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
Client Success and Big Revenue: Goal Reviews for the Win
If you’re not regularly sitting down with your clients to talk about their goals, you’re leaving money on the table.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” gym owner and chiropractor Dr. Brian Strump shares how quarterly Goal Review Sessions became one of the most effective tools in his gym for increasing retention, referrals and average revenue per member.
Brian walks through exactly how his team at Live Active Charlotte uses these short conversations to keep clients engaged, identify new opportunities to help them, and increase gym revenue without running ads or pushing sales.
He also breaks down how he tracks key metrics and gets buy-in from his staff.
Tune in to hear the full breakdown, then implement goal reviews and watch what happens to your gym’s revenue and your clients' results.
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1:05 - Why use goal reviews?
8:53 - Impact on gym metrics
13:42 - When to do goal reviews
18:56 - Goal reviews help clients
23:50 - Brian’s No. 1 tip for gym owners
I'm Brian Strump and I use goal-setting sessions to sell high-value services.
SPEAKER_02:I know you don't have time to do goal review sessions with clients, but the best gym owners in the world make time and their reward is better retention and more revenue. Doc Strump here runs LibActive Charlotte in North Carolina, and he's agreed to lay out some real numbers for you on goal reviews so you can understand exactly what they can do for a gym business. This is Run a Profitable Gym. I'm Mike Warkenden. Please hit subscribe wherever you are with my thanks. Goal reviews. You meet with clients at intervals and you ask them if they're happy. If they are, you film a testimonial. If they aren't happy, you adjust their prescription and that adjustment often results in a high value sales because clients want swifter progress. So, it's like this. How do I get faster results in the gym? How do I get stronger or lose weight? Well, you do PT with me and you add nutrition services. Boom! High value sale. Brian Strump is a gym owner and two-brain mentor. He's going to tell you exactly what goal review sessions did for his clients and his business. So Brian, welcome to the show. Are you ready to talk goal reviews? Of course. Thanks, Mike. Let's do it. So I want to know first, take us back. You've been a gym owner for a long time. When did you start doing goal review sessions and why?
SPEAKER_00:We started doing them probably, so we opened in 2009. We probably started doing them in 2013, 14, I think. Why? Probably because in 2012, Chris probably told me I should start doing goal review sessions. And I said, I don't have time. And then we tried to make time. And it was certainly a learning process. We've come a good way from them for sure in improving them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and when you're a gym owner, you just want to coach or do whatever it is to run the gym. You're like, I don't have time to do these meetings with clients. My job is to coach with them in the gym, not sit down and talk with them. But really, your job is to sit down and talk with them. And we have data that now proves it. So let's dig into that. With reference to your metrics, what happened when you started doing these sessions?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I feel like the goal review sessions do a few things. And so our retention numbers, started to improve i think that i think the goal review sessions show members that you know even after we're paying them they still care about us and there's no doubt just kind of looking for the next thing uh we saw clients like the average visit per per client or like the total visits of like classes increase over time right because yeah yeah because you know sometimes it's just you just need to be more consistent or let's get you in here instead of, you know, once or twice a week, let's try to get you in here two or three times a week or depending on their goals. We saw, and then our average revenue per member, you know, certainly increased based on what you talked about, right? Adding personal training, adding nutrition services. It also allowed us to start to get like less guessing in terms of, selling or creating specialty courses for some skills just based on like asking them what they were struggling with. And if we would have, you know, two, you know, if we had two or three people say we're struggling with double unders and this gymnastics move, then maybe the next specialty sessions or specialty clinic that we would put together, we'd at least know that we had three or four people to reach out to. right away you know for that and then it increased the referrals although you know that was probably a late a late comer you know it was at the you know it was wasn't something that we always did and it's certainly something that's more difficult for people to feel comfortable asking for right so um that was probably one of the last things that we started to add to the to to the goal reviews was asking for referrals as well
SPEAKER_02:So I'll just lay it out for your listeners. Brian's adherence for his members went up. His average revenue per member went up. His retention got better and his revenue went up and he was able to figure out new revenue sources by saying, talking to all his clients and see 10 of them wanted to run a marathon or they were going to do a, you know, now it's a high rocks race, but maybe it was a tough matter back in the day. Brian's like, I can create a training program for that. It's$200 for six weeks or whatever it is. Sign up, go. And you're not guessing like I did where I was like, I think everyone wants to do Olympic weightlifting. Brian actually talked to his clients, figured out what they wanted, then created programs for them. And I'll tell you this in the modern sense right now in 2025, if you had say five clients all wanted to work on something very specific, you might sell them semi-private training or small group training, which is a very high value service. And we have tons of resources on that. And we'll put a link in the show notes to something that you can consider. But anyways, all of this works. And Brian is also tacked on a super important thing. Happy clients in a goal review section are very inclined to refer their friends. And Chris Cooper's laid out exact scripts on this. So how you can run through this stuff. Brian, do you have any idea how in general, like revenue increases as a result of a goal review? Could you put your finger on it by chance?
SPEAKER_00:Well, if I did some simple math, right? Like let's say our, you know, back in the day, our average revenue per member is probably about$170 to$180, you know? And that was, let's say, you know, 20s 2018 2019 2020 and then now with with less members but each member is paying about 240 about like 238 to 255 i just checked before we got on the call so i could have some some actual work yeah that's like 50 more a member let's say if you average 200 members I don't want to do math, like write live here in case I'm off by a couple of thousand, but times the number of years, yeah, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? Because even if you get each member to raise, even if you get your mom to raise$20 on 200 members, that's only$4,000 a month. Let's call that$50,000 for the year. And it's not just that one year, right? It's like compounding over the next five years or 10 years. And that doesn't include the new members that came in. That's just like the average revenue per member, right? It doesn't include every referral that came in in terms of new people that are continuing as well. And then also, just as importantly, it gives a greater opportunity to the staff to make like more money and to get more nutrition clients or to get more PT. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's certainly been a game changer is one of those things that when you look back, it's like, man, I wish I would have started this earlier or at least gotten better at this and gotten better at this and gotten better at this to the point that we are at now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Listeners, I'll give you the minutia and I'll give you the big picture real quickly. If your rate average revenue per member is 150 bucks, which should be higher, but let's say it's 150 because that's a standard one. And you said to a client, hey, I know you're struggling with double unders. Do you want to book one personal training session with me a month to work on that specifically so we can get that out of the problem or get that, you know, kill that goat? All of a sudden, your 150 becomes plus 75 for that personal training session or whatever it is. And now you're at 225 for that member. That is exactly how it can work at ground level. And all you do is sell one personal training session to solve a problem for a client who's struggling with something. That's an easy one. Big picture, Brian talked about bringing new people into your gym. You're sitting down with people and essentially a no sweat intro is essentially your first goal review session, if you want to call it that. But you're going to say to this person, do you want to do this with me one-on-one or in a group setting? And that line alone has made millions of dollars for gyms because a lot of clients say, oh, I'd love the convenience and flexibility and attention of a one-on-one coaching program as opposed to a group program. All of a sudden, you're selling$400 and$500 and$600 personal training packages as opposed to$150 group memberships. You're going to get that client into goal review sessions 90 or 120 days down the line, whatever it is, meet with them regularly, and you can adjust and upgrade the prescriptions. Sometimes you might downgrade a prescription to build trust and say like, hey, I know you're busy right now. Over this next period, let's get to the gym twice a week. That's going to be great for maintenance. We'll scale it back up in September when the schedule, you know, isn't as crazy. That builds trust with clients too. So it's not always an upsell, but in most cases, clients are going to purchase additional services in these sessions. So that's the minutia and that's also the big picture. Brian, general info from your mentees, because you work with gym owners and you coach them to run better businesses. What happens to metrics when gym owners now start using GoReviews?
SPEAKER_00:No, I think the same thing. I think the hardest part is getting them to do them and getting them to see some of the benefit of it. I think the most common reason why people don't do them is the same reason why we did it, is when you first start and put them out there, let's say you have, you know, a gym of 80 to 100 people and only like 10 or 12 or 15 people sign up and you say, oh, you know, this is a waste. But of those 15, if you get three of them to do something greater... Brian, this is what I usually tell them. It's like, if you get just three of them to do something great, let's just say somebody upgraded to nutrition, somebody upgraded to a double under, you know, some PT. And then you, you know, a month later, you kind of share some videos or testimonials of that person getting their double unders and say, ah, you know, Mike came, we met Mike for a goal setting session and now he wanted to do double unders. Before he started, he couldn't do any. And now he just did 25. Or here's Sally. She wanted to lose X. you know, amount of weight. We met her for a goal setting session. She wasn't doing nutrition. Now she's doing nutrition and she's lost, you know, six pounds and 2% body fat over this last time. I think it just makes the next time you do the goal review sessions and sharing those stories, like now maybe you'll get 18 people or 20 people and eventually you'll get like, there's not going to be a world where you're going to get 100% adherence to people signing up for these. So it's just like starting and doing it. And then, you know, they're going to see the average revenue per member go up. They're going to see, you know, I got a little bit easier of a referral just by asking for it. You know, that's hard for a lot of people is even just like asking for the referral, right? I think all the same things that I had mentioned before, that average revenue per member, the adherence, the lower churn rate, you know, even saving some people there. I think sometimes you'll get a member that hasn't been consistent, and you meet them for a goal review session, and in your head you're projecting that they're probably just going to quit, and all they needed was a little bit of a sit down, maybe some tough love or some empathy or whatever, however it is that you have these conversations, and then they're like, yeah, you know, you're right, I need to... make time for this and now they've gone from coming once a week and almost stopping to coming you know 10 12 times a month and they're back on track and they're loving it right and like i think the the consistency of doing them just like the exercise part is is important if you just do them once every few years of course you're not going to see any value in them but you have to continue to do them, continue to do them, continue to kind of do them over time and just be okay with not everybody, you know, saying that I want to meet, I want to meet with a coach to talk about it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Some of your old schoolers may be a hard sell and maybe they just, They just don't want to. And that's fine. But I've talked to other gym owners. They'll start and they'll start with their, their existing members and they'll just do as many as they can. And exactly what you said, nothing makes someone want to do a goal review session, like being beaten to work out by their part of the frenemy. Right? So it's like, how did he get so good at snatches all of a sudden? Well, he's doing personal training with me. I want to do that too. I want to do goal review sessions. Like this thing catches on. You can't just snap your fingers and have a hundred percent sign up. You can't just make it happen. You have to work at it. That comes down to your internal messaging about the benefits of these. And as you're bringing in new clients, it becomes part of the process. It's not a thing that you tack on later. It's when you come to our gym, we're going to sit down with a consultation. This is the prescriptive model that Chris Cooper's talked about for forever. You do this prescriptive model. You tell them, here's what we're going to do. We're We're going to schedule that meeting right now, and it's part of the process. So for people coming in, that's the easiest place to start doing glory sessions. Schedule them when people sign up, then start doing it. They just know it's part of the process. Some of your old schoolers may not sign up. That's okay. Here's the other thing. Brian mentioned this, and this is a great point. If someone has a goal, they're going to keep training toward it. If someone has no goal, they're likely to leave because they've got nothing going on. So if you sit down with an old school member and say, you know, what's your goal? And they're like, I don't really have one. Find one and set one because that will make that member stay longer and work more and do more stuff and get better results as opposed to just saying, I'm just coming because I come. Because that habit can go at any time when they find a different interest or something like that. So it's really important to start putting these things in place. On the TrueBrain sample annual plan, goal review sessions are in two months. You'll do them twice a year. You can do them up to four times a year. Every 90 days is probably the gold standard, but I get that you can't always do that. Brian, how often do you do go review sessions?
SPEAKER_00:We do them four times a year as well. I think the reason why we were slow to take it on was because we couldn't do them consistently and we were trying to kind of follow people every 90 days, which like- It's different for everyone, right? Yes. It sounds in theory to be good, but we just, in 2018, we decided to stop doing that because it's really hard to talk about goal-setting sessions if every month you're doing a couple, right? So we decided to do them on the first of every quarter, the first month of every quarter, it's like January, April, July, and October. And that made it easier for us because now like, I know the end of December, the end of March, the end of June, the end of September that we start, I'm really like, I already have the content. So I'm just like regurgitating the old content for the other reason why I like that, that, that timeline is in December. I, our messaging was like getting started on the new year. And here's why it's important. In April, it was like, let's get prepared for the summertime when most of you kind of see a low in your exercise and the weather gets nice. And then in July, it was like, hey, you've seen a low in your exercise. Let's get back on track. We can't just make this thing important based on your travel schedule or whatever. And then in October, was good because now it was like the last quarter of the year when most people kind of pack it in with holidays and more eating, more drinking. So like we found that talking about it four times a year and now messaging, that's like two Facebook posts, two emails, maybe a text to the members with a link to book. And now it was easy for the coaches to just have their schedule set for some additional time for goal review sessions during that time. Made it a little bit easier for us. I know some people that do the 90 days and they track it and they put it in the CRM. That's awesome. It was just a little bit too difficult for us. So that's the way we've been doing it. And then since then, they've just been getting better and better. You know, to your point... if somebody doesn't sign up for every single one, but they sign up for two or three, then it's close to that like one every 120 days or something like that, which is still the additional checkpoints. And I'd argue that even just them, even if they're not interested, like some of the old school people or some people that think that they already know what they need, I think just the act of us showing... that we want to meet with you. We offer an in-body scan to anybody for free, just an additional thing to get. I think just the gym reaching out, even if somebody's not interested, the gym members still thinking subconsciously maybe that, okay, these guys still care about me after I'm paying, after I've been a member for five, six, seven, ten years. It's not just like I'm just another body. They still want to kind of meet with me and check in. And sometimes we'll have somebody that's been a member for five years and they sign up for a glory session. They're like, oh, kind of a little bit of a surprise, but like a pleasant one, thinking that maybe they've got something new that they want to work on that they're struggling with. And it's a reason to kind of, you open the door for them to come in where some people just aren't, if they have a problem or a concern, like, If you don't ask to help them, they're not going to come out and say, hey, I've got this issue I need some help with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Goal review sessions are a touch point. Just straight up there. Just a point of contact between you and a client. That's high value no matter what else happens. Just checking in and saying, hey, how's it going? That counts, but they're also an opportunity to solve problems. Like Brian said, it's a conversation. You're inviting someone into chat. Maybe they don't set a new goal, but maybe they say, ah, you know what? I'm really sick of the parking situation around here. Why are these spots always full? And you can just solve that problem by putting up a few signs or something like that. Like there's a lot of stuff that you can do in these sessions that results in really, really great things. Clients will definitely feel better just knowing that you're out there and you care. I would often forget about long-term clients because they can become like the furniture. They're always here, right? But if you sit down and say, hey, that deadlift PR you hit was incredible. I know you've been working on that for a last time. What's next? They're like, oh, this person is engaged in me and remembers. And it's a really great conversation. And then in these conversations, again, you can ask for referrals. You can get testimonials, high value marketing assets. Referrals are, you know, they're the warmest leads you're ever going to get. And you're like, hey, your friend, Tom, the guy that you were saying has, you know, he's been having trouble with his strength. Can we get him in here? There's a sale almost guaranteed. All these things stem from goal sessions. Brian, I'm going to ask you an important question that you've touched on this already, but what does this do? What do they do for clients? Like, have you seen your clients at your gym get great results or increased fitness and health and longevity as a result of doing these sessions?
SPEAKER_00:Of course. Yeah. I think it, you know, the most important thing was the one that you just said was like just that touch point of them knowing that somebody is kind of watching and looking out for them. Most people outside the gym just are floating through life. And nobody's really checking in on them, especially a parent. They're the ones that are always doing the checking in. So I think they feel good there. And if we get somebody and their only piece was like, look, we need to start getting you in here three days a week, or two days a week is not getting you there. they're going to see those changes. I think obviously the people that add nutrition and are going to see, you know, much, much greater changes and they're losing weight, they're feeling better, they're sleeping better, they're less achy. The people that do, you know, we've been getting a lot of people recently that have been adding some, you know, additional personal training. So maybe they're doing, you know, some 30 or 45 minute PT sessions to work on skills or somebody, I think it does a good job to like, For some of those old school people that are... We've been open for 15 years, right? So if you joined us when you were 31, 21, and you're like, yeah, I just want to come here for 25 hours a day, right? But now they've got two kids and they want to focus more on some strength stuff, which they can still get it, but they already have a good base of strength and they want to... focus on something different, it gives us the opportunity to have that conversation and maybe to add some personal training with them that's focusing on some other aspects that they might not feel that they're getting in the classes, right? So now they're less achy, maybe they're getting stronger, they're improving exactly what they want, or maybe it was for a sport of theirs. They're just seeing results faster than the person that just... winging it without much of a plan. One
SPEAKER_02:of your colleagues as a mentor to a gym owner, Daniel Purrington, said to me, there was a gym that he works with as a mentor. He said he had clients aging out of intensity. And I really like that term because you just touched on it. Clients sign up at 21 and they just want to hit Fran all day and deadlift and do all that high intensity stuff. And then maybe later on, life changes a little bit. They got a more tougher job. They've got three kids. They've got a new relationship. They got other stuff going on. And it's not that they don't want to do the intensity stuff, but maybe they just can't. They need a slightly different pace or they need to change things up a little bit. You don't know that unless you talk to them. And in a goal review session, you can say, oh, you know, the group classes just aren't hitting the button for you anymore. I have a semi-private training group where we go through just strength workouts and we do them in 45 minutes because that works for that group. Is that something you're interested in? Or a small group training. You're into cycling now instead of CrossFit? Totally cool. We have a group of cyclists that works on strength training and cardio at Tuesdays at 10 a.m. Or do you have a few buddies? We'll put together a special group for you at a time that works for you. Like all these conversations happen so easily. And Brian, when he was talking, it didn't sound like a hard sell, right? He's like, okay, you want to lose 15 pounds twice a week. Probably isn't going to do it. We're going to add this, you know, a couple of extra sessions. We're going to add a nutrition coaching. It's not a hard sell. You're solving the client's problem. like you should as a gym owner and it just makes sense for everyone. Yeah, the gym makes more money, but the client also gets results and that's why you exist. So, this is really an essential thing if you are a gym owner. Brian, what's your number one tip? So, you got someone out there, a mentee or not even a mentee, but someone's listening and they're like, ah, this sounds pretty good, but I don't really know if it's for me. What is your tip as to why they should start doing goal-reserve sessions tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00:I think at the end of the day, it's going to be what's best for the client, right? And just the reason that you just said, right? It's going to be best for the client. If I'm taking good care of the client, then they're going to be staying longer. They're going to be investing more in the gym and it's going to have a triple down effect to, you know, improving the profit of the gym, the ability to pay coaches more, all those things. So it's like if we put the client first in this particular case, which is like asking them how we could help them, then I think you just have to get started and not get frustrated when only 10% of people do it, but you just keep doing it consistently over time and you'll start to see more and more people jump on the bandwagon of doing the goal reviews with you.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. And I'll tack on every... I interviewed the leaderboard gym owners, our top 10 gym owners. I get to pick who I want to talk to every month and I talk to them about what they've accomplished. When I talk to revenue leaders... average revenue per member or per month leaders, length of engagement leaders, they all point to goal review sessions without fail as a key part of everything that goes into that metric. So if you want to be on a leaderboard, if you want to improve your metrics, move in the right direction, start with goal review sessions. They're super simple. It can be as simple as grabbing a member right now after you listen to the show, walking to the gym and when someone's walking out and saying, hey, you got 10 minutes to sit down and just go over how things are going? It can be as simple as that. The second thing I'll give you, you have to put this on a part of your annual plan. You cannot say, I'll do this for six weeks and then quit and never do it again. It must be a commitment. It's a long-term thing. This is long-term investing. If you put it on your annual plan, go through that plan every year, do the goal reviews. You will see long-term massive success, just like investing in a stock over time. You will see a huge payoff, but if you just go for the one run home run or the big home run, it's not going to work. So do that. If you need an annual plan, a starting point. DM Chris Cooper on Facebook right now and say, I need the annual plan. He will send it to you and you can adjust it as you need it for your gym, but it's a great starting point and goal review sessions are on there with some tips for how to do it. So that's what your assignment is. If you need to start, DM Chris. Brian, do you remember the Two Brain Summit? There was a bingo square that said people had to fill out things and they had to find different people who had had things happen to them to get that bingo square. And one of them was being yelled at by Strump online.
SPEAKER_00:People don't know what that was. I didn't know that was a thing. And
SPEAKER_02:it's funny because you're such a nice guy. It's such a soft spoken guy. And yet that was the bingo square. And the backstory for that listeners, if you're wondering about it is Brian's been on the CrossFit message boards and other things for a very long time. And people have chatted with him and Brian is a direct speaker and people with sons be like, is Brian yelling at me? But Brian's not. Brian's just offered helpful advice. So that's what that bingo square was. Thanks for being here, doc. I really
SPEAKER_00:appreciate your time. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:That was Dr. Brian Strump. He's a chiropractor who runs Live Active Charlotte, longtime gym owner and Two Brain mentor. I'm Mike Workenden. This is Run a Profitable Gym. Please hit subscribe on your way out the door. And if you want to talk more about this kind of stuff, head to gymownersunited.com to continue the conversation. Or if you want to get really serious today, book a call via the link in the show notes. And now, here's Two Brain founder Chris Cooper with a final note.
SPEAKER_01: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 gymownersunited.com to join. Do it today. Hey!
