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
The No-Paid-Ads Plan That Pays Gym Owner More Than $20K Per Month!
What if you could double your gym’s size without spending a dime on advertising?
Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike Warkentin talks with top-earning gym owner Travis Laufle of TRVFIT in Detroit, Michigan.
In just one year, Travis doubled his gym’s size with zero ad spend and earned a spot on the net owner benefit (NOB) leaderboard.
Travis reveals the simple but effective strategies he used to attract and retain clients, including creating a referral program, implementing Goal Review Sessions and focusing on organic social media.
He also explains why shifting from free trials to free consultations was a game changer for his gym and how focusing on retention and high-value services produces more revenue than constantly chasing new leads.
Tune in to this episode to hear proven strategies for growing your gym without paid ads.
Links
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
03:14 - Growth without paid ads
07:42 - TRVFIT’s business model
13:37 - Net owner benefit strategy
22:21 - Referrals and bring-a-friend days
28:18 - Top tips for increasing NOB
Here's a fantasy scenario. A gym doubles in size in a year without running paid ads, and it pays its owner more than $20,000 a month. Sounds too good to be true, but Travis Lawley owns that gym . It's true fit in Detroit, and he's here to tell us how he pulled it off. This is Run a Profitable Gym . I'm your host, Mike Workman. Please hit subscribe wherever you're watching a listing. And do me a favor, if this show helps you out, hit like that'll let us know we're doing the right thing. And we'll keep on cranking, keep cranking out more shows just like it for you two brain . We dig into metrics, we track everything. And this month we are digging into net owner benefit. That salary dividends in anything else that your gym covers for you. It is the sum total financial of the benefit that you get for being an entrepreneur. These numbers are incredible. Our most recent leaderboard ran from $19,600 to over $30,000. That's what these owners are taking from their business every single month. And these are rolling three month averages. Not one hit wonders. So this is sustainable stuff, which is incredible. Travis earned a spot in that leaderboard, and he's here to share all his secrets. You ready to roll, Travis?
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:All right . I'm fired up to talk to you about this. I need to know, first of all, you've made our top 10 leaderboard, one of our most, you know, prestigious leaderboards. Tell me about your lowest moment as a gym owner and how that compares to now as one of our, our leaders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So, a little background, I purchased my gym. I didn't start it from scratch. That was in August, 2021. And I, I kind of ran that passively as a hobby for almost two years. It wasn't until April, 2023 when I left my day job to do it full time . What
Speaker 1:Was your day job?
Speaker 2:Uh, I worked for a automotive software company. I ran sales service operations. So it got to a point where I no longer was interested in that and very interested in the, the business. And so I made the leap in April of 2023. So that's, that's when I liked it to say my journey really started. 'cause that's when I took it seriously. And for all of 2023 leading up to the end of the year , uh, we were continually growing and I was putting a lot into it. We were building up, and then it was December of that year. Um, and at this point, I still wasn't paying myself very much. I think in 2023, I think I paid myself $20,000 total for the year. So December comes, and I think that's the first point where we really hit some adversity and the growth stalled and slowed, and we were seeing more cancellations than we used to. And I just reached a point where I, you know, after making $20,000 a year and investing a lot of my time, I started really questioning my abilities. I started questioning whether or not it was worth it, you know, whether or not I made the , the right decision to leave my, my job. And so it was just kind of a low point in that I just, you know, wasn't feeling very confident. And yeah,
Speaker 1:So that's a tough one. You leave a job and you go out on your own and you, you know, you , you go all in on this and then it's like, whoa , okay, I'm struggling a little bit. I'm losing some people. I'm not making the money that I want. But now you said that was December, 2023. Yeah. So couple years later here, and you're looking at, you know, or a little over a year maybe , uh, you're looking at a spot on our top 10 leaderboard. So I, I mean, I'm, I'm amazed at this, so I want to ask you all the questions here. I'm gonna dig in and, you know, before the show, I know you said, you know, you doubled your, you doubled since in a year and you didn't do any paid ads. Like it's all organic. So I, I , I gotta understand like, how can you grow that fast without ads and a and tell me about your referral program.
Speaker 2:Sure. I think for us, the strategy has been pretty simple there . There's, as we approach basically prospects, new members , uh, long-term clients, I think it's, it comes from a , a perspective of genuinely caring for people and just having some fun with it. And I give my staff a lot of credit because that comes through in what they do. But obviously that's an extension of, of myself as well. And so each of, each of my staff members, including myself, I mean, we generally want to get to know people. We want to help 'em get results, and we want them to have fun doing it. And so that comes through in basically everything we do. And so, you know, in, in 2023 when I decided to go all in , uh, I wanted us to focus on providing insanely good service. Um , a lot of that comes to just simplest communication and, and paying attention to the details and things like that. And then I wanted us to provide a results based product in, you know, our, our programming and our training and, and the services we provide there. And so we , we focus on that entirely from the very beginning to the very end of when someone leaves with us, right? Part of that, as it translates to our marketing kind of strategy is I wanted us to be the highest rated in the city , uh, as measured by Google reviews. So if, if you search, you know, gyms in Detroit, we are the only five star gym , uh, with over a hundred reviews . And so that's constantly been part of the strategy. And then the other half of it has been, I've, I've always wanted to be , um, the coolest looking gym in the city, and one that highlights our people more than others. And so we invest heavily in organic social media solely on Instagram. And so the way that kind of translates into our growth is about 50% of our, our growth came from referrals. And so you asked about a referral program. I can't tell you I have a, a set referral program. It starts at, you know, the initial consultation we have with somebody. We start with a no sweat intro. We learn about them and just doing that, I think we're the only one in the city that does anything like that really?
Speaker 1:That sets you apart. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So right off the bat, I mean, we, it already is showing that we care more than probably most others, right? And so we sit there, we listen to them, and then we recommend a , a plan for them. And so off the bat, I mean, we're off to a good start. And then when they start with us, we have our, you know, our 90 day journey in which we invest heavily into making sure that an individual sticks with their plan. They're showing up, they're following through on things, they're having fun with it, they're getting connected to our community , um, all of those elements. So then what that leads to is natural referrals on their own. We do ask for them, you know, we do goal reviews, we do ask for them, but nine times outta 10, we don't need to. They're, they're referring others, they're leaving us the reviews. It's just kind of going full circle.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I'm gonna pull out a couple of things from, from what you just said, listeners, if you are not using a free consultation, a no sweat intro where you sit down and ask people about their goals and then give them prescription to accomplish those goals, if you're not doing that, you need to start doing it because very few gyms use this process. The gyms that do standard on the market, they differentiate their service. They have higher a RM average revenue per member. They sell more, they sell better service, they attract higher value clients, and they retain them longer. Two , Brainin has stats on all of this stuff, and I'm gonna say that Travis is proof of this because he's acquiring for referrals. High value clients stay a long time, and that process sets him apart in the market. It could do the same for you. If you are using a free trial workout, get rid of it, use a free consultation instead and showcase your expertise. The other thing I'll lay out, we've got four marketing funnels. We have paid ads. Travis doesn't use that one, which is very cool. You've got referrals. That is the most important one. You need a program to get that done. He talked about goal reviews, he asks his clients for referrals, but he is also set up a culture where they refer clients to him, but he has backup where he actually asks them to do it. Make sure you are asking your clients for referrals. That happens as part of this prescriptive model where the goal review sessions are in there. From there, you've got your other funnels, social media and content. I link them very closely because a lot of the stuff that goes on social media goes on content, which is like your blog. He's using social media specifically Instagram, to showcase his clients, put them on podium. So this is a complete marketing plan. And because it's working so well for him with three elements of it, he doesn't need the paid ads funnel. You can use it, but you don't have to, but you all , you do need to use the referral funnel and things like that. Travis, I'm gonna ask you some specific questions, but before we do that, I wanna know what's the 62nd sum summary of TrueFit ? What are you who do , what do you do? What do you serve? What's your market?
Speaker 2:Sure . So we help busy professionals in Detroit reclaim their health and fitness.
Speaker 1:Boom, there's the statement. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love it. In a, in a very fun , inclusive environment. We are a strength and conditioning gym. Um, we definitely shy towards strength overall else, we do offer a few boxing programs as well. That's a passion of mine. Um , and so it , it serves as a small element there. And we do this through group training. We do it through personal training, and then we do it through some semi-private training and some specialty programs.
Speaker 1:Okay. So what's, what's the approximate breakdown? And just off the top of your head of like PT versus group versus semi-private, do you have a split there, just kind of a rough number?
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 70% is group, 30% private and semi-private.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that's interesting. That is, those numbers are very close to what Chris has laid out. In one of Chris Cooper, our founder has laid out one of the business models that shows how you can make a hundred grand from your gym or more with one main service, and then some peripheral services that are high value. And maybe it's a 70, you know, 2010 split where you've got kids , uh, PT and group or something like that. But there's different ways to do this, but you've got that exact 70 30 thing going on. It works really well for you. Is it a franchise model or how does this work? How does TruFit work group ?
Speaker 2:It is a franchise.
Speaker 1:Okay . And you bought it, you said this was in 2021. Did I get that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep . Shortly after , uh, COVID and the world opened back up. Yeah , I actually had zero intention on buying a gym. I went into it , um, I was a member at first and then became a coach. I had done some coaching well before this, so member turned Coach, and then after Covid , uh, I just had this inclination that it might go under if something wasn't done. So I offered to , you know, invest some money and then it, it turned into, Hey, do you wanna buy the gym? And here we are ,
Speaker 1:<laugh>, and here we are . And I'm a gym owner now, and I'm crushing making two brains leaderboards. Now, one of the things that you said are a number of things that you've said are right from the True Brain Playbook. So you've mentioned like goal reviews, 90 Day Journeys. Uh, you gave me your mission statement and who you serve, like your avatar right off the top of your head, goal reviews this whole process. Talk to me about where mentorship fell into this , uh, after you purchased the gym, when did you start and what's happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I told you I left my day job April, 2023. As soon as I left my day job, I signed up with Two Brain .
Speaker 1:Okay, why'd you do it?
Speaker 2:So some backstory. So , um, I act , it had actually started with me reaching out to a former Truit franchise owner who is a part of Two Brain to talk to him about something else. And , uh, he started telling me about Two Brain , and I had also heard about it from a couple other franchise owners. And that call went so well, and I just knew that if , if I wanted to get where I am today, there's no way I was gonna do it on my own. I wanted to accelerate it ,
Speaker 1:Uh, the acceleration. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And , and even though I didn't necessarily have the funds to do it, I just knew it was a necessary step to take. And here we are.
Speaker 1:Did you see a return on that? Because it's very scary to invest funds you don't have in hopes of business success. Did it pay off
Speaker 2:Instantly? Instantly,
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that , that's super cool. And like, one of the things I noticed when I , um, when I looked at everything you said and , and the interview did slightly before this, you've got a ton of stuff that comes from the playbook. So interestingly, how does the two Brain model and the stuff that your mentor tells you, how does that fit in with a franchise model? Because we often don't have franchise owners in here. How does that work?
Speaker 2:Probably no different. True . If it's a , a smaller franchise, I wanna say we have, you know, 15 locations. And so with that, we have a lot of flexibility in how we operate and run our individual locations.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2:Uh , yeah, with , with the benefit of obviously having, you know, franchise backing and some resources that come out of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. And when you started working with Two Brain , did you just start, like, the people that have this meteoric success, they generally just dig in and they just hammer the work. It's like a checklist where it's, and they just go right down the list. Was that you, or how did your process go with implementing some of the changes you needed to
Speaker 2:Make? I dove right in. Yeah . Um , the first thing we did, yeah, first thing we did was , uh, move from free trials to the nose , sweat, intro. Ooh .
Speaker 1:And what happened to
Speaker 2:That was a game changer. I mean , there you go . Instantly . Yeah. If , if nothing more, I mean, had it even not even resulted in the success we've had, I mean, even just if suited my personal approach and just getting to know people and, and wanting to help 'em . And so there's so many benefits to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you, you did, and this is what I've heard relentlessly on the show. When I talk to leaders, they tell me that they just dig in and they hammer stuff. It's not like, oh, I questioned it , experiment that I tried with , you know, because that's what you kinda do on your own . And then you realize we need help with mentor, and you get that help, you just dive in, hammer the stuff, and like you get the results. And I'm really fascinated by what you said there, because we hear still that free trials, you know, can work and blah, blah, blah . That worked in 2009 when I opened my gym in 2011. Free trial come in, you maybe vomit you, maybe don't you, maybe some not you, maybe don't. But I was one of two gyms in the area, and if you wanted to do CrossFit, that's what you were gonna do. But the consulting consultative model that you're using is just so much better. And it allows you to like, solve problems, like you said, which is personally important to a gym owner. But it also allows you to boost your financial metrics. Because if I had sat down with clients back in 2011 and said, Hey, you wanna do this fitness program to lose 20 pounds, would you prefer to do it with me one-on-one or in a group? About 30% of people probably would've said I'd like personal training, which was going boost my average revenue member from like $110, which it was at the time, probably to over 200. And that would've been life changing for me. We're talking six figures different at this point , <laugh> . So, so you saw instant results from moving from free trials to a consultative process.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yep .
Speaker 1:Okay. That's pretty cool. So listeners, if you are in doubt of that, Travis is proof that you should give it a try, ditch those free trials, try something else. So talk to me about your net owner benefits strategy. How do you put this together? Share as much as you like, or as little? The idea is listeners, you know, there's different ways to pay yourself. I did a really poor job of this. My personal example is I did not pay myself from my gym. I just worked for free. And then eventually I thought this really sucks, and I needed to start putting together a plan to take money outta the business to pay myself. So Travis, what do you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my main strategy, I mean, I have a , a baseline that I'm comfortable with, and so I start with that, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Each month I have my baseline, I'm gonna pay myself that. And then the rest is kind of dependent on our quarterly strategy. So, so we try to look quarterly and we try to adjust. So to give you an example, part of the reason that I paid myself only $20,000 in 2023 is because I knew we needed to move into a new space. And so some of the other profit, I was investing back into the business planning for that re that build out . And so that contributed to that. And so now we've kind of, you know, at the end of 2024 , um, I started doing something similar in anticipation of possibly opening up a second location or , you know , very into it. And this year is changing a little bit in that I kind of wanna take a step back in terms of my financial gain and reinvest it into my staff and build up a , a platform that allows myself to spend more time away from the gym.
Speaker 1:Okay. And so would it be fair to say, like, you're paying yourself first in the sense you said you have a number that you need to hit, so you set that aside every month?
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yep .
Speaker 1:Yeah. And the reason I bring that up, listeners is like, I didn't do this. I, I was , oh , I'll pay myself whatever is left. And that's the worst plan you can ever go with because you always find something you can do. It's like, oh, I need an airbike and I need an airbike. But you think that you do or you need to do something else, and all of a sudden there's nothing left. The pay yourself first strategy is you pay yourself right away. And it sounds simple, but it's not easy because you're a business owner and you don't know exactly how you, like, you wanna build your business, but you need to live, right? So I did the other thing and I got really bitter about it. Pay yourself first, then find a way to make the revenue you need to cover everything else. And it sounds, it's not a pie in the sky thing. This is done with a spreadsheet and you have exact tactics to say, okay, I need to make a hundred thousand dollars , which means I need to gross $300,000, which means I need to charge this many members this much per month. And you break it down and then you target this many members through these means. I laid out the marketing funnels. You do exactly step-by-step plans that your brain has laid out with tactics and the numbers work. It's not just this, you know, pie in the sky thing where you say , I need to make $200,000. There's actually math and strategy that goes through it . Travis, did you do any of that stuff or did you come into this with that plan already in place?
Speaker 2:No, there was a lot of that, and a lot of that was with the help of my mentor. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . You know, lay , I remember actually at the beginning of 2024, we laid out a plan of X revenue, which we contribute to, you know, X net owner benefit. And I remember thinking it was too high, and so I wanted to bring it down and then we ended up just going way past it. And so, but yeah, a lot, a lot of planning, a lot of strategy behind it,
Speaker 1:Really. So you set a number that you thought was too high and then you blew it up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, <laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh> . That's, that's what I love to hear. That's pretty cool. And Jim owners , if you have the tactics at your disposal, that's the kind of stuff that can happen. Again, it's not, it , it is tactical spreadsheet stuff, it's not made up. Oh, just if you build it, they will come, because that does not work. You have to do the numbers, but if you do , uh, it definitely works. Talk to me about your lifestyle now. You said you left a job and you've built something that you're , you know, you've built your own thing, you're on your own. Now. Talk about your lifestyle and how has that improved as a result of mentorship and building a great business?
Speaker 2:Sure. I would say the, the biggest thing is in increasing confidence. Yeah. Confidence in my abilities, confidence in investing, confidence in, you know, taking on whatever the next project looks like for me. I think that's probably the, the biggest thing. I think it also, it changes the game you're playing. And so, you know, 20, 23 at a hundred members, you know, I'm , I'm probably chasing leads a little bit more than I do now. Um, I'm letting, you know, cancellations affect, you know, my mental state maybe a little bit more than I am now because it has a direct impact on, you know, my own pay. And we're at a stage now where you can be comfortable with that. And so the ebbs and flows even out. And , you know, I'm probably still a little stressed and anxious, so when I see cancellations, but it's not for financial reasons, it's because, you know, I wanna understand why we're not able to help this person and I wanna help more people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And entrepreneurial confidence, what an amazing thing that is, right? Instead of like spinning plates and freaking out all the time and worrying about certain things, you can actually make good moves. You can think forward and plan and do things from a position of strength rather than a position of panic . So like, I'm started to make decisions at my gym where I was like, whoa, we're losing $5,000 a month. I better do some weird, crazy stuff. And like, I got outside my realm, my, you know, my realm of expertise. I, I, you know, wasn't true to our brand. And when you get that confidence and you have a stable business, it's very easy to start saying, Hey, you know what? I know you wanna do this. You wanna be an elite fitness competitor. I don't do that at this gym, but I can send you to a gym that is gonna be perfect for you. And what you're doing there is you're making space for better clients. So my market was like 30 to 60-year-old professionals and older adults who wanted to get fit and strong and healthy and didn't really wanna compete. They just wanted to be, you know, functional people. That was my market. And once I realized that, it made a huge difference for me. I'm sure that was the same as you. And I didn't sweat the cancellations as much either once I started to have this good base, because I said like, that person wasn't a good fit here. But if you are chasing everybody because you need the client some revenue, man, that's not a good place. Like, that must have been a stressful time for you, especially coming from a different job.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure. I mean, it was, like I said, we hit adversity. It was something I'd never really experienced and mm-hmm <affirmative> . It does make you question your own abilities and, and, and what you're doing. And so, yeah, like I said, I think it's just a confidence boost more than anything else. Mm-hmm <affirmative> .
Speaker 1:So you talked about , uh, arm and leg, that's average revenue member and length of engagement as being a focus in Q1. And if you're out there and you're listening , you don't track these metrics, here's what they are. Average revenue , remember that's how much the average person spends in your gym. Some people spend a lot, some people spend the basic amount for whatever the lowest the discount membership is, and it equals a number. Your first target is $205, but two brain gyms often blow this outta the water. I've seen like $500 plus, like, it's very possible leg length of engagement. That's how long a client stays. If you multiply arm by leg, you're gonna get lifetime value of clients. And this number is huge because it goes into revenue, profit, net owner benefit . So this, these metrics are all tied together. Talk to me what you're doing. What are you gonna do in Q1 and how's it gonna affect your NLB?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Our biggest target for Q1 has been completing a hundred percent goal reviews with all of our members. Yes,
Speaker 1:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah. As we grew in , in 2024, you know, that that just wasn't a huge focus for us. We did it, but we didn't do it in such a strategic and tactical manner. And so we went into this year saying, Hey, let's, let's focus on our people over everything else. Let's, let's keep them longer. Let's , um, let's help them . And so we're really close to it, you know, we still have the month of March to get there. I don't know the exact percentage off the top of my head, but we're getting very, very close to it. And it's , that's good . It , it's returning and you know, the investment's paying off and so we're seeing a lot of upgrades. We're seeing additional spend, we're seeing more referrals. So it's, it's playing out exactly how we have planned for.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I gotta ask you that again because this is super important and I need listeners to understand what happens here. Goal review sessions, you sit down with clients, it's recommended about every 90 days. You've got your initial, when they first join , then every 90 days you're sitting down with them. You're saying that goal that we talked about, here's how much progress we've made toward it. You celebrate them while you've done so much, we're still moving toward it. We're gonna adjust slight elements of this plan to move you faster, or we're on the right track, we're just gonna keep going. Hey, you're so happy. Do you wanna refer anybody? There's that whole plan is in place, but the idea here is this is a great time to upgrade services. This is a great time to talk about retention, to talk about any obstacles or barriers and fix them, remove them, get the solutions in place. So you are using this process with a large number of members, you're trying to go a hundred percent with every single one of them. And you said you are seeing sales increase as a result, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yep .
Speaker 1:Yep . Do you have a percentage off the top of your head? And if you don't, I won't put you on the spot. I
Speaker 2:Don't, yeah, I
Speaker 1:That's fair. Yeah . Chris Cooper has talked about about 30% of members will upgrade services by about 30%. That's something to think about. But either way, it's as simple as this, Hey, I saw you in the gym, you're in my group program. You've made such amazing progress on your deadlifts. You've 50 pounds on your deadlift in three months. It's incredible. I noticed you're struggling with skipping. I can fix this in three personal training sessions. You got a few movement mechanic errors. You wanna book three sessions with me, boom. That person books three sessions times a , you know, $80 whatever, and all of a sudden you're looking at $240 additional for that month, average revenue per member goes up. Or Hey, do you wanna do personal training instead of group, because I know your schedule is really rough right now. Those are the opportunities that present themselves in goal review sessions. And the second one you talked about was referrals. And you said you do ask for those in goal review sessions, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's another huge benefit is not just service upgrades, but you have referrals. We generally get a newer member will get 'em to leave us a review after that. Yes.
Speaker 1:There.
Speaker 2:And , and so it goes, you know, it's full circle.
Speaker 1:How do you ask for reviews? Do you have a script that you follow or is it more organic thing, or how do you do it in review?
Speaker 2:Uh , it's very simple. So we try to, we sit down, we understand, you know, how they're progressing. We give them recommendations, we make sure they're feeling very satisfied. And only if they're completely satisfied and they're saying good things, are we gonna approach 'em and ask them for review. And the way we do it is real simple. I just say, Hey, I've got a huge favor to ask you. This would mean a ton to us. Would you be , uh, willing to leave us a Google review?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this is great. So Google reviews, and again, Chris Gru's been talking about this. He actually has a template that shows you exactly something, just a little simple thing you can put up on your wall to get more clients, to give you five star reviews, send 'em a DM on your favorite social platform and ask for it. But goal review sessions are the best time to do that because if you're congratulating someone, you're like, Travis, you put a hundred pounds on your deadlift and you're like, high five is great, hey, would you mind leaving us a review? Yeah, of course you are. And it's gonna be a great one. And that overwhelms the few bad reviews that always show up from people complain for no reason or don't even know about your business. And it gives you this massive thing on Google where Google is now looking like, what is the answer to the best gym in Detroit? And it's like, Travis has got 155 star reviews, it's probably gonna tell people to go see TrueFit and Travis. Right? So that's the idea behind that. And in referrals, how, when you ask people for referrals in a goal review session, what's the response generally?
Speaker 2:So I would say this is an area we haven't necessarily optimized just yet. I would say we're mediocre at best when it comes to asking for them there. Like I said earlier, a lot of these are just coming naturally. We just actually rolled out our first bring a friend event a couple weeks ago, which is actually playing out just like that as well. We had a member walk in yesterday and, and come back to the office and just say, Hey, me and my wife are thinking about doing this. And so it's, it may not necessarily happen in the moment, but the effects of it carry on beyond that. And so I don't really have a good direct answer for you there. But again, genuine care, having fun with it, good service , it seems to be playing out for us.
Speaker 1:And I'll just say like, if, if you're getting a lot of referrals already and you start asking for them later on, it's just gonna get better for you. Like, you obviously, like if you've got these gore review sessions happening, man, it's, I I can't wait to see what you do once you ask even more regularly for these referrals. Tell me about that. Bring a friend event. That's something we re we recommend, we don't recommend Bring a Friend Weeks, we recommend like, you know, often a day. But some people do it a little bit differently. What do you do and what's , uh, what's the result of this? Yeah,
Speaker 2:So like I said , we just, we did our first one in , uh, in February, unfortunately, we ended up getting hit with some snow and I cut it down, but it was such a good night
Speaker 1:Anyway . Yeah , probably a meter of snow or something. <laugh> . Yeah,
Speaker 2:<laugh> . But , um, shovel. But it , it was awesome. So we ended up running it on a Saturday. We run an eight, nine, and 10:00 AM class on Saturday. We adjusted them to be more beginner friendly just 'cause we had no idea who was gonna be coming in and we just did a lot of promotion leading up and um, you know, because we don't do free trials, I think it made it that much easier for us to center around a particular event. And I mean, just the fact that we had so many people invite people to the event , uh, even though the snow threw it off a little bit was just phenomenal because that's just a testament to the service we're providing. So there's a lot of follow up we're still doing with it, but very well executed event. People loved it. People loved the fact that we were just even allowing that to be a thing. And so we're planning for one a quarter , you know, for the rest of this year, and we'll just get better and better with each of 'em .
Speaker 1:Yeah. How much snow did you get?
Speaker 2:Uh, probably like five or six inches. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean that's , that's enough to keep people home at that point. And like, you know, this event has been proven to work, bring a friend, events , listeners, they work really, really well. And all you're doing is you're saying to a bunch of people in your membership, Hey, would you like to bring a friend? And you put together something, it could be a workout, it also could just be a seminar or it could be like a wine and dine or something like that. But the point is, you get these people in, you have them, you know, you get acquire their email addresses, whether it's on a waiver or whether it's like, sign up for for this or just check in or whatever it is, they go on your mailing list. So that's a huge thing right there. But you also talk to 'em at the event. You get to learn, you learn to know them, answer their questions. If they're coming with a friend, they're highly likely to buy. You can book them for no sweat intros on the spot and take them aside and do that and sell right there. You can also book them for no sweat intros down the line. You can also contact them after the fact and say, wow, you were amazing in that work and I had no idea you could do burpees that fast. You know? Do you have any questions for me? You're interested. How's your fitness? What are your fitness goals? Like, you could find these ways to nurture people and connect with them. You're gonna do one a quarter , Travis, you said?
Speaker 2:Yep , yep . For our, our group training, for our personal training. We're diving in right now and we're, we're taking the concept of bringing a friend and we're asking our personal training clients, you know, is there anyone else who you know might be interested in seeing the results that you've been seeing? And , and if so, why don't we do a private, why don't we invite them into a private session with you and three friends, or you and a friend or whatever that looks like. And we've got two scheduled already.
Speaker 1:Wow . And so like when a high value personal training client says, I have a friend who might like to get the results that I'm getting, that is a slam dunk. That is the hottest lead you're ever gonna get. And it's probably gonna be another high value client who wants PT or a semi-private thing where the two of 'em train together and or whatever it is. These are just like the best leads you can possibly get. I would highly encourage you listeners, if you do not have a bring a friend event planned, do it. Get one on the calendar. You can put them in, you know, quarterly works. I wouldn't do them every week. That's not the way you wanna do it . You wanna optimize this by, you know, having your systems, you need staff, you need people, you need follow up . So do it, right? You'd rather, you'd rather do two of them, right, than 10 of them bad, right? So do that regularly and then nurture these leads. If you do that, things are going to turn around dramatically at your gym, because these are gonna be great, great clients that show up. I'm gonna let you go shortly, Travis. I know you got a business to run, but I'm gonna ask you this on the way out the door gym owners who are out there, there are some of them that are listening, they saying , man, I just, I do not earn enough right now. This leaderboard blows their mind. It would've blown my mind back in 2011 or so. What would you say to anyone out there who's not earning enough? What can they do?
Speaker 2:I mean, number one, you know, mentally don't quit. You know, I, I think I reached that point in that, you know, December, 2023 I mentioned where I really wanted to give up. And I can't say I don't still have those days. I think most of us do, but quitting, quitting iss the only way , uh, out of the game, right? Otherwise, you know, bet on yourself. If, if I would say highly recommend, you know, planning, right? Plan for plan, but be adaptable as well. That's why we moved kind of to quarterly planning. I mean, that seems to help us. Um, I can't thank two brain enough. I can't thank my mentor Courtney enough. I mean, that was a game changer for me that helped keep me accountable and, and keep me on track with that plan and, and um, you know, kind of level setting for myself, which is good. And then , um, I heard this on a podcast recently and I think it, it rang true to us because this is what we do. It's, it's, you know , if you take care of your people, if you take care of your clients, if you take care of your members, they're gonna force you to grow. And with that growth, as long as you're managing your expenses, you're keeping people long enough, the sky's kind of the limit with, with net , uh, owner benefit. I
Speaker 1:Love it. And listeners , I'm gonna give you , uh, a gift here. Travis mentioned planning. If you DM Chris Cooper on your favorite social platform, he will send you an annual plan guide. It's got 12 months. The exact stuff that you should do, you can of course customize it as you see fit or you can just roll with it as is . Bring a friend, friend , bring a friend. Events are on there. Goal review sessions are on there, DM Chris Cooper, ask for that guide. He will send it to you. And you have an annual plan done for you that you can implement starting today. So do that. One second thing, if you wanna talk about how a mentor can help your business, the way it help Travis book a call link in the show notes and that will, that you'll be able to ask all the questions you want and figure out exactly what would be needed to make your business better and maybe get on the NLB leaderboard at some point. Travis, congrats on , on doing that. I think that's such a cool story to like come from a just career change, adversity struggle. And now, you know, top 10 leader, thank you so much for being here and sharing your secrets. Congrats. Thanks Mike. That was my pleasure. That was Travis Lawfully from Detroit. I'm Mike working and this is Run a Profitable Gym. Please hit subscribe wherever you're watching your listing. He'll, like on this video if helped you out and give me and Travis a high five . And now here's two brain founder Chris Cooper with a final message.
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.
