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
Staffing Nightmares: What One Gym Owner Did to Fix the Chaos
Staffing problems can destroy your gym’s momentum—and your sanity. But with the right systems and mindset, they’re solvable.
In this episode of Run a Profitable Gym, host Mike Warkentin talks with gym owner Chris Williams about the staffing chaos he inherited when he bought his gym.
Chris shares the HR disasters that nearly wrecked his business and lays out the steps he took to rebuild trust, create structure and increase professionalism.
He explains how he turned a gym run by friends into a real business and gained the freedom to step away from day-to-day operations.
He also breaks down his evaluation system, describes his pathways for staff advancement and explains how he approaches hard conversations with employees.
Staffing problems aren't unavoidable, but they are fixable. Tune in to become a better leader for your team!
For more help, use the link below to join Gym Owners United and get the free “7 Deadly Sins of Staffing” guide.
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0:37 - Staffing horror stories
11:27 - Systemizing the business
13:48 - Documenting roles and responsibilities
20:24 - Preventing staffing issues
28:20 - What gym owners can do today
Staffing issues. If you own a gym, you're gonna deal with them at some point. Today on Run a Profitable Gym, we're gonna talk about how to get through the hard parts and come out stronger on the other side. I'm your host, Mike Kinan . Please hit subscribe wherever you are with my thanks. My guest today, Chris Williams. He owns a pair of gyms in Tracy , California. Chris, welcome to the show. Are you ready to tell some war stories?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. No, I got, I got a war chest of stories.
Speaker 1:Let's open the chest and get right to it. I need to hear about the dark days so listeners know what you've been through. It'll make them feel better about what , what they're going through. What are the worst staffing problems that you've dealt with? Give me the dirt,
Speaker 2:Man. I think , uh, when I first wanted to buy the gym, I was a prominent member. I was one of those fun time guys. So, you know that, that context switch was massive. And , um, the GM at the time and the head coach were married, and they were very close friends of mine. We partied, hung out a lot. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Traveled. So when I took over the gym, I figured , all right , this would be a smooth transition. Like, the relationship's great, but it was just almost a flip. Like the GM kind of just flipped and was more territorial and like accusatory. You're always looking over my shoulder and I'm like, yeah, I'm learning. I'm learning what you do. I'm learning the business. Mm-hmm . I'm trying to orient myself into this new situation. Uh , but it was always fun as, oh, well you're , uh, you're looking over my shoulder. You're micromanaging. Even if I would just be sitting there learning, taking notes and being actively telling her , I'm just learning. So explain stuff to me. Answer this <laugh> , you know,
Speaker 1:Where do we keep the toner for the photocopier? Right, right . <laugh> , that kinda stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, that relationship between her, the husband and wife fractured due to some illicit is issues. Yeah . And then suddenly she quit. He quit and she wanted a party Right. To like commemorate her time. <laugh> behind my back. He threw the party and coached it, which was like, looked , made it look like I planned this as like an f you to her.
Speaker 1:Oh ,
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this whole thing happened behind my back. It was just, it was a , him getting at me, her getting right, but also getting at her. And it was just, you know, so I just kind of let my guard down a little too much with people that I thought were close friends and it turned out to be kind of a disaster. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're coming into this, you're just trying to figure out a business, but you're going from the fun guy to the boss and you gotta uns sort sort everything out, which you can't because you've got like things going on in the middle that you can't control.
Speaker 2:Right. And I'm making mistakes in terms of what I'm telling them or you know, talking to 'em as a friend when I'm realizing I should be talking to 'em as a boss. And
Speaker 1:That's hard 'cause you were, you were the friend at one point, right?
Speaker 2:I had to, I had to really switch contexts and realize I have to have other people to vent to that're not members or staff of my gym because they're seeing it from an angle. They , they'll never understand.
Speaker 1:This is so common because we all hire our friends. Yep .
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Yep . Or you inherit a gym with that all your friends work at.
Speaker 1:That's the other one right there. So did did you, you managed this Well , we'll get to the sorting things out thing. You got any other good ones in there that were gnarly?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. Like , gimme a few more.
Speaker 2:I'll give you some context on this one. Yeah . The coach has been with us since before I had been been a member. So it must have been at this point, eight years plus. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . A very prominent member. And, you know, part-time coach pandemic hits . I'm watching my full-time coaches struggle to live. Um, I'm doing everything I can to help, but at that point I had a realization that my full-time coaches need to be truly full-time. They needed the opportunities to make a real full-time living. So if anything ever happened again, they could, they could succeed and make it through and have some savings and everything else. And I need to do a better job of offering those opportunities. So coming outta the pandemic, she's got all sorts of personal political stuff. Her husband's a cop, it's just an issue. There's just issues all over California at the time and Yep . It's a really heightened , uh, sociopolitical situation, environment in the gym. So trying to navigate all these things and , um, I sat every single coach down and I said, Hey, listen, you're part-time. Here's something I want you to work on. Here's what I'm working on. We're all gonna work on these improvements as we roll the gym back out. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1:<affirmative> .
Speaker 2:What I can guarantee you is as the full-timers get settled, you'll have classes again. But until we're back to a full schedule, full-timers are getting priority. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Everybody was fine with that other than this one coach. Oh, they want me to work on anatomy. They don't think I know what I'm talking about. They don't think I'm good enough.
Speaker 1:Oh. You know , didn't
Speaker 2:Take feedback. Know I just serve classes. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Over full-timers 'cause I've been here longer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right . That's a tough spot. 'cause like the pandemic caused , you had to make hard decisions. Right . And you're doing this to try and preserve what you can because of all the restrictions and all the chaos going on. And now you're stuck with this person who's just pushing back.
Speaker 2:Right. And I know they had a lot of personal issues going on mm-hmm <affirmative> . And I think a lot of that came to fruition. I think she was ready for a change in terms of her own fitness and what she was doing. And this was just a great out. Um, and something I'll point out, if you've ever been there or if you haven't been there, you're gonna be there no matter what. Even in a positive exit, if they want to, you are gonna be the villain every time. Yeah . If they feel uncomfortable telling people the real reason they left, I got a better job. I needed a change in my fitness environment, I just wasn't getting enough hours. Whatever it is, generally speaking, they're not gonna be willing, if they're uncomfortable saying that, they're just gonna throw it on you. He's, he's an a-hole <laugh> . He's, you know, a monster. He treated me poorly, turned his back on me, you know , whatever it takes to get the spotlight off them.
Speaker 1:So did that , that happened. Oh yeah . That's essentially what happened. And you hear that a lot with people where coaches for whatever reason have to be let go or they choose to go and then they just leave these like Kool-Aid man gaping burning holes in the wall on their way out. Right. And it , it's, it's bad. Anything else in the, in the tickle trunk?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Um, so , uh, let's getting started. I had a , I had a GM a couple years ago who was going through her own issues again, seems to be the common theme mm-hmm <affirmative> . And , um, at one point I just won some awards and she felt she deserved the spotlight for those awards. So I got sat down and told, don't des you don't deserve those. The spotlight should be on me and the staff and like, you should be thanking me. And I'm like, the award is for staff development. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Right. It's an award I got because I put the money and time into developing you guys and giving you these opportunities. So I'm not sure how that is a staff award mm-hmm <affirmative> . Or an award for someone that is literally getting thousands of dollars in development every month. You have your own mentor, you have, you go to things like the two brain summit, you go to other summits for other parts of the industry. Like, I'm not sure where that, where this is coming from. Fast forward about a year, my goal with my GMs is always, this is a stepping stone for you. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Two to two to five years max, but really two to three years you should be putting your resume out there, seeing what you're worth. And for a lot of them, at least two out of the three I've had, they've stepped up to six figure incomes Wow . When they do that. So for me, I'm always telling them, put your resume out there at around two years. Start putting your resume out there. I know I can't give you a hundred thousand dollars a year. Just the job does not require that. And its skill level isn't there, but your, your resume is going to speak to someone that can do a six figure income job. So did that, gave the notice. Apparently I wasn't upset enough about her leaving
Speaker 1:<laugh>
Speaker 2:And having developed my personal assistant to become a leader in the company. I had an immediate segue . Yeah. So it wasn't this long drawn out. I don't know what we're gonna do. I don't know how we'll replace you. Just public fireworks.
Speaker 1:Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay . So that's, that's three of your many stories of, of yeah . Just negative stuff. And listeners, you probably have your own stories out there or you've heard of stuff. I have heard so much stuff when I put this post-op asking , uh, who's in in our tinker group who's dealt with staffing problems. We got a bunch of crazy stuff in there. Everyone's dealt with it. You are not alone. You're not the only person. Our most successful gym owners, that's the tinkerers. They are, you know, millionaire gym owners essentially running very profitable enterprises. They've all dealt with staffing issues. It is part of the game. HR is a difficult, difficult thing. So you are not alone. And we're gonna talk about some solutions for some of this stuff. Chris, talk to me about like, when you were going through these tough times, how did you feel about your business? And then how did these problems affect clients? Because let's really talk where the rubber meets the road because the client Yeah . The clients have to be happy. And if they're not, you got an even bigger problem than staff problems.
Speaker 2:What I have found countless times the , I mentioned the three, I've probably had at least 20 other member or other, you know, ego situations. What I've come to find is people are , um, what I call front page news chasers. Hmm . They want the headline of the day. That headline is going to last a week, two weeks tops before a new headline hits the world. And they're all running to flock to gaw at that new thing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And you know, I always use this example because I , it just blew me away. We'd be in a CrossFit owner Facebook group and a guy would get caught doing something very pervy with cameras and whatever, and that that comment section would flood for about eight days until the new drama hits the po hits the group. Yeah . Silence. Yeah . And this guy's completely forgotten about. Huh . So to me, there's really no thing that you can do, even if you were in completely in the wrong. There is nothing unless it's something super egregious and like what that guy did with the bathrooms and the camera . It's like, if it's nothing egregious, if it's just simple human error or maybe emotion's got the best of you, or they're just in their own feels and making you out to be a monster, you just gotta weather it for a little bit and that next headline's gonna hit and then this is gonna be forgotten about. It's old news.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's good advice. And I, I didn't deal with like really horrible staff , people exiting and so forth, but I did deal with changes and it , it was hard because there were people that were very closely tied into the fabric of the business and I was just terrified that when they leave, everyone would leave. And so, you know, listeners, if you're out there, time heals all wounds and it's not gonna be bad as you think You have to, you know, Chris Cooper has one that he says, if , uh, the only way out is through and you just have to kind of weather the storm, the best thing you can do is keep moving forward and realize that like the staff, people are not your business. They can be a huge part of your business and it's on you as the owner to develop them and make them part of that. But if you do have to make a change for the benefit of the business and your clients, you have to do that and keep pushing through. Let's talk a little bit about that. Uh, you know, you talk about being a new gym owner and so forth, you know , what was the first step to solving these staffing problems and how did you find the courage to take it? Because it is hard. HR is not at my alley. I struggle with it. Many people do.
Speaker 2:So first thing I did when I bought the gym was I realized everybody was being paid the same regardless of their scale , leveler, certification level, education, et cetera. So I created a tiered system. I borrowed one from Jason Kpa . Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Went searching through the doldrums of the Facebook groups and mm-hmm <affirmative> . Found , uh, everything I could and kind of compiled my own version. So people had a , had a ladder of achievement. They didn't feel like, all right , now I'm a coach. That's it. There's no more, I can't grow. There's no reason to get better. I, the first thing I instilled was we have a growth mindset here. Everybody should be constantly growing. I offer continuing education credit up to a thousand dollars for my top tier coaches, because if you're at that level, you're , your education is much like you're going to really high level certs mm-hmm <affirmative> . To get any new information. So I wanna make sure they feel like it's valuable to do. And , um, that really helped. It, it kind of flushed out those people that were happy to just be here with a free membership and like work out with their friends because they just end up working out in class if there was all their friends and mm-hmm <affirmative> . You know, it just rid of the amateur belief system and allowed us to bring in a fresh wave of professionals that clearly did not fully separate itself until after the pandemic.
Speaker 1:So . So would it be fair to say that systemizing and professionalizing your business was the first step to starting to solve staff problems?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not to say to the old owners to give them credit. It was very professionalized. Yeah . There was just certain parts of the HR that needed work and elevation, because I could see that people were very much in that like cruise control mode. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . There was no need to get better. There was no need to improve, there was no need to professionalize because the money's never getting better. It's never gonna change my worth. It's never gonna change what's expected of me.
Speaker 1:When you bought the business, were there documented roles, responsibilities, and contracts and everything?
Speaker 2:There was some expect expectations and basic guidelines, but when I created that tiered system, I was able to elevate that and make it more specific based on your role, based on, you know, you're a level one CrossFit coach, you want to get paid more, you have a couple options, you can go get your CrossFit level two, or you can coach X amount of classes a week, elevate the amount of classes you coach. 'cause now you're, you're increasing the value of your time because you're helping me make sure I'm not constantly scrambling to cover.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Did you do any real work after that to start looking at like roles and responsibilities and like, clearly making adjustments there? And , and then the other question after that, so you've done that. How did you, did you put in like staff evaluations and a regular schedule, that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:You know , I wish I would've mm-hmm <affirmative> . Um , not until I got with Two Brain did I realize how important that stuff is as a bunch of very much a visionary, like 95, 98 on the visionary scale. I think it's , uh, the integrator, visionary scale. Like I'm Ming the nineties and mm-hmm <affirmative> . My GM is up in the nineties as an operator. So we balance each other out. I'm generally up in the cloud. So, you know, things like reviews and, you know, consistent coaching and consistent management wasn't in my toolbox until I went out and got mentors to help me, you know, realize these things are important.
Speaker 1:Well, let's dig into that. And that's like, how does a mentor fit into this plan? Because again, you came into this, you bought this business, you had to sort out some stuff that was gnarly. And I, I started, I didn't do that. I didn't buy it . I started one, but I didn't know anything. I didn't have no clue what I was doing. I could teach a squat and that was about it. And I got into myself into trouble as well. So where does a mentor come in and how does that help you then solve and prevent staff problems and create careers?
Speaker 2:I think it's a lot about finding someone that's carved a path you're trying to walk. Hmm . So if you're walking through the jungle, which is essentially what it is when you're starting or buying a business that isn't professionalized to that level, you are walking through the jungle and just kind of macheing your way through. Not really sure if you're going in the right direction, if you've been going in circles, if you're going backwards, you have no idea. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? You're walking completely blind. When you get a mentor, they kind of pull the foliage up and go, Hey, look at this path that's already been carved. Why don't you go this way? And then you get ,
Speaker 1:It's way easier and shorter. Yeah .
Speaker 2:You go , you go these forks in the road and they go, well, you could go that way and I support you if you do, but I would recommend exploring this path and here's why. 'cause here's what I've seen during my years and how I got to where I'm at. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So it's just a lot of just, it's, it's a lot of guidance. It's , uh, I always say the, the mentor is the guide and the, the mentee is the hero. So their job is just to kind of guide you along the path and make sure that you're supported. And you know, when you are stressing out because an employee decided to run your name through the mud and try to wreck your, your image in town, they're there to listen and allow you to vent. Or when I might have told my mentor that I'm glad I have a lot of firefighters here 'cause I'm ready to burn this place to the ground. You know, it's , uh, it , it's good to have someone that can go, yeah, it's a good idea, but why don't we try maybe going for a 30 minute walk and then see if you still want to burn it to the ground. Ah , it's a good idea. I'll go . You know, so sometimes it's little things , sometimes it's bigger, like, hey, we need to completely change your , uh, pricing and delivery of your sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it can be as simple as, and here's a common one. You can trade a membership for part-time coaching, or you can document roles and responsibilities and create a fair hourly rate that then you pay to those coaches and you build this into your profit and loss statement so that these costs are accounted for in a very clear way. So at some point, if you wanna offload more of the roles or the coaches, the classes that you coach as the owner, you can do that because you know the price and these costs are built in stuff like that where you, you know, 'cause I ran into problems with that where I , I hired all my friends at the beginning. It's like, these are the best people, you know , take senator across with level one. And they, they turned out, they were great coaches, but they only coach say eight classes a month or something like that. Which isn't a bad thing, but it's not, you can't, it's hard to build a business without a stable presence of staff. That was me originally, but I couldn't handle the volume of that. So I had to start pushing stuff out elsewhere. And I didn't know how to do it. I also didn't have the funds to do it because everything was traded for free membership. I had my, you know, I didn't pay myself. It was a disaster. So a mentor can help you see these things right away and say, wait a second, we gonna , we have to take a hard look at this, this and make sure that we take the right steps so that you end up in the right spot. A big part of it for me also was contracts and roles and responsibilities listed out. 'cause you, you were good. You had that before. I did. I didn't have that stuff and it was just like, coach a class, be good at it. And luckily my coaches happened to be pretty good at it and it worked out okay. But there was no formal, you know , SOPs, procedures and things got a little weird at times because people would create their own adventures. And once I systemized things and said, this is the staff playbook, this is the way it goes, things went much, much better because people were on the same page and it allowed you to hire better. That's a question I'll ask you because you have your business more or less systemized and you have these things down. Is it much easier to hire and find new people and bring them in?
Speaker 2:You know, I think with coaching it, it's as difficult if not more difficult than ever. I think the pandemic really changed the, the environment. A lot of coaches switch careers. Yeah . So a lot of career coaches abandoned this industry because honestly as owners we were barely getting by. So I'm sure a lot of professional coaches felt abandoned. Yeah. They felt like the , these guys can't help me now I gotta get to somewhere that can help me if something like this happens again and I don't blame them. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I think the career coach thing is a lot more difficult to find these days. I think what we're, what we're finding is hiring from within and cultivating coaches out of our membership are great for group. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I don't necessarily recommend that if you're looking for someone that's gonna do pt, semi-private, little higher level , high ticket options. But you know, in terms of a group coach, they've got bit by the bug of whatever you're doing. They love what you do. They have experienced what a great class feels like. They know what it is. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . They just need to be taught how to do it themselves, how to replicate that. So mm-hmm <affirmative> for us, we found a lot of success hiring from within. One caveat to that is we've realized even with bench coaches, there's a lot of free memberships if you're giving a membership as employment perks. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . So we've switched to a minimum of 10 classes a month or a four hour shift a week. So they could be an admin, they could go, they could be the maintenance guy and help us with fixing bikes and rowers and other things. If that's something they're really good at. And they come in on like a Sunday and they do that, but whatever it is, they're doing some sort of four hour shift or coaching 10 hours a month. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . That qualifies you for a free membership, otherwise you're still paying a membership and we pay you to coach.
Speaker 1:So structure, you've got structure in place and you've got a plan in place, which are two huge things. I'll ask you this, how do you prevent your staffing issues? You, I covered a lot of stuff, but I'm wondering if you have any specifics of how you prevent staffing issues from arising and what's your plan if something does pop up, how are you gonna roll out your fix?
Speaker 2:So we prevent, we've prevented a lot of things over the years from edu from communication. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Ah , there , roadmap meetings, constant communication. But the number one thing that I think everyone struggles with, myself included, is taking action when it's a little tiny ember. Right. It's a little tiny
Speaker 1:Ember .
Speaker 2:Put that , yep . Go walk up, have that what you think is gonna be a really difficult conversation that we've played out in our head to be a massive issue. And it generally turns out to be a , oh my bad, I didn't even realize I was doing that. I'll get that corrected. Thank you for bringing it to my attention and it's done and that EMS out. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . But you let it sit there and then it catches a little bit of grass <laugh> and then it catches the tall yellow grass and then you've got this massive fire mm-hmm <affirmative> . And it's spread to other people who are now pointing at each other going, well you didn't tell that person to do that. Well that person does that wrong and that per 'cause now you've got them on the defense 'cause you are mm-hmm <affirmative> . And you're probably coming at them from an aggressive standpoint rather than a caring one. So for me that's, that's the number one thing is take action early, nip it in the butt as fast as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And do you do that on the fly or do you have standardized scheduled meetings with coaches?
Speaker 2:We have standardized scheduled meetings, but at the same time if something is going awry, I don't have a problem walking in and just going, Hey, I noticed you're not wearing a CF T-shirt. Did you just forget it? Is it right? Oh yeah. I totally forgot it. I, I promise like this is one time thing I , it won't happen again. Cool. No problem. They're aware, you're aware. If it happens again, obviously it gets a little bit more serious of a conversation. But you know, sometimes it's just as simple as like letting them know that you saw it and them getting the chance to let you know that they're aware mm-hmm <affirmative> . And that they care so there's no awkward silence or uneasy around each other. 'cause you're both kind of afraid to broach the subject.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a shameful example from my own past. We had a back door from a parking lot where I'm here , it's cold and crappy. So there's always like in winter it's like dirt and muck and salt and whatever and sand. So people come in the back door of the coaches, they'd walk across the training floor and turn off the alarm and open the front door and they would inevitably leave these gigantic ugly footprints and leave muddy boots in stupid places. And I could not bring myself to step on that ember. Instead I got passive aggressive and I drew giant chalk circles around the feet and said, stop doing this. And ridiculous stuff like that. Just shameful. If I had just had that conversation and said, Hey man, take shoes off the back door or to the entire staff, it would've been so much better. But instead I let that one sit , just sit. And I got madder and madder and eventually it came out in one of those everything ketchup bottle things where I'm mad about this and this and this and the shoes. Right. And it's just like, that's not a good way to be a boss. And so Chris Cooper has talked about this one, have these regular meetings with your coaches and Oscar Jo had one of our mentors in Sweden gave another tip saying tell them at every single meeting you'll give them something to work on. That means that A, you don't have meetings only when you're mad. So people know they're coming, they know as soon like, Hey Chris, let's have a meeting. And you're like, oh God, now what? You know, it's not one of those, it's like it's regular scheduled programming, everything's fine. And they know at that meeting they're gonna get something to work on. So you talked about that one coach's like, oh everything's fine. I don't need to work on anatomy or whatever. They know you are getting some piece of feedback to make you better because continual improvement is part of our mission here at this gym. Something like that. So there are two huge things. Do you have regular staff meetings, Chris?
Speaker 2:We have a quarterly all staff meetings. Everybody comes together. Yep . We do lunch, we break things down. I talk about the quarterly focus and then we're bringing back, now that we have a new head coach in place, we're bringing back monthly coach meetings. Nice. Where they'll do some, we'll have somebody come in and do a development talk. So it'll be like a special a talk. Like we have a coach coming in tomorrow , uh, or no SAT Saturday that will discuss semi-private like programming, retention. 'cause that's all he does over here at my, all at my other gym. Altamont Performance Lab . Mm-hmm <affirmative> . So he's an expert on this. He's been doing personal training for 20 years. So he's gonna come drop knowledge on our CrossFit coaches who aren't as comfortable with programming for a private or semi-private strength focused client. They're not as comfortable with how do I retain someone and keep the communication positive and and fun for 60 minutes with just one or four people versus 15 mm-hmm <affirmative> . So we're , we're starting that cadence. Um , we do monthly staff, non-mandatory staff dinner. So I will either take them out to dinner somewhere fun. I like that.
Speaker 1:Or
Speaker 2:I'll host a dinner at my house. Like I , I love to barbecue so I'll host 'em at the house. One of my other staff just bought a cool house with a party backyard. So she's inviting them all over her house for one Yeah . In July. So yeah, we try to do that every month.
Speaker 1:I like the non-mandatory part where it's like, this is just a casual thing, you wanna come cool if you can't, no worries. And, but it's a team building. I like that a lot. Yep . Uh, and then you mentioned it before, I just wanna confirm it. Career individual stuff. How often does that happen or performance reviews?
Speaker 2:Roadmaps are probably every 90 to a hundred to six months depending on where they're at. We try to at least get it twice a year. For our newer staff, it's probably every 90 days for the first year. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Just to make sure that like, if they're improving rapidly or if things aren't working, we can kind of, you know, the old proverbial get 'em in the right seat if they're in the wrong seat. Yeah . 'cause a lot of times we have the right personality that we just have them in the wrong seat mm-hmm <affirmative> . So we need to be able to be flexible and , and get that done quickly. Um, so we can keep these right personalities and right attitudes and just get 'em somewhere where they're more, you know, functional.
Speaker 1:So two to four times a year you're meeting with the coaches and does that include evaluations in there as well? Or is that something you do separately?
Speaker 2:So evaluations , uh, we do form , we're planning formal evaluations every six months for a year. Yep . Okay . And then , um, I think my head coach said she's gonna do informal monthly. So just poking in, giving them some feedback if they have something really, really glaring that they're working on, she's gonna be more formal with her reviews mm-hmm <affirmative> . To make sure that they're improving rapidly. We also have a coach that's the head of coaching development. So if it's something really glaring on the coaching side, they'll go work with him to specifically improve mm-hmm <affirmative> . That part of their game. But for the most part, our coaches, it's, it's a lot more of like, Hey, you're getting to people two times a class, get to them a third time. Just be more aware, be more mindful of your time management. Or maybe they're afraid to cue the veteran people that are, can lift more than them or maybe are they feel like have better technique. And I always tell 'em , there's always something you can give them . Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Always mm-hmm <affirmative> . Even if it's a joke, like, hey, your left foot's uh , a fraction of an inch ahead of your right. Go ahead and clean that up. <laugh> . They they, they find that funny. They get it, they know what's going on. They know you're trying to find something and they appreciate it. Yeah .
Speaker 1:But what I see here from you is you have scheduled stuff. So I've asked you like, when are you doing wit what, and you've got an answer for all of that. But then you also have someone whose job your head coach is, is to check on things regularly. So there's almost this, I mean, it's , it's not informal, but it's not a scheduled meeting, but it's just like, hey, let's try this or do things. So someone is responsible for improving your coaches. Uh , two brand listeners if you're a client, I've got some very exciting stuff. Uh , Carlsberg and Oscar Jo Head are going to be talking about Coach Ascension models at the two brainin summit and rolling out some very, very exciting stuff available for two Brainin clients. Uh, I've seen these spreadsheets, they are incredible. And it talks about all the different ways that you can evaluate and develop coaches to make careers for them . This includes like how to pay them more and how to do these things. So if you're coming to the two brain summit, you are in for a real treat. And I hope you guys will take a look at that talk as we close this out. Chris, I'm gonna ask you this one. So gym owners are out there. If they've clicked into this show, they're probably because they're have a stressful problem on their hands right now. How can a gym owner who's dealing with a staffing problem today start solving it right away after she stops listening to this show ?
Speaker 2:Prioritize the importance of that situation. So for us, naturally, we're going to put the most , um, intimidating conversations at the bottom of the list and try to hide them and bury them as far down as you can go. <laugh> . Yeah. But realistically, you should be starting with the hardest conversations at the top of your list. Because a lot of times those are the ones that are causing 80% of your problems is
Speaker 1:Rip the bandaid off, eh,
Speaker 2:Right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> . 'cause if you rip the bandaid off, you might find it's a festering wound that's literally causing all of your problems and getting this one thing done all of a sudden alleviates 80, 90% of your stress about all these things on your list. And you realize, oh, I've just got a couple real easy conversations left. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And I , I don't think we realize it 'cause we kind of just put our blinders on and, you know, hope for the best with these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if you're like me, if you, if you're avoiding something and you're putting stuff in front of that, you're not giving your full attention to the stuff you should be focusing on because it's just solely there to get in the way of the stuff you should be doing. Uh , are you very direct, like when you talk to, to someone, staff members now , uh, does that get easier? Like if it , is it easier to step on that ember and just say, Hey dude, this is wrong. Can you fix that? Or is it still that squidgy, ah , I gotta work yourself up for it?
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit of both. I'm fortunate that I have a management layer in between. So I don't have a lot of these like simple conversations anymore. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Because I really am not in the day-to-day as much as I used to be. Nice. But when it comes down to like higher level conversations or even I have to have these conversations with my management team, right? Right . Your management team is not you. They're not perfect. You are not perfect. These same things, I still have to manage them and I still have to be like, on top of things that I can't allow to slide. Like, hey, communication's not where it needs to be. I'm noticing texts are falling through. What can we do to systemize this and fix it? Or what was the most recent one? I think we were just having some issues with billing and things falling through the cracks and hey, are we calling these people? What are we doing? A lot of times it's just a question if you frame it as a question rather than a, Hey, you're doing this, it's a, hey, this is going on, what do you think? Is there something we can do to get better?
Speaker 1:That's a good one. That's much less confrontational. Right?
Speaker 2:You , if you approach it from a care versus confrontation standpoint, you're gonna get a completely different response. You're not gonna put them on the defensive, you're not gonna put them in a position of like all of a sudden they're in fight or flight. They're thinking I'm about to get fired. Like this is gonna go terrible 'cause they think the same way you do. We're all human, we all go to the immediate worst case scenario. So if you're putting them in that confrontational space, they're immediately going, I'm about to get fired, so screw it, I'm gonna let 'em have it
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah . And that's when you start getting holes burned in the , on the way out and so forth. Uh, so I I , I think the best plan here for listeners is if you've got a stabbing problem right now, address it head on , get it out of your way so you can get back to growing your business. If you're struggling with that badly, I'd encourage you to use the link in the show notes, book a call and talk to , to brain mentor about it. That's it . What you do there is you're going to get, everything in your business is gonna get analyzed, including staffing problems. And a mentor can show you, as Chris said, this is the path I think we should take. Here are your options. The , this is the probably the preferred one if we go this route. This is how you do it. It's a step-by-step plan that helps you systemize your business, get the right people in the right seats, and then help them improve through mentorship because you will become mentor to your staff and then build a business where coaches have great careers and get great results for clients. It's a whole system. Christy , it worked for you, correct?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Our revenue's through the roof. I have the right team in place. I am almost completely removed from both of the businesses. So I'm living the dream and a
Speaker 1:Lot of , and this is after coming in right now coming , yeah. And this is after coming in with , uh, fires to put out immediately as an owner <laugh> . Oh yeah. Thanks so much for being here, Chris. I appreciate your time and sharing your , your war stories and your solutions with gym owners.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Happy to help Mike. Thanks.
Speaker 1:That was Chris Williams. This is Run a Profitable Gym . Thanks so much for listening. Please hit subscribe on the way out with my thanks. And now here's to
Speaker 3:Rain founder Chris Cooper with a final message for you. Hey, it's Tub 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.
