How to Scale Your Gym Without Going Broke: Moving to Small Groups

If you try to scale your gym the wrong way, you might kill it.

In this episode, Two-Brain founder and gym owner Chris Cooper shares how his first attempt at scaling nearly bankrupted his family. But you don’t have to guess like he did.

Today, Coop walks you through safe, profitable scaling using small-group and semi-private training.

He explains the difference between the two services and how to transition existing clients into them, whether they’re coming from one-on-one or big-group training.

You’ll also learn how to price small-group training correctly and connect members to fill sessions quickly.

If you’re looking for a tested method to grow your gym without burning out or going broke, tune in to hear the exact steps.

Links

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0:18 - Coop’s big mistake

3:10 - Going from PT to small groups

8:13 - The data on small groups

10:17 - Going from big to small groups

13:22 - Advertising small group training

Transcript

Chris: 0:02

My biggest mistake as a gym owner almost bankrupted my family. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym, and today I'm talking about scaling your studio from one-on-one personal training to what you should do instead of what I did. By 2008, I had already been a personal trainer for 12 years. I loved my clients, most of them loved me, and they were getting great results. But I was tired. Good lord was I tired. I thought the best way to scale was maybe to run big groups. We already had three personal trainers working for me. That was a challenge. And I thought, well, you know, maybe I could find a program for big groups. And we found CrossFit. And I started reading CrossFit's message boards back in 06. And in 07, we tried a free CrossFit group for our one-on-one clients. And we ran this class, and the first one was a Tuesday night. I'll never forget it. We did Lynn as a workout, right? Bench press, pull-ups. And I remember turning to Mike, the other full-time trainer at Catalyst and saying, This is awesome. It reminds me of training with my powerlifting buddies. Like I only want to coach like this for the rest of my life. I remember saying that verbatim. And it was fun. Our clients loved it. And with that tiny little group of 12, I made a massive decision to open up a second location and make it a CrossFit gym. So I signed a lease on this new location, five years, and we just prepared for the masses. And I've got a picture here of knocking down a wall in this industrial building because we're going to have so many people in these big groups, right? And so I signed this massive lease and I had to fill that with equipment. So I bought a lot of equipment and I had to hire staff to work the front desk and stuff. And I was sure like everybody's going to love this as much as I do. And if I build it, they will come, right? You've heard that before. Well, that didn't happen. I'm sure you've heard that before, too. But my big group classes had two or three people in them, and I was making even less running these classes than I was as a personal trainer. And the extra expense was really crushing me. And the extra time and work forced me into a deep depression. I was exhausted. I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning, going to the gym, running a class, finishing at nine o'clock, cleaning, and then driving home. And I did that for over two years. One bad guess, hey, the best way to scale this is to do big groups, nearly killed the business and floored my family. Why did I make that bad guess? Overconfidence and ignorance. I didn't know what I didn't know. Nobody was telling me, hey, no, no, there's another way. Nobody was saying, hey, let's work out the financials first. Everything that I read on the gym owner message board said that every group coaching gym was just crushing it. They were super successful and they were fun to run. And, you know, I remember one guy, he kept, um, he was a CrossFit gym owner and he kept a beer fridge. And he's like, after the workout, my beer is your beer, you know? And I was like, that's so awesome. The clients can pull a can of beer out anytime they want. And like, this guy's doing so well, he can afford it. That wasn't actually true, but it looked like it was. What should I have done? Well, I should have gone from one-on-one training to one-on-two training, and then to one-on-three training, and then to a small group. Today I'm going to tell you exactly how to do that so that you can avoid the same mistakes that nearly killed me. So, first, make a list of your one-on-one clients. Find two clients who like to train at the same time. Put a little check mark beside their names. Okay. So let's say that James and Yaquinto on this list are very different clients. You know, Ya Kinto's a master, he's 80, James is 45, whatever. But they both like to train around 9 a.m. Okay, so put a check beside each of their names. Then you're going to start a conversation with each one of those individually. So go like this. Hey, James, you are really crushing your workers, man. I'm so proud of you. In fact, I think the only way to push you even further is to give you a training partner. You open to that idea? And if James says no, then I'll just say, hey, no problem. I'll bring it up again in a couple of months. In the meantime, hey, let's go. Five more reps. If James says, yeah, I'm open to it, what do you mean? I would say, that's awesome. I have a perfect guy in mind. His name is Yakinto. He's a bit behind you in strength, but he's a bit ahead of you in conditioning. You have very similar goals. And I think you'd really push each other to the next level. Plus, he's a fantastic dude. Are you open to trying a session with all three of us together? And if James says, actually, no, I'd rather not, I would say, hey, no worries. Hey, I've got another option too. Sarah has slightly different goals, but she's super competitive and her schedule is exactly the same as yours. I think you'd push each other. Do you want to try a session with Sarah? If you don't like it, we'll just keep the things the same as they are now, right? And if James says yes, you say, okay, perfect. Let me coordinate a session so that you don't have to alter your schedule. In the meantime, let's go, five more reps. Then you go back to your list after you've made that first pairing and you identify eight more people who like to train at the same time as another person. So you pair them up. Find eight more. They just have to match with one other person, though. Pair them up one at a time until you've got two. You don't have to sort them on my fitness level, experience, gender, goals, none of that. You can train multiple people at the same time, even if they're following completely different programs. And if you can find a third person that would fit into the original two, again, probably based on schedule, invite them into your little group session. Now repeat that process until at least 20% of your clients are doing two-on-one training. Then the next step is to add that option to your sales binder. You don't have to discount it because you're probably undercharging for your personal training already. Okay, I know you. Instead, make your current personal training rate your new rate per client in small group training. So now you have two people paying your current personal training rate for the same hour and then raise your personal training rate by 20%. If you feel like the personal training rate is as high as you can go, then put two people together and bring the rate down by 10 to 20% at the most. But this will encourage even more people to join your small group program. Okay. Now, there are some common mistakes here. Don't worry if you're not starting with a lot of one-on-one clients. If you're going from big group to small group, we'll get there. Right now, though, I'm going to talk about going from one-on-one to small group. So the common mistakes here are treating group training, small group training, like big group training. So don't open up specific hours of the day like I can take a small group at 10 and 3 and try and fill them. Instead, group your clients together, like I just went through. And don't call them classes. There are a lot of people out there who own franchises for small group training who do not allow their coaches and owners to call them classes. They feel that calling it a class devalues the product by creating confusion with gyms that run big group classes like CrossFit Gyms, Orange Theory, Boot Camps, okay? The second mistake that a lot of people make when they're adding small group is they underprice. Your one-on-one clients are not picking the personal training option because it's cheap. They value coaching and they value schedule flexibility and having their own program. You might think that small group training is worth less than personal training, but you're probably already undercharging for personal training anyway. So make the small group rate the same as your current personal training rate and raise your personal training rate by 20% instead of discounting the rate for every person in the small group. Okay? Another mistake is that some gyms run small group and big group classes at the same time. The problem is that your clients can't tell the difference. Like if the name is similar, they think it's the same thing, right? So, you know, especially if they're in a group class at 6 a.m. that only has three other people in it, why would they pay more to go in a small group with three people in it just because the name is different? Okay. So later I'm going to tell you again, like if you're just running big group classes right now and you want to move to a higher value small group offering, I'll tell you the steps to do that. Okay. How do I know this to work? Well, after collecting data from tens of thousands of gyms in our state of the industry survey over the last seven years, and by the way, you know, we publish this every year just to help you. We give it away for free. You can look at the data from thousands of gyms and it will tell you that the small group training model is emerging as the most profitable with the least amount of work and the least amount of overhead and expenses and staffing. I kind of wish it wasn't true. I love coaching a big group. It's a lot of fun, but it is true. And I have to tell you, after nearly 30 years coaching fitness, small group training is a lot of fun to coach. You don't just keep having the same conversation about the weather and the sports team one-on-one all day like I used to. Instead, you have this cool little conversation going with three or four people. They're cheering for each other, but they're focused on themselves, and you're going from person to person, encouraging and coaching them. It is fun. Now, look, if you're running big group classes, if you're running a boot camp, if you're running Pilates, if you're running CrossFit, here's the crazy irony. Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, actually didn't run big group classes. He went from one-on-one to one on two, one on three, one on four, and finally maybe groups of five sometimes. I didn't understand that from reading the instructions on the CrossFit message boards, and it seemed like everybody was killing it, but they weren't. And there are thousands of bankrupt CrossFit affiliates who wish they had understood how the original CrossFit gym was run because they could have taken far less risk, started in a much smaller space, and had the runway to actually be successful. When I finally understood what was actually happening, because I got a job working for CrossFit and started asking Greg these questions, I felt like it was already too late. I was already offering group classes and one-on-one. But it's not too late. It's never too late. Recently, after 18 years owning a gym, I made the switch to semi-private, which is small group training, and I'll explain the difference here in a moment. And after helping hundreds of class-based gyms around the world add small group coaching, we have a dialed process to do it. Okay, here it is. So the first thing you want to do if you're running big group classes is call your small group offering semi-private training. You might understand the value between big group classes and small group or classes, but your clients probably don't. So you want to give it a name that's different from what you're currently doing. And, you know, by the way, traditionally, small group training and semi-private training mean slightly different things. Small group training means everybody in the group, four or five, six people, are doing the same program. Semi-private training means that everybody in the group, four or five, six people, each has their own specific program designed for them and they're training at the same time with the same coach. You can use whatever term you want, there's no legal limits to which term you use. And if you're selling big group classes, I recommend that you start selling semi-private so your clients can tell the difference and know that it's not the same thing on a smaller scale. Especially because if I'm a client in your 6 a.m. group and there's usually four people who show up, why would I pay more to be in a small group of four people? Okay. Now, start the process with your one-on-one clients. If you're not offering any one-on-one at your gym, start there. Start by offering some one-on-one. This will slow your progress by a few months in adding small group, but you need some time to build up your one-on-one coaching skills and your one-on-one clientele anyway. So this is still something that you can do easily within the next six months, but you're not going to offer a small group coaching program or a semi-private program today. Okay? Follow the instructions from earlier in this podcast to move clients from one-on-one into small group or semi-private over time. Next, for people who are in your group classes, use your goal reviews to move clients from classes to small groups or to semi-private sessions. When you ask the question, are you totally satisfied with your progress? You want to listen for the ones who say, yes, but you know, I wish it was faster. Or, well, not really. I thought this would happen a lot faster. Those are signals that clients can use more direct coaching and they want more direct coaching. They just don't know how to ask for it because they don't know what options you have. For them, you should make a new prescription for the semi-private option. Here's what I recommend. How does that sound? The next step is to add your small group option or semi-private into your pricing binder. Present this as the option for your new clients. So my pricing binder has three options there's one-on-one, which is the highest price. There's semi-private, which is about 10% less per person, but there are four in a group. And there's it, you know, fully customized programming and individual accountability, of course. And then there's the group option, which is the budget option for a client who wants a preset program and coaching in a fun environment with up to 12 others. We're a coaching gym. I don't have a low budget access option. My budget option is coaching in a big group. And when you show up for that group, it's gonna be fun. There's definitely pros, but you might be one of five, you might be one of 15. Okay. The next thing you want to do is talk about your small group or semi-private training option on your blog, your YouTube channel, and your email list. But you don't run ads for semi-private training or for small group training. Okay. People buy results. They don't buy your method. They they buy the picture hanging on the wall, not the drill bit that's required to get it there. They don't need to know if they'll be working out with you one-on-one or in a small group or in a big group until they're in your gym doing an OSWET intro and you give them the option. Here's what's best for you. You need three workouts a week and you know, this kind of nutrition plan. Are you most comfortable doing this one-on-one with me or in a small group of people just like you? Okay. Then the last step is give people the option. Remember, just because you and I like working out with a group doesn't mean that everybody does. Different people prioritize different things. So, you know, you want to give people a breakdown of benefits, not features, of one-on-one versus small group versus classes. And here's like a sample program. You know, the one-on-one has more scheduling flexibility, it has more customization of a program, fastest speed to results, has privacy, more support. But the group has a really exciting group atmosphere. And so whenever you offer something new, you always start from the inside out. You start from the clients who want something new, then the clients who need something new but don't know that they want it yet, right? Then your new clients who don't know what they what you currently offer, and then your future clients who will be coming in the gym in the next few months. Look, you're gonna have more questions. Switching from the big group model, which, you know, on its own has very, very rarely, like 1% of the time, been successful, to uh a better model for your clients. That's a bit of a change. It takes some work. When I did it, I flew the two-brain mentor specialist Brian Bott to Sault Ste. Marie from New Jersey for a couple of days to show me exactly what to do. You know, here's where the clipboards go, here's where the clients sign in, here's how the programs get written, here's where the programs go when they're done. This is why mentorship makes the process fast, easy, and super effective without making critical mistakes. You don't have to fly Brian or Dan to your gym or me to your gym. Now that we've got this dialed in, we can give you the step-by-step and coach you through it. Look, one big mistake nearly bankrupted me. I made many other mistakes, but there's a limit to how many you can make because mistakes compound. Can you really afford to do this without a mentor? I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym. I'm never gonna force a model on you. I'm never gonna say you can't run big group classes. There are gyms who are doing that successfully. I'm never gonna say you have to run small group, you have to do semi-private, you have to have one-on-one. What I am gonna say is you need to make your business make sense. I'm gonna say you need to make your business make money. I'm gonna say you need to make a business that's sustainable and will still be here in 30 years to serve your community. To do that, our mentors are going to guide you to making the right choices, to not guess, to not make expensive mistakes. They're gonna teach you how to read a profit and loss statement, to use metrics. Hey, if we add small group, here's what this could add. Now let's go through your client list. Let's identify two. They're gonna walk you through these exercises. They're gonna coach you to get it done. They don't need to literally be in your gym to coach you through adding this to your gym. But what we want you to do is to make informed choices because if you make the wrong choice, it could all be over really quick.