker 1:Yep . Yeah . And I've seen that. So listeners, what you've got there is exactly what Kenny said. You're gonna get some length engagement benefits, you're gonna get some happiness benefits. And those two are maybe slightly intangible. And then you can't say directly a number, but revenue does go up if you get a great coach because that coach can be then sell personal training. People wanna work with that great coach. You've got opportunities for specialty programs or even like a semi-private program where you're adding things to your model. Great coaches who are really skilled and get results for clients make a business better. And you can tie it to some very clear metrics and also some like more ethereal stuff. But also, like Kenny said, the ability to sleep at night, knowing your morning coach isn't gonna screw it up the next morning. So those are your benefits. We're gonna get into how you do it now. First of all, what's a good coach? How do we, you know, and can we tie good coaching to client results in any way ? 'cause Chris has talked about this a lot, but it's, a lot of gyms don't do that.
Speaker 2:Yes. So to find a good coach, I think this is where I see a lot of owners get hung up, is they think that the, the coach has to come in with experience. And realistically, I think the coach needs to come in with, with passion and caring and to get it like that's, you know, in soft skills. Yeah, soft skills. They need to, they need to get what you're doing and they need to believe in what you're doing. Um , and they need to be good ambassadors of that. But then quantitatively, I think that they just need to be, you need to train them . Like that's your job. I think that as a co as an owner, your new job is to coach coaches to get them to be good and to start them off with just a baseline and then progress them as they go, which I think we're gonna get into with evaluations and training. But to make a good coach, I think it's that, that growth mindset tied in with the soft skills
Speaker 1:Client results. Now you can just say like, you gotta coach who's got great soft skills, that means they're gonna connect with your clients better. You can teach them all the other stuff like how to teach the sta snatch and things like that. Like all those things can be instructed. And I've heard about this regularly. Hire soft people with great soft skills. You can backfill certifications and credentials and you don't need a hundred, you probably need like one, maybe two if it's a specialty. But you get these great coaches, they connect with clients and they build relationships. And you hinted at this in the early, early part of the show. Once they build these relationships, you have this, it's like you're seeing the same care provider over the course of a year and you have this amazing rapport. You understand the coach understands this person what the goals are. It can't not produce better client results. Right? If I, if I'm working with you Kenny for a period of a year and you know that I wanna get my deadlift to four pounds or whatever it is, and we're all focused on that, you're gonna celebrate my achievements. You're gonna know exactly how, you know when I get there. You're gonna celebrate it because you know how big a deal is it we're gonna talk about along the way. And I'm not gonna wanna leave because I'm getting results. You are showing me the results and we have this trust factors . I don't wanna start with anyone else. Have you seen that personally and in your, in your business?
Speaker 2:Yes, for sure. In fact, that's one of the things that we train our coaches on it right away is demonstrating results. Like showing them that they're getting closer to the goal. Yep . Every single session because , and I think that's , I don't wanna go too far into the rabbit hole of , of program design, but no , there is an aspect of that that you can demonstrate that almost every single session to show them how they are getting closer to their goals. Even if it's not like as immediate. Um, as you know, they're one , you're not, not gonna test their one rep max every day , but you're going to show them and tell them how they are progressing and getting closer so that they understand, like they get that little carrot and they get the, the breadcrumb along the way to reward them, show them this is working and they buy into your authority more. And then they just wanna keep coming. If
Speaker 1:You wanna dig into stuff like that, topic's exactly like that. Strength Coach Collective is the podcast that Kenny hosts along with Chris Cooper and Chris Guerrero. We have leading lights of the fitness industry on there, including Jason Kpa , coach Mike Berger , other guys like that. Dan John's coming up. Check out that show. That's where you can dig into topics like this. Now, Kenny evaluating coaches. So here's the meat of it, evaluating them. How often do you do, do you do it? And how do you do it?
Speaker 2:For our new coaches, we evaluate them from the very beginning. Like we start their journey with an evaluation like before they're ever on the floor, before they ever do any shadowing. We just get 'em a baseline just like we just talked about with clients. Like we wanna show them results. And so the know where their baseline is from the, the, the absolute outset is, is imperative. And so we'll just say, Hey, you're, you know, this is what our rubric is and this is where you are right now. Let's have a conversation about it. It's not a, it's not a, a tearing down of like, Hey, you're , you stink in all these areas, <laugh> , so we gotta work on this. It's more of a conversation around, Hey, let's talk about your background. Let's talk about your knowledge, let's talk about your, you know, your skills in these areas. And then as a , as a, as an owner and coach or head coach, you're gonna wanna try and move them along to a certain level that says, okay, well this is now you are coaching, you are a coach for us. You've hit these things. So to , it starts at day zero. And then with a new coach, we evaluate them every single shadowed session just based on hitting certain, certain uh, uh, markers. So we use a leveled system that as a new coach, we really want them just focusing on the basics. And so like, rather than overwhelm them with a two page list of what makes a a black belt coach, we wanna get them just focused on the basics. And it's uh , it's a very nurtured mentoring kind of a relationship. Say , Hey look, this is, these are the only things I want you to deal with and then we're gonna help you with those things as we go. So we do that for their first eight to 10 sessions, depending on their performance there. And then after that it's every quarter. So we do the same thing every quarter as they progress.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I talked to , uh, Carl Solberg, one of our other mentors, he and Oscar Yoed in Sweden created this amazing coach ascension model. Uh, I'm gonna put a link to that in the show notes. And one of the things that really struck me when I talked to Carl , he is like, don't evaluate your coaches against the gold standard for all coaches. He's like, that's gloriously unfair to a new coach because you have this giant pile of stuff that a great coach would know. They know nothing. They just started and you're evaluated on day one or day zero you said. So he's got these cool levels of like, here's what we expect from you at this stage. And it's just a smaller list of like basic stuff that's essential to get to this next level. You've got this longer list and so on and so forth. And eventually you've got, and he's got a whole colored system of belts and so forth, essentially to move people along and they come with pay raises and things like that. If you've, you know, then I think it's the black belt potentially is the top one. I'm not sure if , do you remember, do you remember what it it is ?
Speaker 2:It is brown. Oh yeah . We actually , we use that same system. That's exactly what I was referencing. There you go. Yep . And , uh, it is currently brown. I think that the , they and we are trying to work on what makes for a , uh, black belt or master Oh , okay . Master level coach. So ,
Speaker 1:Well you must defeat this . The , uh, you must defeat the master before you can you be the master, right, <laugh> . That's
Speaker 2:Exactly right. Right. 10,000 hours
Speaker 1:Just a one box thing where it's like, you must kill me. <laugh> <laugh> . Yeah. Anyway, but the whole thing behind this thing is a level system that says we start slow and you get better. And as you get to these different levels, we're evaluating you on different criteria. Of course the lower things don't go away, but they become natural for that coach. And at the upper level it's more stuff, better stuff. And that's really cool. I love what you said, quarterly evaluations. I was great at evaluating a coach once and then eight months later I'm like, whoa, things are crappy. That's my fault. Right? I didn't do a thing about it. So I'm gonna put a link in the show notes and listeners, you can take a look at that stuff and really dig in and say like, what can I do? What system can I create? And it doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have, you don't have to rewrite the Bible here. You can just create these small checklists, evaluate regularly, and then that's gonna be a key to getting results for that. Uh, so now let's talk about this improving coaches. 'cause this is the hard threat . This is the thing. I could tell something was wrong. I didn't know how to fix it. How do you get to your co get your coaches to a higher level and what do you do especially about those really weak links?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that what you referenced about not doing it until there's a big problem, not doing that is what you need to do <laugh> . So making it a conversation that that happens consistently. You know, when I said that a good coach is somebody with a growth mindset and who, who represents the brand authoritatively and authentically. Like those people really do want to improve and they wanna be better coaches and they want to have those conversations about how to be better coaches. So making that a part of the culture and continually looking to the evaluation and, and continually having those quarterly conversations about, hey, where are you right now? And making it a conversation. I think that's the point I I missed in that is like, it's not a, it's not a degrading, it's not a you suck, it's a, Hey, where do you feel like you are right now? Like, where are your weakest links? I find that to be very constructive and I'm, it's almost always a , a productive conversation where they get it. Like they know, they know where their weak links are and so I get to then , or my head coach gets to help them improve. So unless it's an egregious thing, I find that just by continually doing that it becomes a , a part of the culture and a part of the growth of the , the staff. It
Speaker 1:Sounds like mentorship, like what you're describing sounds like mentorship where you're saying like , how can I make you better and give you a career in this industry? And the coach is like, oh , thank God. So it's not like, okay, you're coming to the office 'cause I'm about something and we're gonna talk about what happened in 10:00 AM class. It's not that. It's like, how can I help you create a great career in my business? And the coach is like, this is an amazing thing. I have a question about this. I'm kind of nervous about this thing. I don't know how to teach the muscle up really well and away you go and all that different , that stuff works. Uh, great. Tom leave , it was Carl or Oscar that said this to me. The idea is you're going to tell coaches at every single session when we review, I'm gonna tell you something to improve on. And that means they're prepared right away where they're not like walking in knowing that something went bad or whatever. They know that they're going to get a point of feedback and something to improve on no matter what. Have you seen that work or do you something like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, how's that any different than your athletes? Like people come to you for coaching, right? And that's something that we talk about at our evaluation of the coaches is that every athlete should leave with something to work on or some some area of improvement or something to constructive. And the same thing, if you build that into your culture of that it's normal to get feedback and it's normal to get something to improve upon. That's, there's no more, like, there's not a an authoritative like thing that that feels bad to anybody. That's just, that's just a mentorship role and it's a friend role and it's like everybody's trying to get better. And I think that owners tend to shy away from that because they're, they're uncomfortable with the idea of evaluating somebody where really they're just trying to mentor their coaches. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and that's, and that's it. Like the difference between evaluation and like ticking boxes on a checklist, being very stern about it and saying, Hey, what can I help you with is very different, but that makes really all the difference in the world. So we've got a couple of things there we'll go over. We've got, you gotta do it on a schedule. You have to have some system for doing it. So you've gotta be able to say, okay, what, what are my standards and what do I want you to achieve? What is a 10 outta 10? What's a five outta 10? Like, you have to have those things in place. Uh , is there anything else that's missing from that? What else would you add into that to get these coaches up to a good level? We
Speaker 2:Put a big , uh, emphasis on coach training as a group. So all of our staff meetings have a coach education part.
Speaker 1:I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so that can be really big sometimes or it can be really small, but every single one of our meetings consists of some sort of coach education we've played around , like we've done things where everybody is expected to go through modules on a certain either certification or education thing that we go over for a month and then we talk about and debrief at the, at the meeting itself. Or we just go over some finer points of performance on whatever it might be in that meeting. And we all talk about it. And I think that the benefits there are, you know, while, while none of us are, well maybe there are some, but most of us are not franchises. It is important to have that feel where a coach will have a certain perspective language specialty expertise. But if you can, if you can get the, the majority of people understanding the language and what everybody, like, if , if there's a baseline of knowledge that's continuing to progress as a team, like you lose out on that or you, you erase that, oh well I only want to come to your classes, or I only wanna come to so-and-so's classes because everybody's doing the same thing and everybody's on the same page and everybody's evolving and progressing together. I
Speaker 1:Love that. So you've got evaluation structure, you've got scheduled evaluations, and then you've got sort of staff or continuing education component, I'll call it staff meeting or continuing education. Kenny, how long are those staff meetings? One
Speaker 2:Hour. Okay . And sometimes that training is 15 minutes, sometimes it's darn near the whole meeting. So it just really depends on what we're up to and you know, what it is that we're debriefing on. So.
Speaker 1:Okay. I like that. So those are three important things listeners, Ken , I'm gonna ask you as a mentor, give people one thing that they can do today. So they've heard a bunch of stuff and you've got a , a coach or an owner out there who's saying, I knew know I need to improve my service delivery across the board. What is something the first thing that you would advise that person to do , to do today? To start getting results?
Speaker 2:You need to establish an evaluation. Like what makes for your, what makes for a good coach? And then you need to make that part of your culture and you need to continue to use that , uh, like as frequently as you possibly can and just make that a , make that a thing. And I think that, you know, the best thing that I've used in my gym and I've seen other people use in their gyms is just make that the year's focus . Like announce that to the staff. Hey, this is what we are doing this year and I need you guys to hold me accountable to this. This is how we're doing it, this is why we're doing it, this is what's important about it. And then so there's some accountability that they can hold you to, and then you get to hold them accountable to being better coaches as well. And before we wrap, I think that that's like, to tie this all in a bow , in a nice little bow, you mentioned at the beginning about, about members coming to you about bad coaches. Like, oh, this person's doing this. And I think that when you can have that as a part of your, your staff culture, but then also bring it to your community culture to say, Hey, we are a growth oriented staff. Like we're always going to be developing, we're also always gonna be bringing on new coaches. Here's how we are doing that. Here's exact , we are doing staff meetings and trainings every single time. Here's how we're starting off our new coaches. And to say like, I wouldn't, I don't know that I would do this like in some sort of town hall, but if a member comes to you and says, Hey, this, this coach isn't performing up to par, I don't like this coach or whatever, you can talk to 'em about that and say, Hey, this is where, these are the things that I'm expecting for that coach at this very juncture in time. They're never gonna be as good as me. I've coached, I've probably coached 15,000 hours at this point. A new coach who's on , who's on hour three, they're never gonna be as good as me. But if I can look to that member and say, Hey, at this point in time I want them to be here, and as over time we're going to get them to my level. It may be a multi , multi-year process, but here's how we're doing. And I think that I've seen so much of an attitude shift in the people that tend to bring that feedback to me. Like it just, it resolves the whole issue right then and there. Um, and if they have specific things I can point to you on the evaluation, say, cool, like I can talk to that coach about this, we can move it forward and everybody wins. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And members who see and know about your training programs, like they'll see you at KA coaches and doing training and clipboards and things like that. Or they'll, you could even just announce it in a blog or newsletter saying, Hey, there's gonna be some shadowing going on and whatever. They see that and they see your investment. And I think that solves a little bit of the icon problem where like Kenny is teaching Phil how to coach better, therefore we, you know, Phil has Kenny's blessing and it's a little bit less weird when Phil takes over the class that Kenny used to teach. Like there's a lot of that stuff where there's sort of a PR element to it. But I love the idea what you said there of focusing on this for a year. And that's, that's a really great one because it's not a small thing like coach development is like pushing a, you know, stone uphill and it's incremental, but it does, you do get momentum when we get to the other side. You know, you get a coach who's bringing a third of your revenue for your business. That's an incredible thing. So this is a really great tip here I can give you. First one is just like get an evaluation system. You can just use a simple one, but do that today. The long-term thing is maybe you fo on focus on this for a year and this becomes a huge part of you as the CEO mentoring your staff to become better as a group to serve clients, get better results for them. And the rewards are huge. You sleep at night, people stay longer, they spend more money, you know, and Kenny said like financially things get better for the owner, but it also becomes a happiness, a length of engagement and client results thing . So everybody wins. Kenny, thank you so much for this. I hope you have a great trip to Mexico and we'll see you on Strength Coach Collective very soon. Sounds great. Thanks Mike. Yeah, my pleasure. That was Kenny Mark where this is run a profitable gym . Thanks for listening on your way out. Please hit subscribe. If you don't mind, put a like on this video. We'd really appreciate it. And you can check Kenny out on Strength Coach Collective for more shows just like this. And now here's Chris Cooper, the two Brainin founder with a final note.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's true , Brainin 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.
