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
4X Revenue, 2X Members, 2X ARM in Just 17 Months!
When Theresa Straight signed up for mentorship, she was working 70-80 hours per week—coaching for 30-plus of those—and barely scraping by.
Seventeen months later, she’s doubled her client headcount, doubled her average revenue per member and quadrupled her revenue.
Theresa raced through the stages of Two-Brain mentorship and has reached the elite Tinker level, where gym owners are earning over $100,000 per year. Her focus now is on using her gym to support her family’s lifestyle and create a bright future.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin talks with Theresa about the exact steps she took to grow a thriving business and get her time back.
Theresa breaks down the mindset shift that helped her transition from “coach” to “CEO” and shares key actions that fueled the gym’s growth: developing onboarding and retention systems, implementing goal reviews, and hiring staff.
Ready to grow without grinding yourself into the ground? This episode is for you.
Links
The Stages of Mentorship
"The Golden Hour"
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
0:01 - Theresa’s 17-month transformation
3:57 - Pre-mentorship struggles
9:34 - Quick wins in Stage 1
13:12 - Moving from coach to CEO
21:29 - Becoming an elite gym owner
How long does it take to build a very successful gym if you have the right advice? Well, Theresa Straight did it in just 17 months. Dramatic changes to her business. You're gonna find out all about them on this episode of Run a Profitable Gym. I'm your host, Mike Workin . Please sit , subscribe wherever you're watching or listing with my thanks. Now Theresa owns Iron Individual in Ohio. Here's her timeline, this is very cool. She signed up for mentorship in October, 2023 and she blitzed stage one in two months. That's it. Then she ripped through stage stage two, we call it growth in 15 months. So in just 17 months she reached the elite stage of gym ownership. We call it tinker. In that stage, gym owners are making about a hundred grand per year from their business or more, and they have systemized, stable, profitable businesses supporting them. That's the fun part of entrepreneurship where they can now start exploring what's next. Now, I'm gonna drop a link to a video in the show notes where Chris Cooper goes through all the stages of to brain mentorship in detail. If you wanna dig into that, that is the best resource for you. So Theresa , welcome to the show. I gotta ask you this, does it feel like you're in the cockpit of a rocket ship right now?
Speaker 2:Um, 100%. Yeah . And thank you so much for having me on this show. The way you explained that makes me sound way cooler than like what it is, but
Speaker 1:I think I probably, I think I probably did you a disservice. 'cause like I said, Chris Cooper typed in , he's like, you gotta talk to Theresa Strait . Oh dude . And when I started looking what you'd accomplished, I'm like, whoa, we gotta get her on the show <laugh> .
Speaker 2:This is awesome. Yeah, I really do feel like the past like year and a half has been something that I couldn't even fathom, let alone even think would have been an option for me when I first opened the gym. So
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you've got G Force's face pulled back and you're just like trying to hold on <laugh> . Yeah ,
Speaker 2:I'm just holding on for the ride, praying that it goes right. <laugh>.
Speaker 1:Alright , well I'm gonna ask you some details here 'cause I wanna lay this out for listeners so that they get an idea of what you've accomplished here because Perfect . It's very cool. And we've talked about, Chris has said , uh, the average two brain gym owner with mentorship can get to about a hundred grand income in 25 months. That's the average. Now we've seen people do it in less than a year. We've seen people take longer. You beat the average and we're gonna find out about that. So you signed up for mentorship, reach Tin your stage in 17 months. Can you share some of the key metrics that change in your Dream League ? Do you have any big numbers or stats that make this real for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I first started tubing , I was averaging about 40 to 50 members. Um, and that's now doubled. So I now have about 90 to a hundred members in . That happened in probably closer to 13 to 14 months. Okay . My revenue has quadrupled. So we were averaging about four to five grand monthly and now we're over 23 on a consistent basis. So it wasn't like a one-off. We've probably been averaging over 20 for about five months now, which has been awesome. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Um , and my a RM so average revenue per member has doubled as well. So it's, it's been unreal some of the things that
Speaker 1:Happened . So double members double a RM four times revenue in 17 months. Yeah. Wow. I And for , for your lifestyle and your personal, you know, your personal lifestyle, I'm sure that has effects on that as well.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, big time. So I will say the first probably year of two brain , like it was hard. Like you have to put in the work, you have to put in the time, like you have to put in the energy. But at this point now, I'm hardly ever coaching on the floor. Almost all of my time is spent in growing my business as opposed to being the front end face of my business. I actually have staff members now, which wasn't a thing when I started Two Brain . So, which has allowed me to actually have a life, which has been kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Okay. Because that, it took me about seven years to find a life when I was a gym owner. Uh, you did it 17 months. So listeners, you just heard the stats we're talking like incredible stuff, double up revenue, double up members , four x or um , double up member totals, like client numbers and then all this other great stuff. You have the numbers, theres just laid 'em out. So I'm gonna dig into this and help you get the backstory now. So Theresa , how long have you owned a gym? Why did you sign up for mentorship? How are things going on your own? Give us what's the background story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've owned, well we started Iron Individual four years ago. Okay . I did , um, my husband and I actually moved up from Columbus. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . A friend of ours, live a friend of ours lives here in Cleveland. Um, he actually owns a gym up here as well. Wanted to expand. I was considering personal training as a time as a career. This is right before Covid and kind of the stars aligned and gave us the opportunity to open up Iron individual. I had at the time no coaching experience. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . No business experience, had no idea how to read a profit loss statements, didn't understand what Square or QuickBooks or any of that stuff was. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And now fast forward four years, I have people that run that stuff for me are like, we can go on vacations and the gym doesn't fall apart. I actually understand a lot of those things that I had no idea what those were in the beginning. And then really what happened, probably, so this is right in 2023, that summer I can remember telling my husband like, there's gotta be more like I've been sitting in the same spot with my business for what seemed like a year, a year and a half the same members coming in and out. Like mm-hmm <affirmative> . People weren't staying as long, the revenue hadn't gone up. And I'm like, I'm doing so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. I just don't think I'm doing it effectively because
Speaker 1:You were working hard, I guarantee it. Right?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean at that point I was probably still pulling 70, 80 hour work week <laugh> . Yeah . Right . Because I'm coaching,
Speaker 1:I've been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You're coaching 30, 40 hours a week on the floor and then you have to handle social media and emails and marketing and events and client retention and all of these things. So I was working 70, 80 hours back then. Burnt out, exhausted. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I've already been doing it for two years, but I wasn't actually seeing the growth out of it. Yeah . I was like, there's no way that I can be working 80 hours to be getting paid $2,000 a month and like barely breaking even. Like there's, yeah . There's gotta be something that I'm missing. And I actually had joined the Gym Owners United, which is Oh yeah , right on . Yeah. Chris Cooper's public Facebook page. Fabulous. Yeah . Loved it. Got me hooked. And I, I probably like many, I asked for a lot of the freebies, looked into it, tried to do it on my own. It didn't work. Surprise, surprise. And Chris had posted something about the mentorship, so I remember messaging him and about a week and a half later I signed up. I said like this, something's gotta be better than what I'm doing right now. And I already have that back to the wall, kind of burn the ship's mentality, <laugh> where like, this has gotta work or else like, we're not gonna , we're gonna be homeless kind of situation. And here we are 17 months later and our business is thriving and we're going to California in June for a week and a half and we're expecting our first baby in September. And I Oh ,
Speaker 1:Congrats.
Speaker 2:Know that like everything will be fine.
Speaker 1:So the , the short answer is that you , you are doing your work way too long. You signed up for mentorship, you did the right stuff and now you're going on vacation and life is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna ask you a couple of long answer questions here. Uh, the first one here is there are people out there and we know they're out there. They, they go in Jim winners United Link in the show notes. If you wanna join that community guys, you, they go in there and they get these guides and we give a lot , we a ton of free information. And they take, they get them , they see the stuff that works and they're just like, nothing really changes. So they , they collect these guides and they don't really take action. So why is that and what motivated you to get outta that pattern and sign up?
Speaker 2:I think ultimately it came down with I was fed and I'm sure like we see a lot of this in our own clients. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I was fed up with stuff not working and I had exceeded my level of knowledge in knowing where stuff was the most effective. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And something that really stuck out to me to brain specifically was like how data-driven you guys were and knowing that I am the least kind of numbers person that you can find. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I knew I needed to pay attention to those things but had absolutely no idea what to even look at. So I think the biggest push getting out of that, like let me just grab lead magnets and guides and freebie information was I was grabbing all of those things and I was trying to utilize all of those things. But as Chris and so many people in two brain like, like shiny object syndrome, when you have 40 million things that you're trying to do all at once, I didn't have the knowledge or the ability to narrow down to what was gonna be the most, most effective in the timeframe that I needed it to be. And so that was something that like mentorship did offer was, okay , somebody to tell me, ignore these 20 things Theresa , you need to focus on these three things over the next four weeks. Once you do this then we'll go to the next step. Aha . And I needed somebody to break it down for me and to tell me the specifics of X, Y, and Z.
Speaker 1:Okay. So we got stage one of mentorship, that's where we're teaching you first. We're getting you some wins that's designed. Again, check that video in the show notes. If you wanna see Chris Cooper dig into this, you can actually do activities with him in that video. But stage one you are getting, you know, big wins. We're teaching you how to price and sell services, get some new clients, bring some people in, develop marketing and just get some stability so you can step back. And then in sta the second part of that, we're gonna help you stabilize and uh , you know, systemize your business so that you can make it really run. And then in growth we really hit the accelerator. Talk to me about stage one. What big changes? 'cause you said there's a ton of stuff that you've got this gigantic list that you could do leading you through it . So what did you do in stage one, but what big changes?
Speaker 2:So stage one, my mentor and I, Eric Connor love that man to death. He's a good
Speaker 1:Dude. Yeah dude, he
Speaker 2:Is a great dude. Shout out to him 'cause he's my diehard through this first year a
Speaker 1:California guy
Speaker 2:<laugh>. So first thing we did was establish the on-ramp , um, which was a series of personal training sessions that new members would come in and we would get them in with like some um , nutrition coaching and one-on-ones before we transitioned them to classes. So typically what I did was you had a free trial class and then you went straight into classes and people threw up or people left <laugh> . I've had people walk out, so like me too , I'm sure everybody has kind of been in that situation. So mm-hmm <affirmative> . Developing that on-ramp was one a huge kick to retention. 'cause at that point, members were one locked in for three months. Yeah . But they also saw progress fast and they had the accountability that they needed upfront to stay motivated over those first few difficult months. But it also increased my a RM hugely. Yeah. Because all of a sudden members aren't paying. I mean, I was undercharging crazy. We were charging 1 25 for unlimited classes. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . So like members aren't paying that . They're paying 2, 3, 4, $500 for the first few months a month. And I'm like, well that just made my a RM double like pretty much spot, spot on .
Speaker 1:And so like the clients are getting better results. So that's the first most important thing. You know , it's not like you're charging them more for nothing. They're getting better results then they're staying longer and they're increasing your a RM . So like this is a win for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It really was. And at this time I was still the only coach on the floor, so I didn't have any staff members. So I was putting everybody through these on ramping sessions. I was still coaching 24 classes a week. Um, the second thing that we did was establish 90 day goal reviews. So every single , yeah , every single client that comes in meets with me every 90 days and we talk about goals and we use the prescriptive model . So we're prescribing them exactly what they need or even if it's not something they wanna hear, I'm gonna give you what I genuinely think. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Is gonna benefit you at the time and the space that you're in. And that has been something that we've carried through over the past 17 months and has been huge about upselling, getting referral members. I don't do any type of ads. So everything that I'm doing is also through referrals.
Speaker 1:So you've doubled your membership without ads? Yes . And doubled your a RM without ads? Yes.
Speaker 2:Whoa . None. I tried it for about 24 hours. Got really, really confused and shut it back down.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. And you can use it eventually if you wanna use it, it's there for you. Yes . But if you don't need it, why spend the money? If you're getting your everything you want in referrals, away you go. Mm-hmm . You reach tanker stage without ads <laugh>
Speaker 2:100%. Yeah . Um, and I think that's been a huge thing is just asking people, like, people are going to recommend their favorite restaurant to you. So you , somebody asks you like, hey, like what's your favorite steakhouse? You're gonna tell them same concept. If I was like, hey, like you're obviously lost 20 pounds, man, that's freaking awesome. Where do you go? Um, and I get that information from somebody. It's been a win-win, which has been huge. So referrals has been everything. So those are probably the two biggest things that we added in.
Speaker 1:And that's designed, we put that in place in the mentorship program. Exactly. For those reasons. Get you those wins, get you a little bit of breathing room because then you can start to , because you're still coaching all the time, you're doing all this work, then you have to say, okay, how do I scale this up and get myself outta here ? How do I work on the business? So talk about that. How did you get from that stage where you're doing all this stuff, you got a little bit of breathing room and now you gotta systemize and kind of make your business run a little bit on its own? What happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So January of last year, so January of 2024, after my fir , after the first ramp up with Two Brain and all of that stuff, it was time for me to actually offload some of the classes. And I knew this was coming where the transition from me being the face of the business versus the brand being the face of the business, I knew that transition had to happen. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And that was the hardest transition I've made so far. Yeah . Um, because as we all know, people hate change. Like Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you got a big personality. So replacing that is tough. I
Speaker 2:Do. Yeah . Like, come on. Um , <laugh> . So , um,
Speaker 1:Who would wanna train with me? <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Right? Everybody does.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but so January we, I started developing some SOPs, job responsibilities for just group coach and personal trainer. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I didn't look at anything else. Um, but I just needed to get myself off the floor. And it took me about five months to hire our first PTs and group coaches. But the moment I did it went from me coaching 25 to 30 hours a week. Like, and I had all of those hours now back. Yeah. So by midsummer of this past year, that 2024, I had 25 hours already back in my pocket.
Speaker 1:What did you do with them?
Speaker 2:Oh God. A million things. Golden hour when that came out. There
Speaker 1:You go. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Best thing in the world. But I used that time to become more precise with a lot of the stuff that I didn't have time for mm-hmm <affirmative> . So like things that fell through this cracks, like at risk members, like those always fell through the cracks. Like client messaging on a weekly basis. Like I just didn't have time for that. I didn't have time to develop social media and emails and blog posts. Like I generally didn't have any hours to write these things. So all of those retention strategies that we use for members or that I use for members now, welcome cards, birthday cards, anniversary shout outs , um, bright spots, all of those things that are now regular SOPs for our client success manager. Were non-existent. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And that was a huge reason why our churn was a lot higher in the beginning. Right . Because I didn't have the energy or the bandwidth to make those things happen. And
Speaker 1:It's so common. That's the hamster wheel, right? Because you, you do, you get these clients then instead of putting in all the stuff that would keep these clients, you coach the clients but you forget all the other stuff. And I did, I lived this. And then they start bleeding out and you're like, I need to get more clients. And then you just keep going in this horrible cycle and you never get put the stuff in place because you don't have time. 'cause you're working 80 hours a week, you don't have time to put in the retention, the onboarding, the goal reviews and all the stuff to uphold those clients. And it's just this horrible hamster wheel where of course your business isn't gonna grow. Right. When you did this, like when you got, did you do the value ladder thing where you analyzed like, where am I spending my time? How do I get it back ? Oh yeah . Multiple times. Yeah. And did you start by with a coach? Was that your first hire?
Speaker 2:Yeah , so I actually started with CSM. So CSM was number one there . That's a good one. Yeah . Client success manager was number one. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Best hire I ever made. She's a unicorn. She
Speaker 1:Pays for herself. Right.
Speaker 2:Uhhuh
Speaker 1:Pays for herself, right? Yes.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. Like mm-hmm <affirmative> . If I, like, if I'm at a point where I can pay her more, like I will, like she is worth every penny that I dish out to her. So client success manager was first and then I got into group coaches. 'cause group coaching is probably the next one where ultimately as, even though that's considered the service that we deliver, it's the one that is probably the more easily replaceable one. Um , and that was the hardest for my members to swallow was , oh , Theresa doesn't coach me. Like, she like, oh, it's not the same. I'm like, well I'm not trying to replace me. And it was really hard for me mentally and emotionally to be okay with that. It's tough. That's tough. But I don't remember who says it, but like 80% of you know, what I do is a hundred percent of perfect or something like that. Like, and it's totally true. And my coaches are phenomenal and they are, they are great, knowledgeable, caring individuals that deliver such an amazing experience. And that's really all I can ask for.
Speaker 1:Okay. And Dan , uh, Dan Martel said it in our summit. I dunno if you were there last year. Yes . I was 80% done. Yeah. 80% done by someone else. It's a hundred percent fricking awesome. He used a different F bomb in there. But that was the , uh, that was the quote. And uh, it it , it's true. And if you can get rid of that, you can . And then you, you know, you don't have to be satisfied with 80%. You can bring 'em up to a hundred percent eventually, but you get over that ego and say, ah , you know, I'm not the coach anymore. I'm the ceo EO business owner. My job is not to deliver the squats. My job is to build this business and teach other people to deliver the squats. Yeah. And it's a great thing. And you've obviously done that . So this is all happening in growth stage, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this is all still in growth. And after summit last year, which was mind boggling for me, it was the coolest experience ever. Yeah . Like I equivalent to like, you're basically, you're trying to take like a drink from a fire hose <laugh> . Like, there was just so much awesome stuff that was like plummeted my way and I made a goal for myself at some . I was like , I'm gonna reach Tinker by next year . Whoa .
Speaker 1:By next summer . So this is June
Speaker 2:Year . June of last year. Like, I'm gonna make tinker before Summit next year. Oh
Speaker 1:You did. Congrats.
Speaker 2:It's gonna , and I did, which is so freaking cool. Um , but it took a lot to get here, but it's been a great ride.
Speaker 1:Okay. So in growth stage, what was, was the key there replacing yourself and allowing you the time to build, to work on the business? Was that, what was that? What what it was
Speaker 2:100%. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you've got that going on now, Eric, you're working with your mentor and you're analyzing your business. So you're looking at the two brain dashboard and you've got all these different metrics, the key metrics, and you said you were a numbers person, but all of a sudden you've got these bar graphs saying like, this one's lagging, this one's up here. And Eric's saying we need to dork on this guy right here. Here is exactly what to do. Was that process, did that work for you?
Speaker 2:It was perfect, is exactly what I needed one. And it took a while for me to understand what those metrics were and really to figure out where to get them and what they meant and interpret them. But that's exactly what Eric did. And he started that kind of process from the get go . Like from ramp up was like , right , right . This is what we need to prioritize. Like we need to get your members up or we need to, we need to work on your a RM . A lot of it for me was EHR . So my effective hourly rate. Okay . Because I was spending so much time on the floor, I was making like $3 an hour <laugh>.
Speaker 1:That's a tough, that's a tough calculation to do, man . And
Speaker 2:It really hurt my soul. <laugh> . Yeah . But at this point we're now over 60 bucks an hour for me, which is just so
Speaker 1:Cool . So DHR from three to 60. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Oh
Speaker 1:Man, that's funny. How cool is that to see that one move up? Wow.
Speaker 2:That was super cool. And a lot of it just took me, I just had to pay myself. And I think that's something that was really was really cool was I had the money. I just like didn't actually wanna put it in my bank account.
Speaker 1:It's hard to do.
Speaker 2:So like, I just had to pay myself first. And so that's something that like Eric just would tell me exactly what to do. He's like, Theresa , just move. Like it's in your, just move it from one account to the other. And so that was, that was perfect. That's exactly what I needed.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask you a specific one. You said you weren't into numbers and that was something that was way outside it . How easy was it for you? And again, you know, you picked it up on the fly. Was it easy eventually to get, you know, read a p and l understand this stuff to the point now where you feel like the CEO of a business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say it's definitely , it's still not my strength. Yeah . Like I'm the , I'm the people person. Like if you can't tell
Speaker 1:Already I'm a word guy , I know I'm the same .
Speaker 2:I , I mean like if you can't tell her like I am the front face. I love talking, I love interacting. I'm an extrovert at heart. So those numbers and the finances always have been and probably always will be. It takes me a while to do my metrics mm-hmm <affirmative> . Just because it's hard for me to math, but it's much easier now than it was back then. And I feel
Speaker 1:Like , would you say like you have a basic financial literacy that allows you to at least be Yeah . Understand what's going on in your business?
Speaker 2:Yes. 100. Yeah . Like I feel like I can go to a meeting with my accountant and they can talk to me in larger terms and I actually know what they're talking about . As opposed to a year and a half ago I would've sat there and looked at my husband and been like, please interpret
Speaker 1:What , or is this the right way up? Or like
Speaker 2:I get right . I'm like, I dunno what any, what do you mean what is a gross income versus net versus what is , I didn't know any of that stuff. So, but I feel like I have a much higher financial literacy now than I did back then.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that's, I mean, and that's, that's gnarly. So you go from basically zero and you have none of this . You don't , like math is not your thing. You are a great coach. Then you put all the systems and structure in place and you know how to read a p and l and you can see these numbers on the p and l just skyrocketing over the last 17 months. And you reach this tinker level . Well now like you get to do the fun part because you've got a stable business. You're not doing all that work and wearing all the hats and you can start thinking about what's next. So I gotta ask you that, like at the tinker level, you now get to start saying like , what do I do? Do I scale up? Do I expand? Do I open something else? Yeah . What do I do? What are you thinking about?
Speaker 2:For me, a lot of it comes down to lifestyle. Like nice. That's a good one. And I think it does for a lot of people. Like we don't get into this job or this industry to make money specifically, but I want to be able to provide for my family and to create a life for them. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . That is memorable and exciting and full of adventure . So ultimately moving up to Tinker is something that is going to allow me to interact with other gym owners that are at the same level that have a , that they've built the lifestyle. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . They can go on vacation without a whole lot of planning. They have somebody that, you know, runs their day-to-day in the business, which right now is still me that runs a lot of the day to day . So like they have a GM or an operations manager that handles that stuff. So for me, a lot of it is scaling my current business to a point where I can step back, go on vacation for three weeks and the gym still grow. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Not , it not just remains stagnant but I leave and they're making money as opposed to having to rely on me to have those things happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's a really cool thing.
Speaker 2:That's where it's at.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like in that tinker group you see people and people are doing crazy things in there. And it can be anywhere from like, I'm investing in crypto, I'm starting a sports beverage company. Yeah . I'm doing Airbnbs, I'm opening a second and third fourth gym. I'm buying gyms, I'm replicating my current gym. And then some people are like, I just wanna make my current gym so great that I can just take a lot of time off and maybe I wanna do something completely different and it's like just ride horses in the bush or something like that. Like that's available too. That sounds great.
Speaker 2:That sounds great. But ultimately , like I'm still very new to Tinker, so where in this next year is gonna be a crazy ride. So where this all leads, you know, a year from now, three years from now, five years from now. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Like maybe we will want, my husband and I do wanna buy another gym or invest in another company. Mm-hmm . Or take on Airbnb and investment properties. But like right now I just wanna like build the lifestyle with the current gym that I have and make that gym amazing and awesome. Yeah .
Speaker 1:You've got the options. I'm gonna ask you this, you mentioned this earlier, the golden hour. So this is Chris Cooper's concept of using one hour a day to grow your business with incredibly focused work. Can you tell me how that works for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, from Monday through Saturday, so I do everything Monday through Saturday and then I give myself Sunday off because I'm somebody that needs to be bored and I have to shut my brain off to be <laugh> . Okay . Conscious for Monday. Um, but Monday through Saturday I dedicate an hour mm-hmm <affirmative> . Um , and sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's 45 minutes, but depending on the day and how crazy busy I get, but the goal for that specific hour is to do something that's gonna grow my business. So I'm not like returning messages or handling cancellations or managing at risk or you know, talking clients on Facebook or whatever. Like I am reaching out to leads, I am planning social media, I am writing blog posts and emails. I am doing, you know, weekly staff meetings with my member or my staff to help them develop and become better coaches or whatever it is. So that's one hour is like the time that I'm actually using to grow my business. And for me, I am not a morning person. That's
Speaker 1:Fair. I'm
Speaker 2:A morning person. Some people are like, I'm up at four 30 and I go and I do it and I'm like, God no. Theresa's gonna be up at seven 30. I'll see you there <laugh> . That's okay. Yeah. So I'm a midmorning like productivity queen get me at this time, 10:11 AM and I'm all yours. But that golden hour has been huge and it doesn't always, it , the stuff that you do doesn't always have an ROI immediately. And I think that's what's really frustrating is like your messaging leads and emails and doing social media and all of this stuff for months on end , you're like, there's no return on investment. So I feel like people just stop. They're like, they don't see the direct correlation between I did X and so Y happened mm-hmm <affirmative> . But I think what's important about those small tasks is they're so meaningful, long term wise . So you might not see the impact today, tomorrow, or a month from now, but the seven months from now, the lead that you contacted in January is gonna finally reach out because they got the email that you sent to them about wanting to improve their health while their kids go back to school and all of a sudden mm-hmm <affirmative> . You now made four or five , $600 on them the next day. So I think it's about the long term game with that kind of stuff. But that's, so it's important .
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's the , Chris talked about building entrepreneurial habits. That's what you're doing is every day you are doing something to grow the business. If you keep doing that, the , the boulder gets momentum and all of a sudden it just takes off on its own. I've talked to so many gym owners like you, like it literally works, but it doesn't work if you take a shortsighted view and say, ah , I tried this for four days and it didn't work. Yeah . Not gonna work. Right , right. If you keep doing it though, eventually you get that momentum and it's, it's an incredible thing. And like your metrics speak for themselves . So I'm gonna recap it for you listeners. Uh, Theresa in 17 months went from not understanding financials and just, you know, struggling with stuff to growing a fantastic business. You said you doubled member account, you doubled a RM and you four Xed revenue, correct? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. Correct . So the answer the question, there's the big one. How can a gym owner do what you've done?
Speaker 2:Oh God, that's a loaded question. Yeah . I think ultimately like you just have to do the, like you just have to suck it up. You gotta do the work and you have to get a mentor, like people come to you because they need to lose weight and everything they tried on their own didn't work the same cons like we're human as well. Like, you need to get yourself a mentor that's gonna be able to direct you in the right direction. That's going to be to able to tell you this is what you need to prioritize and we can ignore this stuff for now. And then you have to get the systems and the processes in place that allow you to be able to step back. But I think you , you just have to, you got , you gotta take the risk like there's no reward without, without taking a little bit of risk and making those things happen. And this is a risk that is like, it is so worth it. You have put in the time, put in the money, you are worth the investment. Your business is worth it and you really just have to like hit the ground running and go for it.
Speaker 1:Get her mentor, do the work, track the metrics, you will see results. Theresa saw incredible results all laid out in detail . 17 months. Elite stage of gym ownership. Theresa , I'm gonna get let you get back to growing your business or just working on your lifestyle if you want. Thanks so much for sharing this story. I can't wait to see what you do in the next year.
Speaker 2:Ah , thank you so much, Mike. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:That was Theresa Strait. This is Run a Profitable Gym . I'm your host, Mike Warkin , and thank you so much for watching or listening. If you enjoyed this, if it helped you out, put a like on the video and please check the links in the show notes for more stuff if you wanna really dig into the two Brain program. And now here's duwayne Finder . 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.
