How to Pay Yourself More in 2025: Gym Owner Income Strategies

In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Chris Cooper reveals the monthly leaderboard for net owner benefit—what gym owners actually pocket from their businesses.

The top-earning fitness entrepreneur takes home over $45,000 a month!

So what are our elite gym owners doing that others aren't?

The Top 10 includes gyms from Belgium, Norway, Canada and Hong Kong, proving location doesn't limit earning potential.

The leaders also proved small gyms can dominate: One top earner has only 90 members, and another operates in just 1,400 square feet of space.

Chris breaks down the two key factors behind high net owner benefit for gym owners: consistency in delivery and total business excellence.

You’ll also find out which business models are driving these impressive income stats. Some gym owners focus strictly on one-on-one coaching, while others use semi-private training or a combination of high-value services to increase revenue.

Listen to learn about the marketing, sales, retention and staff-development systems that separate top-earning gym owners from those who are barely breaking even.

Links

Gym Owners United

Book a Call  

1:58 - Top-earning gym owners revealed

4:43 - Keys to high net owner benefit

8:45 - Staff systems support growth

10:53 - Models with the highest NOB

15:56 - What all 10 have in common

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Who makes the most money from their gym? Hey, I'm Chris Cooper. This is our monthly leaderboard show when I report to you who is doing the best in one category of gym ownership, and then I interview them and I tell you exactly how they're doing it so that you can do it too. This month, we're talking about net owner benefit, how much the owner actually takes from the gym. Here's why this is important. People don't go out of business because they don't have enough clients. People don't go out of business because they don't have enough revenue. People go out of business when they're not making enough of an income to support their entrepreneurial habit. Now, getting more clients might be the way that you make more income from your gym. Getting more revenue might be the way that you make more income from your gym, but they're not the same thing. Sometimes you can increase your net owner benefit by getting more clients. Sometimes you can increase your net owner benefit by earning more from the clients you have. And the best way to do it is both. And when you're earning a higher income, that means you have more money to pay your coaches and more money to expand and more money to give to charity. And so we say that ultimately we can measure your success by how much you earn from your gym. What you do with that money is up to you. My motto, and I've got this on my wall is make lots of money, give it away because I like to just keep what I need, maintain a minimal lifestyle and then donate a lot, send kids to camp and stuff like that. What you do is up to you. But the key is that if you're not making a good income, you do not have a healthy business. You have a very fragile business because if anything happens to you, that business is immediately over and all of your clients, all of your staff and all the people that you support with your charitable donations, they're all out of business too. So today, we're going to talk about who has the highest net owner benefit earnings from Two Brain, and I'm going to talk about exactly how they got there. So let's start with our top 10 earners of net owner benefit last month. Now, these are all in US dollars. I converted them just to make the table easy. But in 10th place was a gym from Belgium, and the owner made$17,708 take home net owner benefit last month. 9th place with$17,744 was a gym in the US. In 8th place, a gym owner made They were also in the U.S. In seventh place, a gym owner made$22,933, also in the U.S. In sixth place, a gym in Norway made$22,992, so close to taking home 23 grand last month. In fifth place, a U.S.-based gym made$23,344. In fourth place, a Canadian gym with$23,503. Third place, a U.S. gym with$25,300. Second place, a U.S. gym with$29,767 net owner benefit last month. And in first place, a gym in Hong Kong with just over$45,000 U.S. in net owner benefit last month. Now, usually, we're talking about recurring revenue so that we know that they're doing this every month. In this case, we made an exception. The Hong Kong gym had a bonus payment because they made so much profit in 2024. Without that payment, her NLB number recurring would be would still be in the top 10. So she's a top earner regardless of bonuses. And so I really wanted to include her here for a few reasons. Number one, I'm really, really proud of gyms outside the US doing this well with US dollars. Number two, I've always been really, really proud of the fitness industry's ability to create female entrepreneurs. If you look just at entrepreneurship and ownership of small businesses, especially in North America, you'll see that just over 30% of small businesses are owned by women. But in the fitness industry, that number is right at 50%. And CrossFit actually had a lot to do with this. And so one of the reasons that I'm so proud to be part of the fitness industry is that it creates equal opportunity for anybody to start a fitness business from scratch, whether they've been an entrepreneur before, whether they have any education in business ownership. I sure didn't. And eventually become successful. It's an enormous opportunity that is not threatened by AI. It's not threatened by, you know, the dollar where you are or what's going on in the stock markets. It's a great opportunity for you to actually do something to help other people. And it doesn't matter if you're male, female, whatever. It doesn't matter. Anybody can start a fitness business and be successful. I firmly believe that. So today, I really want to talk about the top tips from all of these, including the one and who owns this gym in Hong Kong. There's really two things that produce net owner benefit, and you're going to hear quotes from our leaders here in a moment. The two things are consistency in delivery and total business excellence. That means, yes, you have to be excellent at coaching. You also have to be excellent at billing. You have to be excellent at marketing. You have to be excellent at sales. You have to be excellent at retention. You can't just take any of these things for granted and think that being great at coaching or having a certification just carries weight in all of these areas. You can't. Any one of these things can kill you. You can be the best coach in the world, but if you're bookkeeping stocks, you're going to be out of business. If you're not profitable, your landlord's going to raise the rent 5% and you'll be out of business. We shouldn't get mad at landlords when the rent goes up. I mean, they're running a business too. Instead, we should be mad at ourselves for not being prepared and having significant business strength and margin and anti-fragility to survive things like that. The reality here is that your business Business will grow to the level of your marketing and immediately fall to the level of your systems. Your systems are what you do consistently. You know, the worst coach is the standard at your gym, unfortunately, and the worst delivered service and the least clean bathroom. Like this is what the level of your business will sink to. It's the weakest link in the chain that limits you. So when a gym owner is on this NOB leaderboard, you know that they've earned that spot through a commitment to virtuosity in all aspects of their business, not just being the best coaches in the world. You know, I think My Gym Catalyst has the best coaches in Sault Ste. Marie, but that is not enough. It's necessary but insufficient to build a great business. And these businesses are not just great at marketing. They're not just great at staffing. They're not just great at getting ROI or managing their expenses. They're not just great at retention. They're great at everything. So when I report these numbers to you, they're rolling three months averages. So you're seeing consistent stable numbers, not just these one-hit wonders. All the owners that we We interview, expect these numbers to continue in future months. We're not just pulling the old bait and switch thing that you used to hear from like ad agencies. Oh, this person made$80,000 in this one month. They must be a millionaire because 80,000 times 12 months is a million dollars. But of course that gym had one good month and never did that again. And the next few months were actually even worse because people had paid up front for a service that took months to deliver. That is not what we're about here. We're about showing you the people who earn the most from their gyms and consistently do that. So all of these owners can reasonably expect the numbers to continue. One owner actually slightly reduced his NOB number on purpose so that he can reinvest in staff education to improve his business. These are great career numbers, but they're not bought myself a job numbers. The number 10 gym owner will earn about$212,000 over the course of a year, which is enough to fund a great life. It's also a far cry from arguing about expensive cheese. So Thank you so much for joining us. are great at many aspects of their business. And that means that NOB is the product of total business excellence. They're being rewarded for pursuing business virtuosity in marketing, in sales, in retention, in bookkeeping, and coaching, of course. And so when we asked our leaders like what elements contributed to your NOB, they said business models, staffing systems, training and education, retention, marketing, ROI and cost management, paying themselves first, and mentorship. They all rely on an objective mentor to help them build all of these things. That means they're tracking their numbers through the TrueBrain dashboard and they're taking clear action to improve them every single day. Now, the one answer that every one of these top 10 gyms gave was staff. All of these owners are operating at a CEO level. That means they focus on one thing at a time to produce results, but they also see how each of those targeted actions improve the big picture. You get good at marketing, and if your retention is also good, your gym grows. You get good at sales, and if your coaching is also good, your gym grows. You get better at coaching without improving the other areas, and your gym doesn't grow. But all these people mention staff. Here's the key. All of us can get lucky with staff off once. Maybe twice. I've been very, very lucky with staff four or five times. But none of those staff will stay if you're bad at the other parts of your business. When you open a business, you immediately assume responsibility for making that business successful because if the gym isn't making enough money, you can't pay the staff enough to keep them. If the gym has a churn problem and you're constantly doing these challenges, bait and switch that you're getting from ad agencies, your staff's gonna burn out. If you don't have a solid set of systems and playbooks that you rigorously follow with every staff, well, your staff isn't gonna be guessing and you're gonna be micromanaging them and they're going to quit. If you don't have a staff ascension model, they're not gonna be able to see the future. They're gonna lose hope and go open their own gym or quit and go get a job selling real estate. Staff is critically important, but the way that you build your business is what supports your staff. I'll give you another one. Another person was talking about staff training. And some gym owners who are kind of broke, they'll say like, what happens if I invest this money in my staff and they quit? Well, I'd like to turn that question around and ask you, what if you don't train your staff and they stay? Now they're hurting your business. So Well, staff is critical. Having all of the pieces working together is even more critical because you're going to get the great staff in and then you're going to lose them. And then you're going to get the B plus staff in and then you're going to lose them. And eventually you'll find yourself settling for the people who will settle for your business. Okay. Let's talk about various business models. So some people who are brand new to this podcast will say, I run a CrossFit gym. That's my business model. CrossFit's a method. It's not a business model. A business model is your mix of one-on-one training, small group semi-private and big group training and the other things that you sell to might be nutrition coaching it might be access whatever that's your business model so first let's go through the different business models that are producing this high net owner benefit for people one person on the list said we are strictly one-on-one training our arm is 600 and we focus on high ticket packages another one said we've built programs that serve the most underserved in the fitness space we have programs for kids all the way to legends notice this person said under underserved, not undervalued. People generally can charge more for kids or seniors programs, right? The narrower your niche, the higher the value because people will prioritize paying for their kids before they'll prioritize paying for their own fitness. So these are underserved segments of the population. They're not undervalued. The next person on the list said, about two years ago, I started to shift from just personal training and group to include semi-private. Guess what? ARM went up, revenue went up, staff needs actually went down, NOB went up, and what they could pay the staff was more. The next person said, The next strategy that they all mentioned or many did was paying themselves first. So this person said, focusing on paying myself more and more is the main reason our NOB went up. Making it a goal to reach$17,000 NOB on average was the inspiration. It shows again how important goal setting is, meaning you got to have a plan to pay yourself and give yourself raises too, because as an entrepreneur, nobody else can do that for you. A few people mentioned staff development and systems. So this person said, we have two brain structures and systems in place for coaches to win. Another said, we have SOPs dialed in and great staff to make sure everything runs smoothly even when I'm not there. A third said, we've been able to create career opportunities and payroll has never been higher. I couldn't be happier about that. What a great win that is. When your gym is so successful that you can pay people more. Amazing. Another one said, I allow our coaches to have more ownership of all of our programs. We follow the four nights model from Two Brain. This has allowed me to build a solid, focused, and full-time team. Another said, coach education helped them become more of an authority and justify our higher rates. Boom. Another said, I have a great handle on developing personal trainers. Many of our NOB leaders mentioned retention. This one said, we are using the retention strategies from Two Brain and this is emphasize in our numbers. Membership is slowly ticking up. When we started Two Brain, we were at 70 members. Now we're at 90. And look at their NOB. They're among the top 10 gyms in the world with only 90 members. Getting more members at discounts and packing your group classes, that is not the way to create a solid gym. Another person said, things like pre and postpartum programs, like niching down, has really helped us increase our NOB. Getting our CrossFit certified coaches personal training certs helps them retain one-on-one clients longer with better results. That's very interesting to me. Another one said, we do 90-day goal reviews and we use a 90-day client journey, including on-ramps, to onboard all new members. This has been an integral way for us to build member retention and increase sales. Now let's turn to marketing. What are these top earning gyms doing for marketing? Well, one said, we go really hard on marketing and that drove the amount of new startups we got, which meant more revenue, which eventually meant more profit. And another one said, most of our leads come from referrals. So we drive that engine really hard, which we teach in TubeWrite and exactly how to do that. Another one mentioned ROI and ROI is really like how much return can you get on the expenses that you pay out? So this person said, our spending is rigorously evaluated. We don't like to be in debt. So we pay in full whenever we can. Another one said, we have a very small box. We're doing all of this in 1400 square feet. I'm just pausing there for a beat. 1,400 square feet to get among the top 10 gyms in the world for owner income. Another person said, I am maniacal about my spending. Every dollar that comes in is scrutinized. I know what it's doing and how it's benefiting us. Every dollar going out is scrutinized the same way. Loose funds are not wasted. They go back into growing the gym or into my pocket. So let me just sum up for you. Here's the total package from lessons learned on this net owner benefit leaderboard, what the most profitable gym owners in the world can teach us. This person said, I think it's our belief that we should center on the beginner athlete that makes us so successful, but it's also a great location, great staff and appropriate pricing, right? It's the whole picture. All of these people, of course, on the top 10 leaderboard mentioned mentorship. One put it very plainly. They said, we do all the two brain things. Another said, Kenny Marquardt, as our tinker coach, is really great at challenging us to work less in the business. Another said, I'm over the moon about making the leaderboard. I started following two brain content in 2022, and I thought the leaderboards were so cool. I never imagined making one. Hey, look, Your gym should be profitable. If it's not profitable, it won't be around for long. You need to be making a good money or you won't be in the industry for long. And we can follow the example of all of these and the inspiration from all of them, copy what they do, and do the same in our gyms too. I'm Chris Cooper. The reason I want you to be super profitable in your gym is because I know you're not greedy. I know you're going to give your staff raises. I know that you're going to help more people. And I know that you're going to help your community more. If you would like some help yourself, we've got a great community for free called GymOwnersUnited.com. You can hop over there, you can join, and we'll help you grow your gym for free in that group. We'll give you tools every couple of weeks. We'll give you webinars. We'll give you advice. If you ask a question, me or my mentors will often jump in and give you something that will actually help you. That's for free. You can join today at gymownersunited.com.