No Gym Left Behind: A Message to Owners Who Feel Stuck

If you’re struggling to keep your gym afloat or feeling stressed about your business, this is the podcast for you.

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper shares a powerful message for owners who are exhausted, overwhelmed or unsure what to do next:

You’re not alone.

Coop explains how gym owners can turn things around and why “hope” isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision.

Chris lays out the real reasons gyms fail and lists the key differences between those that thrive and those that shut down. Then he lists the exact first steps to take if you're losing money and offers a formula for creating hope.

No gym should be left behind. This episode will show you how to move forward.

And if you want to move forward at the greatest speed, get a coach. Mentorship gives gym owners the clarity, focus and accountability they need to transform struggling gyms into world-class businesses.

Links

Gym Owners United

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0:18 - Why we leave no gyms behind

3:10 - Defining success for owners & coaches

6:51 - What separates those who get results

8:12 - Creating hope with the GAP formula

10:36 - What you can do right now

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

At Two Brain Business, my mentorship practice, we have an ethos of no gym left behind. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym, and today I'm going to tell you how we can help, even if you have no money, even if things look dire, what we're going to do to help you turn your gym around. But first, I want to start with why this matters. Every single year, 10,000 new fitness coaches enter the industry and 9,000 leave. Why? It's because they burn out. They struggle financially. They feel isolated, unsupported, and stuck. They love coaching, but they hate the chaos of running a business, building a client base, billing people, getting them to show up, accountability. And I believe that no gym owner should be left behind. That's not just a slogan. That's our mission. To be really specific, our mission is to extend the lifespan and health span of a million people by growing gyms and coaches. Now, we make gym owners successful at Two Brain Business. We help you build coaching programs, and we improve the quality of the coaching that comes in those programs. We teach outcome-based coaching and profit-based entrepreneurship. What does that mean? Well, it means that gym owners and coaches can stay in the industry longer, which will help people more and help more people, which will change the landscape of healthcare in each individual town or block where you work. And that's how we slowly change the healthspan and therefore the lifespan of the entire world. It all comes down to coaches. Who's going to change the turning tide of healthspan and lifespan? Who is going to change the trend where we've had the last 2000 generations of humans living longer and wealthier lives than their parents. And suddenly for the first time ever, our generation is projected to have a shorter, sicker lifespan than their parents for the first time in history. How do we turn that tide? It's not going to be the doctors. It's not going to be the drug companies. It's not going to be the researchers or the scientists. It's going to be the coaches. Coaches start on their careers because they are inspired. They've had a life-changing transformation maybe, or maybe there's just deep desire to help other people. Why do they quit? Well, it's not because they lost inspiration. It's not because they developed a sudden passion for selling real estate or flipping burgers. They quit because they run out of money. They might tell you it's another reason, like I found a passion for flipping burgers, right? Whatever. It's always money. They might say, oh, I just got burned out. That doesn't happen if you're getting paid and getting sleep at night. They might say, oh, I was tired of working 70 hours a day and never seeing my kids. That doesn't happen. Money doesn't solve every problem, but it solves the money problems. And so if we can help your gym become more profitable, all of those other problems become solvable problems. The things that are making you think about quitting, giving up, not expanding, firing your staff, starting from scratch, all of those are solvable problems if you've got the money and brain span, the time, the energy to solve them. That's what mentorship gives you. If we want to make a successful coach or gym owner, then we have to define success. And success means that they can get clients to their goals, they have a method that works, that they earn enough to stay in the industry, that they can maintain their own fitness and energy, that's super important, and that they can renew their sense of purpose often. They're reminded of why they got into this business. That's for coaches. Success for gym owners means hitting their original goals, whatever their purpose day income is or reaching$100,000 in net owner benefit per year, for example, retaining clients long enough to change the client's lives. So two years or more developing CEO skills. So they earn more as an owner than they would as a coach working for somebody else and having a sustainable long-term plan. So even after they're done working with a mentorship company like two brain, they know how to plan for themselves and how to take action and how to make decisions. And this is what we do at two brain. And it's working. You know, it took us six years to produce our first 27 millionaire gym owners. It took us six months to produce the next 27. A year ago, 12.5% of our clients were getting to their NOB goal every year. Now that number is at 38%. A year ago, 74% of our clients were moving into like long-term growth. They'd solved their problems. They'd built a great foundation. They were ready to really focus on growing their gym. Now it's 96%. Why is that? Why does Two Brain just keep getting better and why do the gyms working with Two Brain keep getting better? Because Two Brain is really about the scientific process. I love group coaching. If I could just do group coaching all day long, I would do that. But the reality and the data shows that the most profitable gyms are doing semi-private or small group coaching right now. If I had known that a decade ago, it would have saved me from my gym and burnout and near bankruptcy. I didn't know that and that's why T-Brain shares that information with everybody else. Is group training possible to run? Absolutely. Especially if you're in middle to Eastern Europe, et cetera, et cetera. Especially if you've got like a novel plan, especially if you've got coaches who can successfully coach 10 people at a time, et cetera. We're not about saying group coaching is bad or personal training is bad or semi-private is good or small group is good or one is better than the other. We're about letting the data speak the truth and then showing people how to implement that. We're not tied up in dogma. We don't have to be faithful to a certain method like F45 or CrossFit. We can let the data speak and do truth. And that's what we're doing here. We're doing science. Now, that doesn't mean that gym ownership is easy or that it will ever be easy. Fitness is probably the toughest field on the planet. What keeps people going long enough to make these changes? Because frankly, a lot of people come into Two Brain and they're already burned out. They're like, I'm done. I just want to fix my gyms. but it's worth something and I can sell it. And then there are other people coming into Two Brain saying, I'm already crushing it. If I plug one little gap, I'll instantly make another$50,000. What keeps people going though? Because change is gonna be required. It's not a matter of me teaching you some little secret and then you doing that and that's it, that makes all the difference. If you're coming into Two Brain and you have owned a gym for a while, you're gonna have to go through the process of changing and fixing some mistakes. That's not just a matter of learning. There's a process to it and that's why we have one-on-one mentorship to guide you through that change. But what really keeps you going? Well, The mentors know, and I want to share it with you so that you can share it with your own clients and understand what you're actually selling in your gym. The people who get great results, the people who survive while the other gyms fail, the people who stay with your gym for years, they're not always the toughest or the smartest or the most resilient. They're the most hopeful. You know, there was a moment in my journey, just like yours, when everything felt impossible. I was working a 73-hour week. I was barely making$40,000 a year. My wife was at home with our kids. We had a mortgage to pay. We had groceries to buy. We had enormous financial stress. I was starting to question whether I was smart enough to just figure this out. What pulled me forward wasn't grit or hustle. It wasn't just this determination because all of that runs out. It's all finite resources. What kept me going was hope. Now, hope isn't just wishful thinking. Hope isn't, boy, oh boy, I hope this works out. It's not wishing. Hope is a belief in a better future and the willingness to take action to get there. I'm gonna say that again. Hope is the belief in a better future and the willingness to take action to get there. Hope is what makes a client walk into your gym for the first time. Hope is what brings them back for the second workout. Hope is what keeps you going as a gym owner when you know you're in that dark place and the only way out is through. But hope is not passive. Hope is a decision. Now, if you know me, like I know you, you know that I love a good formula. Brene Brown has a great formula for creating hope. She calls it the GAP, the gap formula. The G means grounded in reality. Hope doesn't ignore the truth, It's not wishing. Hope starts with the truth. Clients coming into your gym don't need lies or to paint a perfect picture. They need honesty. You need to say, look, this is going to be hard. Here's where we're starting from, but it's going to be worth it. And it's the same with your business. If retention is bad, you need to be told that. If sales are bad, you need to be told that. If you're actually losing money instead of breaking even, you need to know that. If you're scared to look at your bank account, you need to look. And if having a mentor helps you do that, then that's what's always grounded in reality and hope is what you need to get through the changes that are to come. The A in the GAP formula for creating hope is agency. It means not just the freedom to act, the freedom to choose, but also choosing, acting, taking action. When somebody takes a step, they actually get more optimistic. They get hopeful. Oh, I did that. Maybe I can do the next thing. When you give somebody a clear step to take in their fitness, they actually Build hope. Oh, I could do that. It's not as hard as I thought. It's not complicated. I'll just keep doing what he tells me. For you, if you take one step today, reach out to one lead, update your pricing binder. That's how you build hope. These small wins over time. Agency means not just having the freedom to act, but actually taking action. And the P in Brene Brown's gap formula is a path forward. Agency is great, but direction matters. Clients need a plan to lose 20 pounds. So you give it to them. Gym owners need the same. They need structure. They need clarity and accountability. And that's mentorship. Mentorship doesn't just give you a process to follow or a recipe. Mentorship gives you hope. Because the hardest place to find hope is in the mirror. I know exactly what this is like. And I know if you're listening to this right now, you might feel like you've been treading water for years or you're maybe you're winning, but you're not really sure what's next, right? What's the path here? Maybe you're just tired. So I want to say this clearly. You're not stuck. There is a path forward and you're not alone out there. Here's what you can do right now to start fixing your business. And the first little wins are what will build you the hope to continue and make the bigger changes that will require more fortitude later. First, if you have no money, you're losing money, you're breaking even, go to gymownersunited.com. That's our free material. It's there for you. But don't just read it. Use it, ask me for it. If you see a post from me in the group, Coop, can you send me this guide? I will send it to you for free. I'll give you the knowledge, and the guides are as actionable as possible. They're step by step, but you have to act on it. Don't just collect them. They are beautiful. They do look like art, and I love the simplicity and the elegance, But if you don't take action on them, unfortunately, they're wasted. Now, each one of these guides starts with a central ethos. Will this make the gym owner money? I want you to take these free guides. I want you to act on them. I want you to make some money. And then I want you to invest that money in mentorship. That will get you easily 10x, what you're spending your time and money on right now. Mentorship will start by helping you stop the bleeding. So fix your pricing, fix your marketing, fix retention. Remember when I said that a lot of gyms coming into Two Brain think that they're level, but they're actually going backward. They're going downhill. First, we have to stop that backward roll. Then we're going to build a foundation. We're going to set up a good, solid system for staffing, for your systems, for your SOPs, for your pricing, for your marketing. We're going to get that foundation. Then you'll be ready to build on that foundation. Building your gym on a foundation of sand, like the old Bible story, means trying to get more leads, more leads, more leads, but not doing the things that actually keep these leads around long enough to change their lives. That's building on a foundation of sand. Building on a foundation of stone means having a solid business that can run from a playbook with good operating systems, with good retention, with good sales processes, and consistent marketing, not fly-by-night shotgun approach marketing, And then you can build from there. That's what we want to do next after we stop the backsliding. Then we want you to grow with clarity and focus, working with the right clients, building the right processes and building real careers for your staff and for yourself so that you can stay in the game. That means clarity, focus, growing the right way in the right direction. And if you're already doing these things and you're taking home over$100,000 a year, fantastic. You already know that fixing any one of these little things has enormous ROI because you already understand that coaching buys speed. The fastest growing gyms in our program didn't just get lucky. They didn't come out with the right brand at the right time and the right audience. They got help. They didn't waste time guessing. They worked a proven plan. They started from getting real in reality. Then we gave them the agency of choice, but they took action. That's key. And then they saw the path forward and kept working on it. If you're already a high-performing gym owner, you can think about joining our Tinker program. This is where you stop thinking about your income and start thinking about your investments. You build a future for yourself and your family. And you can build freedom for yourself to go open other gyms if you want to or to take a damn nap. We'll help you take that leap from income to independence too. Look, building your gym requires knowledge. Absolutely. It also requires action. But more than anything, it requires hope. You have to know that your action is leading somewhere. You have to see the light at the end of the tunnel so you can get through that dark tunnel. Think of one thing that You need hope for in your business that you're not acting on. Boy, I wish that would change. I wish that person could think the way I think. I wish more clients would come in. The difference between a wish and a hope is the action that you take. Now, what I want you to do is close your eyes for a second. Maybe if you're driving, just close one eye, but picture the gym owner, you could be a year from now. If you acted on all those things that you're wishing for, if you acted to get more clients, if you acted to keep clients longer, if you acted to train your staff to be the way you want them to be, Picture the lives you would change if you grew into that gym owner that took action on those things. Picture the business you would build. Picture the time off with your kids and your spouse. Picture what having an extra hundred bucks in your wallet would mean to you. And remember, the road from here to there is not easy, but it is possible. And you're not alone. Through this all, if you get one thing from this podcast, I want you to learn that hope is not a feeling. Hope is a decision. And if you decide to take action now, the best thing that you can do is get some help. Get a mentor, get a coach. That's what I always do. You can start at gymownersunited.com for free, or you can book a call with my team to talk about mentorship by clicking the link below. We need you out there.