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
State of the Industry 2025 With Sevan Matossian & Matt Souza
The data every gym owner needs is finally here!
Two-Brain's sixth annual “State of the Industry” guide was released on Nov. 10 on "The Sevan Podcast." Check out this rebroadcast as hosts Sevan Matossian and Matt Souza break down key gym business stats with Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper.
The free 72-page guide delivers critical benchmarks and insights from thousands of gyms worldwide, giving you the clarity to make confident decisions about pricing, staffing, retention and growth in 2026.
How long are gyms keeping clients, and what's driving retention?
What's the difference between big group, small group and one-on-one training, and why does this matter for your bottom line?
How many members should you have before hiring your first coach? Why hasn’t coach pay increased despite rising gym revenues?
How do you survive the November to December slump and capitalize on the January rush? Should you invest in paid ads, or are there smarter ways to grow?
And, of course, how much are gym owners making?
This episode is all about trends, surprises, best practices and actionable takeaways from the data.
Get the guide and use it to build a profitable fitness business. Download the brand-new “State of the Industry” report via the link below!
Links
"State of the Industry" Report
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
0:00 - Intro and guide overview
4:10 - Background on Chris and Two-Brain
15:16 - Retention and churn
19:48 - Gym growth by client count
25:19 - Millionaire gym owners
28:14 - CrossFit’s impact and future
41:58 - Big group, small group and one-on-one
59:49 - Cost to open a CrossFit gym
1:06:51 - Tips for paid ads
1:17:27 - Seasonal gym trends
1:33:07 - Two-Brain Summit
1:34:13 - Coach pay and development
Chris Cooper released Two Brain's 2025 State of the Industry Report on November 10th on the Savon Podcast. What follows is the audio from that live show. To get your copy of our report for free, visit two brainbusiness.com forward slash data. Now here's Chris Cooper with hosts Savon Matosian and Matt Sousa. Bam, there you go. Hey guys, good morning.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I'm laying over. Mr. Chris, congratulations, buddy. Thank you.
unknown:Thanks.
Speaker 4:I love the smell of freshly off-gassing chemicals. No matter how much my wife tells me they're bad for me, I can't stop sniffing them. Of course. Yeah. God, this thing smells good. Brand new car, brand new car smell. New media. I love it. Uh sixth edition, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it's we're really proud of it. And if you can't read, you could get high. It'll take you back to the magic magic markers of the second grade. God, this thing feels good. You guys do that on purpose? Is that part of the marketing play? Do you spray it with something like new cars?
Speaker 2:There's a 30% premium to add a toxic smell.
Speaker 4:Worth it. Worth it. There's something called like scent therapy or something, or you make your gym smell like vanilla or something. And then when people come in, they tie it to the smell or something. What's that called? Smell.
unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just know you're supposed to bake cookies when you're selling a house because it makes it feel homey. So when you're presenting data, you want like a really pungent chemical smell, so people don't leave on it.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I like it so much. I wonder if that means I'm flawed. No, I like it too. Don't well, I guess that's not good company to be. It's gonna validate you, but I don't think so. Uh huge, huge congratulations, by the way.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Uh, you guys must be getting rich off of this.
unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, that's uh that's a very expensive uh piece to put together and we share it for free. Even the shipping. I mean, I I don't even ask what it costs anymore because every time I do I cringe, but uh it's just something that we do to help the industry every year.
Speaker 4:And it's available as a PDF. Yep. And is it only it's it's not only available for two brain business members, but it's open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Like two brain business.com forward slash data, you get it. Uh it's it's free, and we give it to anybody. In fact, even um people who have other business coaching companies will get this thing and then do like episodes about it talking about the data. So it's for everybody.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember last year when it came out uh quickly, there were podcasts all over, including Don was quoting it, and all sorts of people dig into this. Um, and this is the kind of stuff I love. I was actually uh Don was recently on the CrossFit podcast, and this is the kind of stuff I I wanted to hear him talk about. I like it, you know. I wanted to know, like, hey, we've doubled our gyms in Guam, or you know what I mean? Just I I just love data. Do you know what I mean? And there are some really positive, what I think are positive moments in this. By the way, this is the state of the industry report. This is tell us what this is, so I don't know what the largest aggregation of uh boutique gym data anywhere. Yeah, you got it, man.
Speaker 2:Very succinct. So we work with different partners uh in the software field to pull uh client data anonymously, and we publish how gyms are actually doing. So instead of doing a survey on, you know, how many members do you have and how much money do you make, we look at the actual numbers and report the truth. And then what we can do is we can highlight um, you know, what are the best practices, how many members should you be aiming for, right? All the way down to what are the most popular group times by where you live in the world. And this will help gyms make decisions, and then uh yeah, coaching helps them implement the change.
Speaker 4:Oh, sorry, uh a little housekeeping here. I laugh out loud. Sevon likes data when it works for his echo chamber. Tank, seriously, can we fight later? I this is like a real guest. This is everybody. Yeah, this is this is gonna be a real show. Can you just say nice things for this one? Chris is over, just just you know what I mean. Just yeah, like don't point to the spots with the where the dog peed in the room. Chris is at the house. He doesn't this is he only comes over once a year, please. Okay, sorry, all right, wait. Uh, and and Chris, you uh you're the founder of the largest gym consulting company in the world, uh, two-brain business. Been around uh what what year was it founded?
Speaker 2:Well, we started I started coaching other gym owners in 2012. We founded TwoBrain in 2016 to kind of formalize everything that we had learned from um the gyms that we had worked with by that point and made it a formal program. So 10 years.
Speaker 4:And uh you found your first CrossFit or your first gym, you owned your first gym in what year?
Speaker 2:Oh five. I opened. I've been a personal trainer since '96. So my gym actually just turned 20 about a month ago.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And um, and then you went through you had the fortunate um moment in your life as a gym owner where you ran into a mentor. You there was someone in your community who was very successful. And what year and he and he's like, he helped you like see the light and start guiding you on the straight path. What year was that?
Speaker 2:That was 09.
Speaker 4:09, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One of his first um commitments that I had to make was that I would write every day what I was learning and the mistakes that I made and how to do it better. And to kind of take it a step further, I just made that personal journal public. And uh, we've been doing that every day since. But now, you know, we get to learn from the best in the industry, and it's not just my humble little gym's experience.
Speaker 4:So in 2009, you started a blog. Uh you're like, hey, and that's smart. I I feel like a lot of people who are highly productive do that. Everything in their life, they're finding out a way to make it part of their they're not compartment, you didn't you weren't compartmentalizing your life. You're like, hey, if I'm doing this, I might as well make it available and make it another branch of my business. Even though maybe you weren't consciously thinking of it, that's what it became.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first four years, it was just love letters to myself, really, as reminders of um, you know, Chris, don't do this again, don't screw this up again, you know, do this. And then um the CrossFit A-Blog actually found it and started sharing some of the different posts every day. I don't know, you know, very few people remember the A-Blog.
Speaker 4:You're talking about the affiliate affiliate blog, like on and then it was there was an affiliate channel. Yeah, the whole thing. Okay.
Speaker 2:The whole thing, yeah. And uh so that it started, other people started reading it and asking for the tools that I was making to fix my gym and then, you know, asking for advice and then calling me up at the gym and then, you know, et cetera, et cetera, inviting me to down to whatever their their little group of fitness owners was to speak, and um everything just kind of blew up from there. But instead of just giving people random advice based on their particular circumstance, we started just kind of like codifying things into a set of best practices that all gyms could benefit from, and that's where the two-brain mentorship began. Uh, it was around 2018, I think, when um 2017, because I was still working for CrossFit and um sitting at the the cafe in Santa Cruz there on the corner, I forget what it's called. Ugly Mug? Is that the one? Uh no, it's a woman's name. Anyway, um just around from the gas station. But anyway, you know, we were sitting there, and um at the time, some of the other people at HQ were like, what's the number one thing that we can do to help affiliates without becoming a franchise? And I said, Well, if you just collect data from everybody and publish it, it'll help us all make better decisions, but you don't have to tell us what to do with it. And um the COO at the time, Bruce, said, That's a great idea, but we're never gonna do that. And so I, you know, I was sad about it. And then I just realized like I had an opportunity to do it myself. And the first year it was data from about 400 gyms that I was working with as a mentor. And then the next year we started partnering with different software companies and getting giant data sets. And now um we work with Wattify and Kilo because they give us extremely clean, valuable data and smart insights along with it.
Speaker 4:And and like you said, an important part is that it's not from surveys, the data is actually from the software management, uh, gym software management uh headquarters. So it's it's it's accurate and real. It's not someone being like, Well, I want 200 members, but I only have 50. I'm gonna write down I have 200. I don't want to lose.
Speaker 2:You mean there are people like that out there that will give advice or lie about their metrics? That's weird.
Speaker 4:We have millions of potential listeners for this podcast. Millions. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Let's lie about millions. It's it's so easy to convince people with false numbers and you know claims on the internet now that it's more important than ever that we get to the truth, and that's what we're just trying to do.
Speaker 4:You know what's interesting? So you did you started this in 2009, the the blog that was you made available to the public. And what's interesting, so you didn't do that with building a business in mind, you gave it away free. And um, obviously there's a vulnerability to it and an authenticity to it, right? And since and since you're not leveraging it to make money, you can feel vulnerable and authentic without worrying about like gaining or losing anything. And um, it's interesting because I've had my son recently start a vlog on YouTube just with showing his daily training and what it's like being a holistic kid. And and he in the beginning, he was like, Hey, how do we make money off of this? And I'm like, hey dude, if you want to make money, that's not the way to do it. Like, hey, let's let's find something else. And it but it is so interesting, even at that age, he wants to see what he's gonna get from it. And I I think that that's normal, you know. Like every kid wants to set up a lemonade stand and he's not concerned about providing cold drinks for someone or the best lemonade. You start thinking, okay, what am I gonna buy? What one when how many cups do I have to sell to buy a skateboard? And uh it just uh I don't want to say that that way doesn't work, but it it sure is much more rewarding to do it your way.
Speaker 2:I think you guys are living examples of doing it that way too. I I gotta tell you, like this podcast is a lifeboat for a lot of CrossFit affiliates, especially through some very turbulent waters. It's a common gathering place and touchstone. And when you started it, um, it was before the you know the the troubles began. Before the big close down? Yeah, but you know, and you guys just kept doing it throughout. And people keep coming back, and it's not because they just want to hear the gossip or here's what's gonna happen, it's because this is where the CrossFit community goes. And the only other um, you know, common common ground that I have run into on repeat anyway is like the Rogue Invitational. And I was there again in Aberdeen last weekend, and this is kind of like you know, it's like a refugee camp for the fittest people on the planet. And um you you get the sense that like, oh, the CrossFit community is actually alive and well, but I I don't get that sense. Um, many other places. And this weekend I'm going to Cleveland for the CrossFit Midwest affiliate summit. I hope to see it live there. There's 50 people, you know, hosted by Bill and Stacy Russell. Very OG.
Speaker 4:Uh, but but you guys very OG, very OG. That that Cleveland group is wow, they've been around forever. Is that Jim 20 years old?
Speaker 2:No, uh, but they're close. They're close. Okay. So maybe 17 or 15, 16, 17, something like that. Yeah. But uh, you know, I think you guys have done a great job of like kind of keeping the community together until it evolves into its next, you know, and maybe more permanent form.
Speaker 4:Um uh why are you going to that, by the way? I know you're very, very busy. Uh, I'm glad to hear you're going to it, but why are you going to that? Bill asked me.
Speaker 2:Oh, cool.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, the reality is that when you try to work through HQ and you try to set yourself, you know, set up going to these affiliates, they want a contract, and it's very bureaucratic. Like it's it's hard to actually speak to the right person. And then, you know, sometimes they just like forget to email us back, that's happened, or they'll take payment and like no mention of two-brain or anything else. So the what we have found is just you know, do the right thing for affiliate owners. And when they ask, either I'll go or we'll send a uh closer mentor to speak for them.
Speaker 4:Uh I think Greg's gonna be there also. He invited me to go, and then I was planning on going, and then I have all this family coming into town. So last minute I told him, hey, dude, I better do the right thing and stay with my family. Now that you're gonna be there and Greg is gonna be there, and I know that that's an OG gym, I'm getting a little FOMO. That's gonna be not going. Yeah, I'm I'm not going. No. This is uh let me ask you this before we dig into the state of the industry report. There was a post uh you made that um I know Dave addressed on his weekend review, and you said that 10,000 gyms have I think you said 10,000 gyms are no longer affiliated. And he had he had was like, hey, how did Chris get that information? Like, why is he saying 10,000 gyms? And I tried to explain to him what I thought it was you were saying where you got that number. But um, do you can you share with us where you got that number?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you look at like the dawn of time, you know, how many affiliates there have been, and you know, how many affiliates there are right now, and you do a simple count, right? So like you can scrape this off the CrossFit website historically, but just by going back to um, you know, uh what is it, like the the web archive, uh, the Wayback Machine or whatever, and you and you peel like CrossFit names, CrossFit names. And what you'll see over time is that sadly, like more than half of the affiliates who have become affiliates all-time are gone, you know.
Speaker 4:Okay, so that and that's what I was trying to explain to him. You're saying it's an all-time number. It's not not recent, no, all-time. Okay. Okay, so I think he misinterpreted it. He thought you were saying there were 10, like, you know, on Monday there were 20,000, and on Tuesday there were 10,000. But you're saying since the affiliation became available in whatever 2003 or 4 or 5, whenever that was, to the present, 10,000 gyms have come and gone. Yep. And that's probably a low estimate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact, in other places I've said higher numbers. And, you know, I probably didn't explain it very well. It's it's not people who are just like de-affiliating out of anger in the last two years. That's not the case. It's first-time entrepreneurs who are passionate about fitness and they think, I just want to do CrossFit. I just want to expose people to CrossFit, I just want to help people doing CrossFit. And they didn't fail because they lost passion or because they lost faith in the method or the model or HQ or Dave or anybody else. They they lost out and they left the industry because they couldn't figure out how to make their business work. And it it always comes down to money, and that's the only reason people really quit fitness. And so, you know, when we say things like over time, you know, 10,000 affiliates have come and gone. What we're really saying is that this movement created 10,000 entrepreneurs who ultimately failed at entrepreneurship. And that's the really sad part to me.
Speaker 4:Um, the the the book, this year's book is extremely, extremely positive and lots of great stuff, but there are a few scary pages in there. And the scary page obviously is the retention page. Yeah. And uh and I I guess we could go there now. The thing is, is there's the the retention page is page 38. I don't know if you have easy access to it, Caleb. Um, but I I remember Craig Howard sharing this with me. I can't remember how many members he said he had, 400 or 600. And I was like, holy shit, that's amazing. And he says, Yeah, but it's a lot of work because when you have 600 members, and you know, uh if one or two percent leave every single month, you have to get those members back. And the amount of work it takes, I can't imagine having to bring on onboard, chase 15 leads and then onboard half of them every single month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. I mean, if you if you look at like how many leads you get and how many show up and how many actually sign up from the other data here. If you're running a gym with 600 people and you are losing, you know, 3% a month, which would be very, very good, right? According to the averages here, especially so that's 18. That's 18 people. Yeah, something like that. Okay. Let's say it's 18 people, you're losing a month or whatever. That means you got to replace those 18 people just to stay where you are. Well, if only you know five out of every 30 leads actually signs up, then you got to multiply that 18 by six to figure out how many leads you need to get. And that's you know, 60, 40, 108 leads a month just to stay the same. Like you, in fact, become a marketing machine. And unfortunately, a lot of people see Craig, who is exceptional, right? Like Craig is a unicorn. They see him and they think, well, if he did it, I could do it. They underestimate how hard this actually is. And they used to do the same thing with Bergeron and Jeremy Thiel's gym, and like, oh, 300 members seems easy, right? They make it look easy so it seems easy. And then they open up this big gym, just like what they see at CFNE, and just like, you know, what they see at Craig's gym. And well, where are they? Why aren't they coming in the door? You know, and then they've got these big expenses, and that's eventually what drives them uh bankrupt. And um, you know, it's it's nobody's fault because nobody explicitly from HQ told them to do that, but nobody told them not to either. And so our goal with this guy is just to reveal what's working instead of pushing an agenda on people.
Speaker 4:And so if you have a hundred, if you if you have a hundred and uh let's say you have a hundred leads a month that you get, let's say you're fortunate enough to get that many leads, and then each one of them is uh three phone calls because you don't get them on the first two times. Yeah, that's right. And then so now you're making uh 300 phone calls that month, and one of them is taking you at least a half an hour, so that's 50 hours a month you're spending on the phone with the 30 people you get on the phone. Yeah, like nobody signed up for that. Or the 18 people you got on the phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy, or to have the skill set to actually be able to bring them in because that's a whole other ball game, too. Like picking up the phone and being like, Hey, Sebon, we saw that you signed up, and you're like, No, thank you. And you and you have no means to try to go through that conversation to get your foot to step through the door, that's like a whole other ball game. And then to be able to duplicate that over in a system or a process that you know you can rely on is also a whole other can of worms. So, like you could see, like it's not only just chasing the churn, but it's like, how do you make the calls? How do you have the sales script? How do you get people through the door? Like all of those pieces of the puzzle have to seamlessly come together. But to Chris's point, like people were asking if is that what's called churn? Yeah, that's churn. So if you take churn and you're you have it at five percent, let's say, um, non-employee turnover, but just members coming and going. So if you have a five percent churn, but you're only able to get three percent in, you're actually shrinking every month by two percent. And that that becomes like the deadly like slippery slope.
Speaker 2:And that was the case last year. You know, what we saw in the data last year was the gyms were getting an average of seven people in every month, which sounds amazing.
Speaker 4:That does sound amazing.
Speaker 2:They're losing five, and so you know, their net growth was plus two on average, which just it's not enough. I mean, the cost of everything's going up. So if you're gaining two members a month, you know, growth, that's 24 a year, and then your landlord says, I gotta charge $500 more a month, like all of your entire year is wiped out for business growth in one email. You really have to be like better at retention and uh client recruitment, and both of those come down to coaching in different ways.
Speaker 4:Uh there was a um uh generalization in one section of the book. It it's early on, and it basically said um and and I'm paraphrasing, feel free to tweak this, but the first 50 members, you should be working at the gym yourself. It's your it's your small gym. Then a then a hundred members um is uh and then the gym should be pay for itself at 50 members, and that at 100 members, you should get some part-time help. And I'm guessing when you get that part-time help, some part-time coaching, that's when you start really focusing on these other things. And then at 150 members, you get a full-time coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a great rule of conventional wisdom. Okay, great rule of thumb. Yeah, that's that's the unconventional wisdom, and we just highlight those numbers to give people guideposts, you know. Like there's people who are doing different types of gyms in different areas who say, I can't pay the rent on 50 members. Well, you know, maybe your gym is too big. And so while these aren't like hard and fast rules, they are good guiding, you know, goals to hit. I was lucky enough that when I signed up for CrossFit, even though the message board was often misleading, Greg was in there too. And people would say, like, when should I expand my gym? And they were talking about how do I go from 500 square feet to a thousand, you know? And he would say, like, well, when people are doing burpees on the sidewalk, maybe you guys remember that. And I got to hear that. But the people who joined 2010 and later, they never got that message. And instead, the messages they were getting were look at this class of 30 at CrossFit Central. Look at this class, wow, 50 people at CFNE this weekend. Amazing. And so they figured, like, wow, I'm I'm gonna have to accommodate these crowds. I need 12,000 square feet minimum. And unfortunately, like that broke them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's it's pretty wild. I I really like that rule of thumb because then you can go, like, okay, if if I hit 40, I'm doing great. If I'm um, if I hit 60, I'm not doing so. I'm I'm like, I'm flirting with disaster. And when someone says, hey, I can't pay the rent with 15 members, then obviously you've chosen the wrong location or you're in the wrong uh city or you're not charging enough, but there are some right-of-way, some things that you have to look at, right? Yeah, because you know it's not going to be sustainable already because of the obstacles that come up over the hill in the future, like retention. If you need to have 150 members, I'm sure there are gyms like that. They need 150 members to break even.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's there's many, many, unfortunately. And and usually it the the goal of having this is to get you to truth, like just to accept, like, okay, something's off here. I've got 100 people, I'm barely breaking even. I'm trading membership with coaches, I'm not sleeping, I'm working harder for the same money. The only people who are making money is like the landlord and the government. What am I doing here? And that the whole point of this guide is to force you to ask the question, what am I doing here and what can I do better? And that took me years and years to get to that point. I have a really big ego. And um, you know, I had to completely fail before I was ready to accept help. The the point of the guide is for you to say, like, whoa, I'm way off the average here. What needs to change? And then start investigating like what can change. But until you start asking yourself what needs to change, or until you're actually honest with yourself, you know, there's really no hope for improvement.
Speaker 4:And a question I've asked you many times, and it's funny, now it's finally sinking in. Why I've asked you many times on the show, should someone get a mentor before they open their gym, or should they wait a couple of years? And now I full now I fully get it because I have a a really good example. If you don't understand these things or have a or or have a mentor who can explain these things to you from the onset, you will be three years down the road and be like, shit, I have to move locations. Yeah. I have to fire that guy, whatever.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I like I have to take three, I've taken seven steps forward and now I'm gonna have to take seven steps back.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, every mistake that you make at startup is probably gonna cost you a hundred thousand dollars and three months to fix. So if your pricing is wrong at startup, you're gonna work your first year like for no money. If you hire the wrong people at startup, it's gonna take you a year except you got to replace them and then have the hard conversation when it's tough. Like if you rent the wrong space a year into it, you're gonna be like, how do I get out of this lease? Right. A lot of people listening to this will immediately say, Oh crap, that's me. Well, if I had solved those with you three months before you open, where would you be right now? And you know, in the past, when you've asked me that question, I've given you kind of like a non-committal, you know, yeah, you probably should response. But the reality is that when when we work with gyms or talk to gyms even before they open, I mean, a year down the track, they are so solid and they're helping so many people. Like it's it's it's complete, they're playing a completely different game than everybody who's been in this for 10 years and they're still struggling. Like those gyms are just gonna grow and grow. They're good, they're not fragile. You've got affiliates or other gyms, even who are seven to eight years in, one rent increase, right? One neighborhood gym, one coach leaving, 10 clients taking off, and they're done. Like that's how close to the line they are. And I never want to see that happen.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um, I know I know you had a uh millionaire club, people who've gotten their net worth over uh a million. What's the size of that club now? 76. 76. Wow.
Speaker 2:All the plaques are right outside my office.
Speaker 1:And going back to the beginning thing, too, real quickly, is just the fact that a lot of gym owners and people in the fitness space lead with this. I don't want, I didn't get in it to make money. And although that's great, you're passionate, you got into it to help people. The only way you're gonna be able to help people and continue to help people and help more people is if you actually make money. And so just to piggyback off, not only all the data and not only saving all the time by understanding the roadblocks and being able to have um the solutions to them before you occur to them, like accounted them, it's also gonna be the fact that you're gonna have somebody there that's gonna help you say, Hey, it's okay to have a higher price, it's okay to be able to lean into it in the sense of it's a business, so you could run it like a business. You could have upsells, you could sell semi-private, you could sell private coaching, you could charge people more for the diet plan that you're writing out for them. And that is okay and acceptable. And in fact, it's your only way to survive. And so there's this really, especially in the CrossFit space, because so many people don't get into it for money, right? You don't open one of these things up and go, oh, I'm gonna be a multimillionaire next year. It's like, forget it. But you do need to lead with that mindset of like, okay, I it is a business and I need to run it like a business, and I need to be able to have the systems in place and the pricing in place that will allow me to survive.
Speaker 2:It it reminds me of when people come to your gym and they're like, Well, I don't want to get too bulky. I don't want to gain all these muscles. Like, like that's just what happens, right? Like none of us started working out so that we could win the CrossFit games. None. We were inspired by CrossFit Games athletes, just like you know, a lot of business owners are inspired by these leaderboards. Every month we publish a leaderboard. Who's got the best revenue in the world? Not to make everybody else feel dumb, but to say, like, hey, we're all mountain climbers, and these are the people who are summing Everest, like for inspiration, and here's what's possible. And, you know, one of my the reason I almost quit fitness before I found the mentor and started writing that blog was because I could just see a string of endless days ahead of me where I was working 14, 15 hours, missing my kids and not making any more money. And I could not see a point where things were gonna get easier. I was gonna make enough money to pay for the kids' shoes and the groceries, or I'd ever be able to retire from this. And so I thought, well, hey, if I'm gonna have to get out of the industry at some point, I'm best to do it right now and start building up a pension. So when when people actually become millionaires, that's just a signal to us that they're successful enough that they can do this for as long as they want, put clothes on the kids' back and retire someday when they're ready.
Speaker 4:While while doing their passion, while helping people while doing their passion, yeah, you know, fully rewarding gig.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah. CrossFit created that vehicle. I mean, you know, I it's it's amazing the effect that CrossFit has had on fitness and health. To my the most inspiring thing that I've ever taken from CrossFit is CrossFit launched 30,000 small businesses, you know, like name the top two things that our countries need right now, and I'm talking about North America, Canada, but this could apply to any country. We need better health and we need small business. Like, yeah, it's hard to find another example of both.
Speaker 4:Hey, uh let me let me ask you this. Uh now we've we uh the company's been out of Greg's hand. It was run by a single man um for I don't know, it's first 15 years, and for the last six years, it's now being run by private equity. Do you think uh let me ask you this? Do you think that they're doing a good job? No, no, and and do you think that they ever could do a good job under that that there's a chance private equity could do a good job with it?
Speaker 2:No, and and I the incentives are different between a founder and private equity, right? Like uh when Greg started out, you know, the he had a mission, he's mission-driven. The mission of private equity is to increase returns to shareholders. And so I should have said, like, are they doing a good job? Well, no, because they're not returning big returns to shareholders. But if the company was growing and it was making more profit and they were returning shares to shareholders, we would have to say they're doing a good job because that's their mission. Could they do that without improving health and fitness and spread and CrossFit? Yeah, probably. You know, probably not the way that Greg would do it, probably by selling their own apparel and equipment and you know, the stuff that Greg. Um, but they're not doing either, you know, and so I don't think that anybody looking at this objectively could say that private equity is doing a good job. You know, unfortunately, what happens is when that private equity is not returning dividends to its shareholders, their model is let's get out. And so it's up for sale. And you know, CrossFit has now been up for sale, at least publicly acknowledged for what, like a year? Yeah, which is having a very negative effect on its affiliates. You know, affiliates are like, who's got my back here? Is it Savan? Is it Rogue? You know, is it Two Brain? Um what are we supposed to do? Like, I'm living in this building and the landlord's selling it. Should I wait for the new landlord and hope things are better or what? Like, or should I move? And uh, you know, I I think uh it's it's just one in a chain of mistakes. And hopefully there is a new buyer soon, but you know, we've heard that forever.
Speaker 1:Uh we have a new date. It's November. No, I'm just kidding. Well November 11th, yeah.
Speaker 4:The thing, the thing with that I think is missing, and I and I'd be curious what you think is missing, is we had a very dogmatic leader who is very clear on the vision. You know, don't eat sugar, uh, squat below parallel. Um, you're responsible for your own health, don't rely on anyone else for your own health. There were some like really um uh cancer is a metabolic disease. I mean, these just some really ideas that were just constantly being pumped out, you know, if not daily, weekly. Um, there was no shortage of vision um coming out. For me, that's and that requires obviously intelligence and a strong comprehension of the material, but also uh passion and um not being afraid, right? Because you're saying things that are um that pisses people off if you tell them, hey, you have to stop eating sugar, it causes cancer. But I do think that it was that kind of radical. I don't think it's radical, but obviously some people think it's radical. I think it's that kind of vision that kept it churning, kept the machine moving forward because it was drawing in a crowd of people who when the that truth resonated with them and it made them extremely passionate themselves and want to be part of. I remember uh Susa saying he got involved with CrossFit because it was a revolution. He wanted to be part of the revolution. Um, do you think that that's a fair is is that your assessment also of why it was so successful?
Speaker 2:It was counterculture, and that that was what attracted um a lot of the early adopters, and that's what got attention. But underneath all that was a deeper and deeper and deeper truth. And you know, the now it does sound like I'm talking about a cult, but you know, the the more you dug into the CrossFit journal, the application, the more it just made more and more sense. And there was a science backing, right? So instead of just attracting people to this new fad, which is usually what happens in the fitness industry, the people who came in actually just fell deeper in love with CrossFit. You know, and if I go in Suze's group on school right now, you know, some of the headlines are like, we are passionate about this method and we'll do it until the day that we die. Like that's the kind of movement that CrossFit created. Can it inspire that without the founder? That's very tough. And especially if you're private equity and you bring, you know, a lot of degrees and MBAs and stuff into the program. You know, their job is to try and like make this thing a machine, and you're not gonna do that without the founder, you know.
Speaker 4:Um marketing versus truth seeking. Greg was always trying to seek versus versus like trying to sell people because MM's has a new wrapper, and that new wrapper is really cool.
Speaker 5:Like, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, honestly, by that argument, you could see you could argue that Metfix is going to save CrossFit.
Speaker 4:In regards to it's another place that's digging for the truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and it's getting back to the roots, right? Like, let's say what needs to be said, if it's controversial or or if not, let's actually look at science and let's let's actually ask our audience to step up and understand a little bit more. And so sometimes, you know, even in Metfix, like Greg or whoever will say something that I don't quite understand, but I want to understand it. And so I'll I'll think deeply about what it is, or I'll do some more research on my own. And, you know, like that that demand to educate myself, become better, and solve the puzzle internally, that's very attractive to some of the smart people around in fitness. And I think that's why he's attracting a lot of like CrossFit flow masters and across a lot of big thinkers in the industry to the Metfix movement now. Um, I don't think you know MetFix has been simplified to the point where people can say things like constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity yet, but I think they're getting there. And when they do, I think you know, Metfix will probably uh just take over and pull CrossFit up. The amazing thing is that it's not a competitor, it sits on top of the CrossFit L1, L2, and I think it could probably pull the whole movement along with it.
Speaker 4:That's my hope. Yeah, that's very optimistic. Do you want to say something, Susa?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, just in general, like the evolution of education and the need for it inside the affiliates and the trainer wanting to move towards professionalism was kind of the seed that pushed CrossFit in a different direction in terms of what was being offered at the time. And you do have to have that continuing pull forward, just like you would like it's the same thing with like you uh, you know, whatever you program for the best scale for the rest. So, like, if you don't also have that same mindset in the way to level up the trainer, you do just kind of reach this plateau. And I remember, and Samal, maybe you remember the guy's name, but he was a writer for Greg that did a lot of the science articles, like this would have been 2018, 2019. I sat next to him at lunch during one of the DDCs, and I was like, man, I really love those, but I just can't make heads or tails of what the hell is going on with it. This was real early in Greg's uh, you know, science philosophy and understanding scientific method and stuff. And he goes, Yeah, don't say that in front of Greg, because if I try to dumb this down, he's gonna fire me. And I was like, Okay, well, shit, then I'm screwed because I'm gonna have a hard time figuring this out. But that was kind of the point, is because then all of a sudden I'd read an article and I'd have to read five more articles to come back to that article just to start my understanding of it. And so that need is is still is still very prevalent right now, and that's gonna move you towards again having more professional coaches, but also like a differentiator. So just kind of piggybacking off what Chris is saying, whether it's something like a MetFix seminar where you're getting into the nitty-gritty of the mechanisms of what the diet does internally to the body, or just getting more um involved in terms of like how the healthcare system is being ran and knowing that you are a solution for that, are two things that we need to start thinking about as CrossFit trainers. And to your point, Savon in Chris's with the private equity is if I'm trying to uh turn a dime into a dollar, I'm not really venturing off into investing into these other uh, you know, education pieces and moving all my trainers towards professionalism. I'm trying to turn my dime into a dollar. And that's just two completely different systems, different machines and different paths.
Speaker 2:It it takes a lot of courage to you know fly in the face of what's convenient to say. And, you know, Greg's done that. You know, he I'm not just the Coca-Cola and the lawsuits with the NSCA and stuff, but at the time, 2001, to stand up and say nobody's working out hard enough, and you know, you need to be doing the zone diet, you know, in the face of whatever the FDA was saying or Health Canada was saying. He's saying less carbs and the world is saying more carbs. Yeah, yeah. And you know, that that was provocable. That was huge. Yeah. And it it takes a lot of courage to say that and stick to it, even when it's the truth, you know, and uh it's very hard to be the one saying, hey, the emperor's not wearing any clothes. So when you say, is the current, you know, management of CrossFit doing a good job, it it's tough to say no, they're not, but you know, you have to look at data. And that's why we do this report too. There are just so many people in the CrossFit community who are saying, you know, giving bad business advice because that's what's always been given, instead of saying, actually, the data proof something else, um, it's it's tough. And that's another reason that we publish this so that the data can stand on its own and it it's not about me and whether you like me or don't.
Speaker 4:You know, I'll I'll use a religious analogy. Um, the marketing is follow Jesus and accept Jesus as your savior and you go to heaven. And I'm like, oh, all right, all right. But but if you go to the practical application of religion, hey, love your neighbors, uh, treat people like how you want to be treated, be honest. You start practicing some of that shit, and you're like, wow, my life's getting better. I'm happier, I'm nicer. People are being nicer to me. And and you can see I just see that as a great analogy for like what CrossFit was like, hey, go in here and work out harder. Here's another thing, don't eat sugar, as opposed to um uh looking at the some some abstract goal. Hey, just practice these things. There's like really practical things that you can do that CrossFit gives you. And I feel like it's gone more towards the marketing, towards like and and I and I for me that doesn't work. I almost feel like I'm being coerced rather than um being led. I don't want to be coerced, I want to be led.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. Yeah, you know, Jordan Peterson made the point in I think his second book of you know, you don't have to go to church, but what are you gonna replace it with? And I I think what he was saying there is like Christianity, even if you don't believe in like the life, you can still adopt it as a model for living that will lead you to healthier, happier relationships, right? And I think sometimes we lose the baby with the bathwater there. Yeah, and it's the same with fitness, like, okay, you're not doing CrossFit, but if I go to any gym in my city now, there are bumper plates, they are doing squats, they're doing deadlifts, people are grinding themselves on the floor. Like that shit did not happen when I started as a personal trainer back in 1996. It was pec deck, chest and tries, skip leg day.
Speaker 1:Skip leg day was the big one.
Speaker 4:And and and and you didn't make and you weren't and you weren't making friends.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not making friends now because I I really feel like the industry is just way too important to just say, ah, you know, you can you can do it that way or you can do it this way. It's really important to me to say, here's what the data actually shows. You know, and a good example of that is if you look at the last three years of data in the state of the industry, you'll see that more and more you see small group personal training or semi-private training cropping up. And suddenly they have the best profitability and they have the best revenue and they have the best retention. And it's not because I have a vested interest in promoting small group personal training as like the right way. I'm just revealing what the data says and helping people move to that model. And so, this in my mind, small group personal training is a good example of like a snowball that's growing out of truth. And as um the big group classes struggle more and more, and they're competing against 12 different, you know, row hosts and whatever in their city now, they're going away. But the small group are getting stronger and more powerful and more common. And uh, you know, the irony is that I this is basically what Greg started out with, and I just did not understand that when we affiliated in 08.
Speaker 4:Uh, so just so you guys know, we're talking about the state of the industry. It is out today from Two Brain Business. It is the largest curation aggregation of small gym data anywhere in the world. It's a worldwide collection of this data. Uh, and and going to the and there's a lot of lot of really good news in here. Uh, 70 so and here's one of them 70% of gyms uh teach big groups. Um and uh let me add this too on page 11 and 12. All gym types are up in revenue from last year. That's really good.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I loved, I love to hear that. But what you're saying is there's so much 70%, three three-quarters of the gyms are teaching big groups, but there's a lot of opportunity, positive opportunity in small groups and one-on-ones. There's a lot of money to be made there and a lot of services to be offered there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of help to be given. So, what what's most important is that if you're just running a big group class and your entry point is a free trial, what you're doing is shoving people out who are not comfortable exercising in front of strangers the first time. What you're hoping to get are people like you who can just walk into a gym of any kind and like throw down and you're physically fit enough that you can try jujitsu tomorrow and you know, you're not worried about getting embarrassed. That's not the majority of people out there. More and more is people who are obese, they are, you know, depressed. Um, there's something limiting them. And so if you say, like, oh yeah, come in and try a class, you're never going to hear from them again. So one-on-one gives you a private entry point for everybody, no matter what their goals are. And then if you offer one-on-one ongoing, there's a certain percentage of your population who would only want that option. Maybe they want the schedule flexibility, maybe they've got unique circumstances, maybe they just want some privacy. And if you don't offer that, you're telling all those people, you're not welcome. Like conform to our model or you know, figure it out on your own. And so by offering one-on-one and large group, you know, it's great for your revenue, absolutely, because those people are paying for it. It's great for your coaches to make more income, but also you're not pushing out the 10% of people who probably need you the most.
Speaker 4:Let me ask you a question here. You're saying if you don't offer one-on-one, don't I was guessing that all gyms offer one-on-one, but maybe people don't know it's available. But either way, you're saying there's a ton of opportunity there being left on the table. What's the difference between offering and and making it known?
Speaker 2:Well, you have to have a consultative process with people. And this is one of the things that keeps drawing me back to Metfix is if you really want to apply Metfix effectively, uh, using a uh prescriptive model is best because somebody comes in, you talk about their goals, you measure their starting point. Wonderful, here's what I think is best for you. But let's meet again within 90 days and make sure. And then you tweak the program and it just keeps getting better and better. If you don't have that model, then what you're selling is like an experience, right? And and that's okay, but you're not necessarily solving the problem that they came in for, and you're not necessarily doing the job of a professional coach. You know, if you're like running everybody through the same workout every day, that's probably okay for a percentage of your clients. It's not okay for everybody. And, you know, I hate to say it, but like who you're competing with are these these companies that are really selling choreography. You know, think of spin. Everybody is pedaling at the exact same rate at the exact same time, listening to bobbing their head at the exact same moment, right? That's choreography. If you go to a kid's karate class, it's choreographed. And that's not what we're selling when we're selling professional coaching. So if that is your model of everybody's doing the big group class and everybody has the same warm-up and the same workout, and that's all we're gonna sell, you are going to be competing with these people who are selling choreography and can sell it very cheaply.
Speaker 1:And going back to the go. Oh, sorry, Seban.
Speaker 4:I was just gonna say that's very descriptive. Thanks for choreography. That is good.
Speaker 1:And if you compare to what Chris just talked about with the churn problem that we talked about at the very beginning of this, it also solves for that too. Because ultimately, with the semi-private or private training or even just some set of like uh data set and then goal setting meetings in a larger group class, if you want to just start dipping your toe into that, is you're keeping like keeping that conversation going, and then therefore you're gonna help with the retention. Because if we have meetings and we're setting plans and we're showing them the results in a in a word, you're gamifying it in a way that shows them, hey, look at look at your inputs, look at your outputs, look at your inputs, look at your outputs. Isn't this exciting? And you're meeting with me, it's more personal, they feel like a more personalized experience. Chances are you're gonna extend the lifetime value of that customer and that member's gonna stick around for a lot longer, get more results, it's a win-win across the board.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you know, when I started, we weren't competing with all of these other kind of CrossFit derivative programs. We weren't competing with cell phones for attention. But now people chase novelty more than ever. And if you read like last month's Men's Health, their um their prescription for getting constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity was to buy class pass and go to these five different gyms. And you're gonna go to Rohost on day one, and you're gonna go to Equinox, whatever, whatever, on day two, and you're gonna go to Stretch Lab on day three. Well, that's not coaching. And if you come to my gym, my coach is gonna say, you need to come to, you know, our group coaching class at noon. Uh, Tuesday, you need to be doing this. Wednesday, you need to be doing some zone two on your own outside. Thursday, you're back in class. Friday, blah, you know, like that is how we actually change people's lives. It's not this blanket recommendation to drop in at five different gyms every week. That's asinine.
Speaker 4:One of those, one of those gyms re or one of those magazines recently, I think it was men's health or men's fitness, was also uh wrote this really long fluff piece on basically allowing people to start stuffing themselves with carbs again. Basically, they refer to nutrition as trends rather than what matters for your health. It was a crazy article, completely substanceless, but kind of like Big Brother telling you, it's okay, go ahead. Start stuffing yourself with refined carbs again.
Speaker 2:It's bad.
Speaker 4:And I'm like, holy shit. Brought to you by General Mills. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, what people are, if you've been in the industry for 10 years, what you start to see is this pendulum effect, right? Where the news has to write about something new and something different every day. And so, you know, first it went all the way over to keto, and now it's like, let's go all the way back to high carb. Wait, maybe it's bad for you, you know, and it'll just keep going back and forth. A good micro example of that is creatine, it's very, very popular. It's very promoted in the news right now. A year from now, I guarantee there will be people citing those same old mistranslated studies from 20 years ago saying creatine harms your kidneys, right? And it's just because the news cycle has to talk about something new and controversial every day.
Speaker 4:Um, these these 76 millionaires, Chris. Um, have you noticed a trend with them with doing uh individual and small group that that's a a huge component to their success?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a growing percentage of small group only gyms in that cohort. But generally, what you see is that they have a mix of uh big group and they have one-on-one offerings too. And so it's just, you know, they can appeal to everybody. All those people are doing CrossFit, or all those people are doing the same method, but the way that it's delivered depends on what's best for the client. Tell me the difference between a small group and a big group. So small group is more like personal training. There's there's two types of small group training. So small group is I've got four to six people. We're all doing the exact same workout, and it's framed as personal training with a couple of other people. Okay. Semi-private, you've got four to six people. Each of those people are doing a different workout. So the coach will prescribe, you know, they'll write me a program, they'll write you a program, they'll write MATA program. We all meet up at 11 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and there's a coach, and you know, the coach is going from one person to another. We're all doing our own thing, but we're doing it together. And you still get this sense of community. Like, you know, we have semi-private at my gym. Big group is we are going to put everybody into a room together. We're going to do the exact same movements for warm-up. We're going to do the exact same movements. We might scale or we might triage people who follow, you know, fall outside these guidelines. Their hips aren't getting low enough, their knees are collapsing in, whatever. And it it becomes this kind of industrial model. And it leans more into choreography because you just don't have time. If you're one coach and you got 25 people, right? Like it's like get in sync. With small group, six people force people, you've got way more time to give individual feedback, correction, uh, change their program, update this, scale up, scale down, and actually coach people. Now, some of this is framing, though. So, for example, one reason that big group CrossFit gyms struggle to sell small group training is because they've got small groups, right? They they they sell you this model and it's like 150 bucks a month because they think they're going to get 18 people into your noon class. But really, there's four. And so when they say, like, oh, small group personal training now, groups of four to six, everybody in the new group says, Well, that's what I've already got. You know, why is it twice as much now?
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 2:And it's just because the expectation of the owner, you know, their original plan didn't actually pan out. So if you're doing that right now, you know, you're running a big group training program, and you're like, oh man, how do I get to small group? How do I shrink my footprint? How do I, you know, really focus or or even highlight that we spend so much time with people, we recommend you start off by selling one-on-one, slowly put those one-on-one people together by introducing them one at a time, call it semi-private instead of small group so that it's easier to differentiate, and slowly build that up. In other words, exactly what Greg did.
Speaker 4:Oh, very interesting. And and and this ties back to what Susa was saying also. Um that seems like that that would really help with retention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time. I mean, you know, I go to semi-private at Catalyst, usually like right now, 11 a.m., Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And um, so I'm just working on strength because most of my conditioning stuff happens on the bike. But the other people in the group, by the way, the rest of them are all women, very different age group. You know, one woman joined the gym on her way home from dropping her mom off at the retirement home for the first time. Like, that's it. This is never happening to me. Another one is like this very adventurous athlete. She's maybe a year or two older than me. She's a bow hunter, she's super duper fit. A third one is somebody who's like, they're trying to get good at golfing. And um, there's another who's younger than all of us. She's just a busy mom of three that wants to stay in shape. So we've all got different goals. We're all working on different programs, but there's a lot of great conversation, high fives, go, go, go. You know, if somebody's doing the plank or if somebody's doing like a uh a CrossFit style workout, like they're getting all the cheers and support that you would in a big group. Uh, but it's just, you know, it's more one-on-one training with personalized programming.
Speaker 1:Can I address this real quick with a rambler here? Yeah, please we're not ignoring the chat here. I've starred some questions, we'll go over, but your incessive need to know what are you gonna call them and ask them for money?
Speaker 3:First off, Chris does talk about yes, let me answer that, Susie.
Speaker 1:Yes, he is gonna call them and ask them. God, it would tell us, tell us Epstein files. It's like crime-y, my guy. Listen, go sign up to the two random business blog in the emails. Every time someone gets introduced to it, Chris talks about it, he puts the plaque on there. You could go and you could probably pause the picture and you could read all the affiliates. You could call them and you ask them for 20 bucks, or you could put it in the chat, and then we'll actually talk about your question, and that's how you get priority. Okay, criminy, Rambler too. Watch it, buddy. We're in a mood today, okay? Okay. Sorry, guys, go ahead.
Speaker 2:What we do, Rambler, is like every month we publish the top 10 gyms in different categories, and then we interview them and get the top tips for you and share it on the podcast. So you don't even have to do all that extra homework.
Speaker 4:There's actually a thousand gyms that have made a million dollars um or that are have a um uh worth of a million dollars, but he's too humble to say a thousand, so we just say seventy-six. This year, this year. No, uh, and I uh guys, I I I am focused on Chris here. If someone's pissed off, I'm not pulling up their comments. Like, come on, settle down. I'm doing our best. Trying out I can I've already dropped three pencils, let alone try to read and talk to Chris and listen.
Speaker 1:I've starred good questions, but right at the end, we could go ahead and bring up like some some good ones here.
Speaker 4:Okay. Um uh page 57, fewer gyms opening now. Yeah, so go ahead. Uh there have been some huge um like data or I don't know, uh, or um places where gym owners come from, right? So we had the two in 2008, obviously, 2009, CrossFit was taking off, but also we had this huge economic fucking downturn in the United States. And so there was this belief that a lot of people were like, fuck it, I'm gonna change my passion. I've always wanted to be a gym owner, and people were like, screw it, I'm gonna take my L1 and be a gym owner. And then, of course, there was this huge infiltration uh because of uh CrossFit being the greatest G GPP program in the world. The our entire base was like first responders, military guys, and so they would be doing CrossFit, and then when they would get out of the military, they would open a gym. So we had like these, and then there was this there was this stat I can't remember, but it was like one out of every nine people who takes the level one ends up opening an affiliate. So like we had markers and we had a base that was getting introduced to it, and so there was this constant, even though retention has never been a strong point of CrossFit for affiliates, um there was there was always more coming in than were leaving. Um would you say that that was a good um characterization? And and then and then also kind of we also had a little bit of an exodus. We were uh uh punished because of our own greatness, because people were building all of this fitness and then being like, hey, I'm gonna switch to Spartan race or I'm gonna switch to Olympic lifting. People started realizing, oh, I'm capable of doing more, I'm gonna start doing bow hunting. So I'm gonna do jujitsu. So people started kind of leaving in that respect. This whole like second tier of uh I don't know what it down, trickle down effect happened. Um, do you agree with that characterization of the growth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a lot of gyms make the same mistake. So there's lots of people coming in, therefore, you know, they're not really taking or they're not really paying attention to how many people are going out until those levels kind of equal, and then they start paying attention to retention. And I think early on, you know, 2012, 2013, 2014, you were seeing that in some of the big cities. If they were the first CrossFit gym in, you know, Dallas or the first CrossFit gym in Atlanta, um, they had this massive influx and nobody cared about retention because there were always enough people coming in to replace the people going out and more. The first time I heard about a problem was 2012. And this group of about 13 gym owners down in Fort Lauderdale called and said, Will you fly down and and talk to us? We've got a retention problem. And um, you know, they had been doing different business coaching programs, but they made it very clear like up till now it was just really, really easy. And so we felt like we were good at business because people were just showing up and coming in, but now there's more going out. And um, you know, the the same thing happened with CrossFit too. And unfortunately, you know, what is the incentive to stick around and maintain your affiliation right now? Instead of if you're successful, some of the top gyms are leaving and buying franchises, sadly. And if you're not, then you look at the affiliation as an expense and say, I can save the 4,500 bucks and I can, you know, just do this on my own brand. And sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's not. But you know, in general, if you're not adding more value to people over the long term, um, they're gonna leave. They they just run out of future, they can't visualize like what is the next step in my personal growth with this brand.
Speaker 4:And again, and I you you you nailed it. There was a parallel between HQ having trouble with retention and the gyms. Yeah. Like like what is the motivation for people to stay? Like, how are like what kind of success do they need, or what do they stay? I I didn't really understand this graph though, when it says also that the gyms are are gyms opening at a slower rate. What do what do these numbers mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a couple of things happening, right? So the um the fitness industry is also swings on the pendulum. So what's interesting is that when the the overall economy does worse, people start thinking out alternative income streams and they might be looking for part-time jobs. And so historically, it would be like I'm gonna get a personal trainer job or I'm gonna get a waitressing job. Now it's more like a gig economy. So it's I'm gonna go drive an Uber to make some extra money because I'm I'm losing my third shift every week at the SEAL plant, or it's like, what else do I do? Now, when CrossFit really boomed, you know, 2008, there was all the stock market crisis and stuff. And uh later on, you know, 2020, 2021, people were being, you know, they were out of the service industry for a while. That's when you they really started looking at alternatives. So the every time there's an economic downturn, two things go happen. And the first is like supplement sales go up because groceries are more expensive. And the second thing is that more people look at personal training certifications and coaching certifications. And then there's a long tail effect of that, where people like me who've been a trainer for a while, say, I'm only making 20 grand a year. I think I have to open a gym to actually make this a career, and that should follow. So my prediction is that the number of gyms opening up in the next three years will actually go up again. The one thing to note in our survey is that CrossFit is heavily represented. And if you go on the CrossFit website or you did six, seven months ago, um, you would see like the average cost to open a CrossFit gym was something like 120 to 160,000. That's 10x what I spent, you know. And I firmly believe you could open a CrossFit gym for $5,000 still.
Speaker:I feel like that.
Speaker 4:Scroll back uh uh to the top to the top a little bit. What do these numbers mean here, though? It says like um 2025 30 number of gyms. What is that 30?
Speaker 2:Um survey a response. Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are the so this is um how many people reported that 2025 was the year that they opened?
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, in the survey.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we do we do a big data poll with our partners at Wattify and Kilo with thousands and thousands of gyms. We also sent out a survey, and it's usually more qualitative metrics like how do you feel about CrossFit or how do you, you know, how are you feeling as a gym owner? And but in this case, we said like when are you open? Because we couldn't get that data from the bigger data set.
Speaker 4:Uh can you give an example of a of a of a $10,000? Like, I have $10,000 and I want to open, I want to start training people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you buy the absolute basics, right? So you think like, what are people gonna need? They're gonna need to squat, they're gonna need to hip hinge, they're gonna need an upper body pull and upper body press. Well, if I buy a barbell and I buy like a you know, pull-up bar or something like that, and I make myself a plyo box. And if you go back to the garage gym articles in CrossFit Journal, it's like how to make a uh med ball, right? You get the P gravel and the basketball and the expanding foam and the duct tape. I had those.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I made those too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and you put this stuff in the back of your old, you know, van, because I know you you're a big toy to van guy heavy. Yeah, you put that in the back of your van and you go to a city park. And when it gets too cold and it starts snowing, you start calling all the local churches and elementary schools, and so you say, Can I rent your gym three nights a week? And you bring people in for boot camps. And you know, I I doubt that even cost you five grand. Do you need a business card? Uh no, I you probably need like a QR code now. And you know, do you need a website? No, you just gotta like have a phone and you know, and a way to collect money. I mean, in fact, when I opened in 2016, uh, sorry, when I opened in 2005, I had $16,000 that a shareholder lend loaned me. You don't even need that now, right? Like you need a social media account, you need a very basic piece of equipment or two, and you need a kind of a hustle culture. And you can do this at night. You don't have to quit your day job. Like, you know, get yourself 15 clients before you rent a space or before you take on any equipment. Worst case, you invest five grand and you've got a home gym for the rest of your life. Right. You know, you really can't lose it.
Speaker 4:This uh what's interesting is uh my wife of all people, uh, for a long time was training women out of the garage, and she didn't charge them, but they always left ten dollars. And she didn't rec she didn't recruit any of them. It was just her just doing her mom shit that she does all day, you know, taking care of the kids, and women coming up to her saying, Hey, what do you do to stay in shape? And she's like, Oh, you should come over to the garage uh and I'll work out with you. And it was it was for it was like five days a week, one, two, three, four women, the least expected women I would ever uh imagine to come. And they loved it. And they would and they would and they would she didn't she didn't charge, but they would always leave on my tool bench, I'd always see these stack of tens building up.
Speaker 2:Yep. And you know, my first gym, honestly, um, I had this rusty barbell. It would it lived in my truck, even if it rained or snowed, it stayed in the bed of my truck. I had an old shopping cart that I would like put deadweight into for people to pull, and I would either meet people in the back parking lot of the treadmill store where I worked after work, or I would go to their house and train them. And um, you know, I would make an extra four to five hundred dollars a week that way. Almost no cost, you know, was my own bar. I probably should have paid somebody for that shopping cart. Um or or, you know, so there'd be teenage athletes, and then I would say to their moms, what are you doing about your fitness? Oh, I could never join a gym, Chris. What equipment do you have at home? Well, I got a bow flex and some stretch tubing. I can be there Tuesday, Thursday at 11 a.m. How does that work for you? And then you charge for coming to their house and doing it. You know, I I didn't have a gym and then um built up from there. Probably the first eight years of my career as a personal trainer, I didn't even have a home base.
Speaker 4:And and hey, you know, the also the irony is is uh there were like 10 people that used to work out with me from the park, they never paid me, but just people who would see me work out at the park. And uh I always worked out with them. And same with my wife. When my wife has these clients, I mean, I know that's not the model for like Suze's gym, you need eyes on people, but she would always work out with them. Uh Pete Shaw, get in the park garage, rent some cheap corner in an existing gym and fucking grind. Uh Vindicate VNDK8.com. My brother has run an affiliate for 12 years. I don't think he's ever uh bought a brand new piece of equipment. Everything is word of mouth in Facebook Marketplace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just to piggyback off of that, too, don't underestimate just some PVC pipes and going around to the local like corporations or uh smaller businesses that have, you know, 30 or so employees nearby. Because if you go there and offer some free, and you could call it however you want it, I called it like low impact cardio, so it wasn't scary. But you could go there and you could start running some free classes to that, and you'll either pull members off it or you might even end up getting some sort of contract with that business. So do not underestimate just a PVC pipe and a really good, like enthusiastic, positive attitude to show up in at a park, too, as well. Like people people always go, it's kind of the same thing with media when they want to start. Oh, I want to start my social media. What camera and microphone should I buy? I'm like, it's the phone in your hand. Stop thinking about it. Yeah, right. I want to go running. What's the most expensive running shoes I could buy? Like, you don't need you don't need all of that. Just start.
Speaker 4:Yeah, wait, wait till your feet hurt, then you know uh to switch feet. Um, okay. Uh this is the state of the industry report just released, sixth edition. All the data you could ever want to know about boutique gyms. If you are running a gym, you have to have this. If you're thinking about running a gym, you have to have this. Uh, and by when I say gym, I would say any kind of gym, jujitsu gym, powerlifting gym, uh CrossFit Gym, F45. It it is it is the junk food for the brain of data. Uh, the greatest thing is is um uh Chris paid for all of this, so you don't have to pay for it. It's free online. There'll be links in the show notes and all that stuff. Um, okay, page 21, paid ads versus referrals. So I'm I'm the old school, right? Like, hey, just keep your head down and work, and someone will bring their um uh mom in. And then as I've gotten to know Susa better and better, he's like, let me know, like, hey, you got to ask people about their moms. You gotta be like, hey, where is your mom? Why don't you bring her to class? Bring her to class. Let's let's check out your mom and your dad, or where are your kids? But now, and Susa's also made this leap and had some huge success, paid ads. What are paid ads and should everyone be doing them?
Speaker 2:Um, yes, but not right away. So paid ads are when you give um Facebook, meta platforms, Google money to promote your brand in the algorithm and like to buy impressions or buyers. Buy impressions, yeah, show up in the feed, right? And yeah, they are powerful, but all they can do is add gas to a burning fire. So if you're already good on social media, if you're already producing content like a podcast like this, or if you're already um asking for referrals instead of just passively praying and hoping that people bring their mom, um, you're already doing all those things, adding paid ads will speed up the process. But like they're not going to be a replacement for any of those. And as a standalone, they're very hard to make work and getting harder, you know. Honestly, like we run paid ads at my gym, but it's like a $5 a day budget. We're also extremely good at uh producing a podcast every week, and you know, we get a C plus on social media.
Speaker 4:And Susan, do you want to chime in here about uh anything in regards to paid ads?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the importance of the content position to even I I would say most gyms aren't even in a position to probably go down. They're probably just burning a lot of money and not really understanding. But yeah, you don't like most gyms, probably should not go down the paid ads route. There's probably a lot of other boxes that they need to check prior to that. And one of the things I talked about at AffiliateCon and really, really pushed in terms of uh social media is associations with other small businesses. Like the real estate strategy is you become this like tour guide of your city where you know everybody, you know the best places to eat, you know where to go if you need it, if you have an open Saturday, and then you kind of showcase that through your social media. That's what a gym needs to be doing, but as a local health expert. So if you do that at your farmer's market or other uh restaurants that have great foods, great ingredients, get to know those owners, build associations through your social media that way before you start to venture down the paid ads. And two reasons. Number one, you're actually making a local impact. So the people that you're reaching are there and could come to your actual gym, right? Sometimes when you do stuff in social media, it spans too far and you might get views, but those people aren't gonna walk through the door. Number two, you're also gonna figure out how and uh what of the social media, what's attracting people's attention, then how do I create more of that? Then once you have those down, you could kind of start to put some dollars behind it. But until you do those two things, I I definitely wouldn't recommend a uh gym just go right to the paid ad space.
Speaker 4:I like how Chris said a five dollar, what did you say, five dollar a day budget? Five bucks a day, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. That's that's more than enough now, unless you live in like a major city where people are bidding against you. But you know, if if you're talking about getting leads in the door, that's great. I I just want to share this with you guys. While we were talking, I got a text from my coach for my semi-private session that's going on right now next door to my gym saying, Hey Coop, just checking in, where are you? Like that's that's coaching. I forgot to tell her I wasn't gonna be there. Yes, but like you're not gonna do that with a big group because yeah, you have to keep eyes on them, right? It's like herding cats, and like you know, you don't have the same people every day, and so you're not really sure who's there and who's not. And like it, if you did, it would take 20 minutes of your time to do that. But this is one great reason semi-private and small group is so effective. Like, if I'm not there, they're gonna call me out on it 15 minutes into the session, and the other people in the group are gonna text me too.
Speaker 4:So hey, I like it too that it's I I don't like it when people say this. Uh, I know you're busy, I'm gonna keep this short. Thank you for your time. Uh, where are you? Uh listen, you jackass. Just where are you? I like that. Hey, where are you? I mean, like yeah, that's it. Yeah, hey, where are you?
Speaker 2:She did a little flexy emoji too, but that's nice.
Speaker 4:She should have uh put an emoji of a of a sissy.
Speaker 2:Really well, that's me anyway, so I don't get that.
Speaker 4:Um I want to go back to the paid paid ads. Um, but your dad, your Susa, Susa might I feel like Susa's pushing back on you a little bit. You guys are saying paid, weren't you saying in the book, as I recall, that it's important to do paid ads? And Susa says, hey, you got to get some boxes checked before you do paid ads. I know it's very sexy and sounds fun.
Speaker 2:Order of execution, right? Like if you are good at asking for referrals and you can turn every new client into two new clients over time, then your paid ads are getting you double the bang for your buck. And if you're good at social media, your paid ads will attract attention to your social media channel and people will be like, oh, I like you or I don't like you. And if you're good at creating content, which was, you know, CrossFits media play, then people are just going to go deeper and deeper and deeper into that content, as we talked about earlier. You know, and the thing is, like, I know there's viewers on here who like don't like me and whatever, but you know, I don't care if you like me or don't. Do the right thing for your gym and look at actual data and facts and then make decisions. It's not about what I recommend, it's about what this data reveals that can help you.
Speaker 4:I've never met anyone who doesn't like you, by the way. I I mean that thank you. And I know both of you have met people who don't like me. That hurts, and that hurts a little bit. That hurts a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, Sevi, at the Rogue Invitational, I saw more Savon podcast t-shirts than I ever have before. You're a growing phenomenon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you.
unknown:Thank you.
Speaker 4:See my live make my money.
Speaker 2:I will tell you Muff.
Speaker 4:I feel like um go ahead, go ahead, Susan, please.
Speaker 1:No, I was just gonna say one thing I also want to put on the paid ads, which also it kind of encompasses everything Chris has been talking about here, is you also have to have some sort of offer. Like if you just put out a paid ad, most people just go to discounting their service, which I do not I do not recommend. And the other thing with that is like you have to have some sort of process once you bring them in. So, like, what is the offer? You can't just sell a membership, you have to sell usually some sort of result, right? Like, hey, what are you looking for this? Are you this person? We could help you with this. And then to have the process in which you actually have that conversation that one-on-one with them. Because if you're just putting something out there and you're doing like, you know, three days for three dollars, 14 days for $14 or something like that, you're just gonna, you're just chasing the churn. Because a lot of those people that come in, maybe they'll stick around for past that trial in a month or two, or maybe they won't. And then you just have to keep kind of recycling that same thing, as opposed to if you have some sort of really good offer for them, like, hey, come get your blood work done. Hey, we're gonna do an embody scan, hey, we're gonna do a mobility test, we're gonna look at that data, then we're gonna put together a roadmap for you over success over the next 90 days to help you get the result that you're looking for. That's more enticing than just you know, $14 for 14 days.
Speaker 4:I'm guessing you really don't want that person either.
Speaker 2:No, because they're gonna see number advice $13 for 14 days, five minute abs and they're gone.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 4:Those are the kind of task people. Yeah, that that's that's interesting. If you attract people who are chasing um just the lowest amount of money as opposed to not not that there's a problem with giving people deals, but if you're attracting those people as opposed to people who want results, um the the first one's not sustainable. I can't always be having you in here at a loss, but I can always make you uh fitter, stronger, faster. Yeah. So you're promising something that really you can't you can't do.
Speaker 2:Eventually, uh, you know, maybe this has happened to you, Matt. I think it happens to every gym owner at some point, is you're coaching this class, and there's two people in it, and you just can't stop yourself from doing the math of what am I actually earning per hour here? And the answer is never good. You know, if you're doing that math, it's not enough.
Speaker 4:And um, what is what is that math, Chris? So you have two clients, they pay $200 a month, they're both in the class, so that's $400, and you assume that they're each doing uh, and and so you you divide that $400 by the 20 classes you offer them a month, and you're making $20 an hour, and then you realize the electricity, and you're what I said subtract your expenses now on top of that, yeah. Minus the electricity, the the the toilet paper. You they're in the bathroom for 15 minutes, and you're like, shit, they just use eight dollars worth of toilet paper. Like you do, you're like, oh my god, they come in with muddy feet, and you're like, shit, that's gonna be three dollars of cleaning uh fluid on the floor.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't get that deep, but like you know, you're kind of painting the best case scenario. What's more likely to happen is somebody is buying an unlimited membership for $135 a month, coming 16, 17 times a month, paying about eight bucks every time they're there. And with two people in the class, you're like, I'm only making $15 an hour right now. But if I pay somebody else to run this class for me, I'm gonna lose money on it.
Speaker 4:You're subsidizing.
Speaker 2:You are, yeah, you are subsidizing their fitness, just like a lot of gym owners are subsidizing the landlord's mortgage, and we're all subsidizing the government's broken health policies by paying, you know, being profitable and whatever. But you know, what happens there is you you get into this mindset trap. I cannot afford to lose this client. I need their 135 bucks a month, so I can't cancel this class, but I can't afford to pay anybody else to run this class, and I'm earning $15 an hour to run this class. What do I do? And that's exactly the spot that most gym owners are finding themselves in five or six times a day with different things that are going on. I know it's wrong, it's not working. I don't think I can afford to do anything else. And when they finally realize like I don't have a choice but to change, that's when they talk to a mentor to help coach them through the change. Just like your clients are coming in after a late night where they ate a pint of you know rocky road ice cream, they're like, this is not sustainable. I hate myself. I'm eating to feel better. Something has to change. What do I do? I need a coach. I need help. And you know, it's the same thing in business and in fitness.
Speaker 4:Uh they say the what is it, the darkest part of night is right before the uh sun comes up, which brings us to page shit. I didn't write the page number down. Uh Caleb, I think it's like page somewhere between page 27 and 32. Uh, December is the November and December are the worst month for getting clients, and January is the best month.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No surprise there. I don't think like for most people, especially, you know, keep in mind that this data set does skew towards the US. And so you've got this kind of like black month there between Thanksgiving and Christmas when people find it really easy to say, I'm not going to start right now. This is the worst month of the year to maintain fitness. I'm going to start in January. You know, and so it's really hard to get new clients in that time period. And easy to lose clients too, because their bills are going up. Can I I should just put this gym membership on hold and then I can afford that Lululemon wristband for my kid, you know?
Speaker 4:Uh through TwoBrain, are there best practices to launch on January 1st? Like it sounds like that that's like a huge opportunity then to not squander, like maybe have your gym the cleanest, or that's when you run the paid ads, or it seems like that if if there's the most most customers out there, that's also the time to execute on the on the widest opening of your funnel.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the best play is to stop the clients leaving first so that you're not starting in the hole in January. So what you want to do between like now and December is have like special things that'll keep them engaged through January. Then you want to capture some of the people who will be joining in January early. So you say, like, hey, we're only taking 10 new people in January, you know, uh, click here to save your spot, and basically they're paying for their on-ramp in advance. Or you've got somebody who says, Oh, I'm I'm joining a gym in January, you know, hold me to it. Well, now their friends can see that, oh, I could, there's their Christmas present taken care of. I can pay for some personal training at that gym. So you want to make those opportunities available. And this actually helps the client because now they really are committed to starting in January financially, not just mentally. So you can capture some of those clients early. A lot of gyms are going to be advertising for joiners in January, right? And instead of like fighting that noise, you advertise to save a space right now. There's other things that you can be doing right now too. So, for example, like you could you could have a Christmas list of like top 10 gifts for the CrossFitter. And we started doing this for like 2011. And on that list, you put links to a couple of things, like um, what's the liquid bandage or whatever that we all used to use all the time. But you also put like, here's a teacher from Catalyst, or here's five personal training sessions. Click here. And what you're doing there is you're you're giving your clients a list, their Christmas list, to share with their family and friends, because their family and friends don't know what the hell to buy them. Like, what do I do I buy this person creatine? And and what's happened a few times in my gym is like a well-meaning husband will buy his wife a treadmill. You love working out so much, you should just do it at home. And of course, she doesn't like the treadmill, but she's not gonna not use it. And it winds up her quitting the gym, the thing that she loves. Instead, if the husband knew, like, hey, here's how you could buy her the catalyst hoodie, the toque, and uh five personal training sessions, he could have bought that and she would have loved it. So that's how you kind of like bridge that revenue gap. There's also some stuff that you should be doing while people are traveling. And so, number one is like you got to get a swag order going. You know, uh, we recommend Forever Fears, but you have to tell them what you recommend what? Forever Fierce. It's a it's a um a merch company that just does it all for you. We've been working with them for a decade. Um, anyway, what you have to do is like preempt their reasons for quitting. Okay. So um they're gonna have an objection to working out of your gym over the holidays because of travel, because of poor habits, they're gonna be drinking and partying more. They need to save money. Well, those are the same objections they have when they're coming in to sign up, right? I'm too busy, I don't have time, I don't have the money. You have to preempt them in your current clients. So the podcast I recorded literally before getting on this show for my clients was like how to stay on track over the holidays. And it was like, you know, maintain your protein intake, maintain your water intake, try and maintain your bedtime. If you break any one of those rules, get right back on it the next day. If you're traveling, call us and we will give you a hotel route workout to follow. If you're traveling to another two-brain gym, call us. Here's the map, and we will pay for your drop-in fees to go there. Like, wow. Yeah. And so we frame it as like, hey, this is a very dangerous time of year to your fitness. But as long as you don't like completely break your cycle, you're good. And here's how to do it.
Speaker 4:Hey, what about um well uh I worked at a home for disabled adults for five years, and every Christmas everyone would go home, and I worked every Christmas, I worked all the holidays, January, Christmas, just whatever, Easter, like when all the other people wanted to go home or had things to do. And I loved my job. I I love everything I do. And I what about keeping your gym open on a for a Christmas class? Is that a litmus test for a gym owner who's like, I'm closing on Christmas because it's Christmas Day? Then is it like I'm thinking to myself, dude, don't you fucking love that place? Like, and aren't those, aren't those your family and your lifeblood? Why not just do fucking one class on Christmas morning? Like just tell your family, hey, I'm gonna be gone from seven to nine and then I'll be back. But I'm doing this and even invite your family there. Do you think that that's a litmus test for should a gym be open on Christmas? I if I belong to a gym, I think I would go on Christmas.
Speaker 2:Broadly, you want to be open when your clients are available. And so, you know, for us, there were probably the first 15 years we were open on Christmas and we'd have a workout. And then those crowds just got smaller and smaller to the point of like, uh, actually, you should just rest because we're gonna rest. Okay. You know, and and then what happened instead was we would say, like, rest on Christmas, enjoy your family, recover some, you know, serenity. Boxing day, we're gonna have a banger. And we did Boxing Day Murph for probably 12 years. What boxing day, the day after Christmas? Oh, yeah, sorry. So the 26th, we would do Murph and we would be running in the snow, and the gym would just get trashed with slush and mud, and we would get, you know, 60, 70 people showing up to do Murph all at the same time, and it was amazing. Um, you know, so you you got those opportunities. Probably also like if you don't want to open up on a holiday, let's say it's New Year's Day, because you want to be with your kids, that's fine. But you probably have a staff person who wants to. So, you know, there's a couple of different factors at play here. Number one, like, do your clients actually want to be there? Number two, um, are do you have a staff person that's willing to work? Or three, like, do you love it enough that you want to be there yourself? You know, for the first few years, for me, it was like I love it enough. The second was I have staff. And then the third, finally, it was like, most of my clients are not coming on Christmas anyway. Why am I here?
Speaker 4:I I I recently was engaged with uh someone in this conversation, although I don't know if they heard the same conversation that I did, but like there's things that like I view as an honor to be doing, and other people view as work. And and I for and and I for and I forget that and it trips me out. Like, holy shit, there's no like when I'm doing something, when I'm on a podcast, there's nowhere I'd rather be. But oh shit, there's some people that actually would rather be somewhere else. Like they don't see this as like like the fucking greatest, you know, the great, like what a great opportunity. And so I guess I guess maybe I'm projecting because I like not working out on Christmas seems like a non-negotiable. Of course I want to work out on Christmas. It's like one of my favorite things to do. That's the last day I want to miss this Christmas day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends on your gym. And this is why we recommend the gym owners just release your calendar quarterly because things change over time. Your audience changes, your clientele changes, you change, your coaches change. And and so, you know, you don't want to commit to doing Christmas Day Murph as a tradition where you're leaving your family at home at 8 a.m., going to the gym for two hours and opening for two people either.
Speaker 4:Can we have a um are you just a little bonus question on the seventh edition? Are you do you are you open on Christmas? No. No, okay. All right.
Speaker 2:And by the way, like I have staff who don't celebrate Christmas and they would work, but we don't have uh a large enough uh body of clients who would show up and work out on Christmas. So we just don't do it. All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we we were open on quite a bit of all the holidays too early on, and then to Chris's point, it just dwindled. And then it got to the point where, like, you're here and you're kind of like, okay, well, um, maybe one person shows up, maybe two people show up. But one of the things we also do is during the holidays, we something that you can do with it is like Thanksgiving and stuff like that. We do like a big uh turkey trot, or like anybody could come meet at this park. So then that way you can invite everybody whose family's in for the holiday, kind of introduce them to the ones that are traveling there, make it to where the kids could also show up and kind of run around. There's no equipment, it's really easy to handle one really big group, and people really like that. So there's also ways to like add that value, show that you care, show that you want to be there more than any place else, with making it still make sense for your members and for the value of like your time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of elements here. Natalie Fleming, I usually offer an open gym or a class on the major holidays with the mindset that maybe people don't have somewhere to go, and I usually have a decent turnout.
Speaker 2:Great point, Natalie. Absolutely. And you know, there's a lot of you know, college kids who will come home for holidays and they want to train. And if you've got some kind of community workout uh that's easy and scalable, wonderful. We just ran into roadblocks where you know somebody would be home, they I love CrossFit so much, I do it, and they're gonna bring their sister, best friend, mom, and it's their first ever CrossFit workout, and we're doing Boxing Day Murph, right? Like, and so it's like, well, you can come, but not you. And it just became this chaos. And and honestly, it at one point it was like, you know, our own members couldn't come, you know, from 2020 to 2022. There were only a limited number of spaces, and if you give that space to a stranger, your own member can't come, right? And so finally it just became simpler to um do what Natalie's suggesting, have like a group workout. We do something that's called the 12 days of Christmas on Christmas Eve. We do like one or two classes, they're massive, and that's it.
Speaker 4:Oh, I like that. Yeah, I like massive. Uh speaking of massive, uh, Jenny's feedbags. Then work out at your house on Christmas. Don't force other people away from their families because you hate Christ. Listen, uh, Jesus is always invited. Jesus is always invited to the gym. What are you talking about? You're so close-minded. Yeah, I know. Jesus needs to work out all the renditions I've seen of him. He looks scrawny as shit. You can get some pull-ups at. Probably could have added a few days to his life.
Speaker 3:Oh goodness.
Speaker 4:Oh, how uh, I know there's some crazy number out there of the people who do the two-brain uh business mentorship. Isn't there some crazy stat like eight and ten or something have an uptick in revenue and profit?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, I don't have the exact number in front of me.
Speaker 4:Everybody But it's a no-brainer to do a two-brainer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, everybody gets an uptick in revenue and profit. The some people get like an 8x ROI right away because they're quick to take action and they repeat those actions over and over and over again. Just like fitness, right? Like some people will get fit more slowly because they'll drag themselves to the group and they'll miss their appointments and they'll, you know, drag their ass through the workout and they won't go at it hard enough. Okay. And then there's some people who will sign up and then just refuse to do anything. And it's just like it's just like in your gym, right? Unfortunately, what you hear is the people who refuse to do anything are quite often the first to complain. And that's going to be true in your gym. You've probably all got like a one-star review in your gym from somebody, and you're like, who is this person? You know? Um, but yeah, the people who show up and do the work at Tube Brand get amazing results. Like our our target, the way that we even set our investment pricing is like we want everybody to get 2x what they put in. And so that's how we actually choose what program and what tactics they use in their first year.
Speaker 4:Hey, I I thought of a great example in my life. So my son has started doing some video editing and he's been storing this the footage on his computer. And I keep telling him, hey, the first thing you need to do every time is put the footage on an external hard drive. Do not put it on your computer. You're gonna fill your computer up, it's gonna slow your computer down and Fucked your shit up. And he didn't listen to me. And last night he's like whimper whimpering in front of his computer. My computer says the disc is full. I'm like, have you been putting it to your external hard drive? He goes, No, it's too many extra steps. And that and then we spent two hours moving the footage around afterwards. Of course, I I ended up being having to do it. But those are the let that's those are the lessons at Two Brain. Like, hey, like you think you're gonna jump ahead and do this, this, and this, uh, but it's gonna cause this problem later. That's gonna make everything much, much worse.
Speaker 2:The secret goal is to make better gym owners. You know, and we say that we're a gym mentorship company, and that's that's mostly true, but the reality is that we're trying to train the gym owners to focus, to develop the habits that will actually grow their gym because I'm not gonna be with them for 30 years. You know, my mentor worked with me for about a year and a half, and then I moved on to a different mentor. But my gym has just celebrated its 20th anniversary, you know, and it's because I learned those skills, I internalized them by journaling about them. Uh, I practice them because I was sharing them publicly, and people would call me on it if I didn't. By the way, my members were reading my blog too. So if they didn't have like a goal review every three months, they'd be like, Why did you write that? I've never had that, right? So I had to be truthful.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's good.
Speaker 2:But but what that all did was make me a better entrepreneur. And from being a better entrepreneur, that's why I'm able to still have a gym 20 years later and you know, build the biggest mentorship practice in the world for gym owners because I learned skills. And that's what we're trying to actually secretly convey to gym owners who are in our program. Uh, do you love what you're doing, Chris? A thousand. Oh, yeah. Every day. I I seek out opportunities to coach. The um, you know, we have a thousand gyms in TwoBrain all the time. There's 63 mentors on the team. We work one-on-one. So I'm constantly coaching, I'm constantly coaching gym owners in our groups, I'm constantly coaching the mentors on our team, our staff on our team. And still, when I, you know, am riding my bike with my friends, uh, we're talking about business. And when um, you know, my son comes for lunch on Mondays, we're talking about business. And when I'm barbecuing at my cottage and my nephews are over, and we're talking about business, and like that's what happens. And I I love it. I love coaching people and I love talking about business too and fitness.
Speaker 4:Uh Joe now's uh it's easily been 5x the investment. Started in May, and it's only getting easier and more profitable. Don't waste call. You know what's crazy is he's uh I chat with Joe once in a while. We text back and forth, and I can see like in the last year his mood. I mean, he was never he was always an upbeat positive guy, but his mood definitely in the last year is like skyrocketing. Like yeah, he's pumped. Congrats, Joe.
Speaker 2:You've earned it, man. That's what makes me proudest is when somebody's successful, I can always say you've earned it because there's no easy I'll do this for you answer in business. I can tell you what to do, I can call you and ask you why you didn't do it, but ultimately you have to do it. And so when somebody says I did it, I know all the praise goes to them. So congrats, Joe.
Speaker 4:Right. That's awesome. Uh you had the you had your gathering, the two bus business, uh, what do you call it? Summit. The summit, the summit. Um, and you had it in Chicago the last two years.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 4:And what month is that in?
Speaker 2:It's in June. This year it'll be in Chicago again, but we're in a bigger venue because the last two years we sold out with a thousand people. Um, so 1500 this year will be at the Hyatt in Rosemont. Wow. Nice. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 4:And again, we'd love to have you. Where do you where Chris, where do people sign up? Did he preach? TwoBrainsummit.com. Okay, twoBrainsummit.com.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try to bring in some speakers from outside the industry, and then um our mentors actually compete to get on stage, they work with speaking coaches, etc. Um, there's a few of these out there now, and some are good, but uh, we want to make sure that every single speaker is amazing and they're gonna work with you to do the work, not just tell you stories and stuff. That's my job. I get to tell the stories.
Speaker 4:Uh, anything, anything that you thought, oh, I got to get this out when I'm on the show. Any any authorities or something you want to get out?
Speaker 2:So, people who are really digging into this data, and it just went live this morning. So I know I'm gonna get a lot of these questions. Is gym revenue is going up, gym profits are going up, coach pay is not. Coach pay is actually going down. What the hell? Did every gym owner just suddenly get greedy? The reality is that um the coach pay tends to follow a long tail effect. So the most successful gyms bring their revenue up and then think about okay, now what can I afford to pay coaches? The weaker gyms will say, How much do I want to pay coaches? and then panic because they don't have the revenue to do it and they're doing it anyway, so it's coming under their own paycheck. So my prediction, because I've never met a greedy gym owner in my life, my prediction is that next year you're gonna dramatically see coach wages go up. When we talk about professionalizing the industry, it's not just about, you know, getting certifications, learning things, it's about earning a professional wage so that you can stay in the in the industry long enough to actually help people. And I think like that is gonna be what we see in the next two years. That's my prediction. Coaches earning way more money.
Speaker 4:Let me piggyback off of that. What advice do you have for people? I know you're in the business of giving mentorship to people who own gyms. What advice do you have for people who work at gyms? I'm a 23-year-old kid, I have my L1, um, I've been doing CrossFit since I've been 16. Um, what advice do you have for them in order to add value to help where they work?
Speaker 2:So the the first is just ask the owner, like, how can I make more money doing this? If somebody had told me that how to make more money or how to add more value? Yeah, but it's it's one and the other, right? Okay. So uh if you really want to be clear, say to the owner, how do I make more money? And they're gonna say, well, you add more value. And then if you say to the owner, how do I add more value? They're gonna be like, Great. And if you do this, you can make more money. Like, if I had done that when I was 30 and working as a personal trainer and making $19,000 a year, I would have asked the owner of the studio, like, how do I make twice as much money at this? And he probably wouldn't have known. Um, but I would have gone out and and sought out that answer on my own. A good owner might have said, like, well, Chris, you know, let's your book is full. You've got 54 personal training clients every single week. Like, let's let's combine them into two-on-one, right? Um, let's let's run a group class instead of doing one-on-one all day. And I would have actually evolved my career to the point where I was still working on his platform instead of competing with him. So if you're a personal trainer and you're listening to this right now, you don't have to just jump to opening a gym. The first thing that you want to do is uh something that I learned from Greg, which is you pick two of your clients and you talk to each one individually and you say, You're doing amazing. The only way that you could progress faster is if I give you a training partner to train with. I've got somebody with similar goals. You're slightly better than them at some things, they're slightly better than you at some things, and you're gonna pull each other up. Would you like to try a session, the two of you together? And if you hate it, we can go back to this. That's how you go from one-on-one to one on two, and you basically double the value of your time as a personal trainer without adding more time in your day. And then from there, over time, you can go to one on three and one on four, but you don't need to jump straight to group classes. The second thing is like you can use a lot of tools online that I didn't have available to me now. So you could say to the client, I'm gonna give you a workout to do, and I'm gonna give you a basic diet to follow. Now, how much coaching I give you is up to you. If you want two appointments a week and that's it, here's the price. If you want four appointments a week and that's it, here's the price. If you want four appointments plus accountability, that's I'm happy to invest that much time into you, and here's the price. And we can do whatever you want for the next three months, and then we're gonna revisit and make sure you're getting best results. And you can leverage all kinds of tools to help them that doesn't require more of your time, right? So you could use automated check-ins, you could you could sell supplements if you want to, if you think it's important. Um, you could sell courses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I would I would leverage myself better if I was, you know, giving advice to a one-on-one trainer now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's so much more uh uh positive and optimistic. Um uh than how I would have handled that. I've been at listen, I would have been like, listen, you piece of shit. Just cause less friction in the business. Are you fucking kidding me? You can't even make it here seven days without calling sick. The other day, the other day, Spotify stopped working and you couldn't fucking pivot and tell yell at the class and be like, today you're gonna hear my voice. You don't keep the energy up. You bring in your own fucking. I would have you're so much more positive than me. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 2:Let me give you a framework for that. So instead, you proactively meet with the coaches in your gym and you say, What do you want? You know, has that changed in the last six months? You want to earn more money? Wonderful. Here are three ways you can earn more money personal training, nutrition coaching, start a sports-specific program. That's where you want to get to. Here's where you're starting from. I've noticed that your energy is not very high in class. If you're gonna coach kids, you gotta bring that up to intent. So over the next month, let's focus on that, you know, and and that's how you create a framework for improving your staff, but also giving them more opportunities.
Speaker 4:I I don't Susan, do you want to chime in here before I go to Seth? I'm sure you got something here.
Speaker 1:No, I I completely uh I completely agree with Chris. And in fact, we just started um with with this week. We when we do our coaching development, it actually starts with a list of stuff where we ask them how we could support them better, and then we move into the conversation of how we can improve the classroom experience. Because when you lead with that way of like, hey, you've been doing a great job. Like, what things can we provide you more support with? What type of equipment are we seeing? What type of uh roadblocks or any issues are you experiencing on the floor when you're coaching? Great. We go through those, we figure out how we can address them, and then we move to the conversation of like, okay, awesome. Like, here's what we're seeing from it, here's what we want to improve these markers. So that way it's a two-way street, and you're not just coming at them with like, hey, we need to do this, this, this, and this better. Then they're gonna go, well, every time I show up, the board, the classroom isn't set up and no one's doing this. So leading with asking them first, like, hey, how could we as management or the owner support you so in turn you could give a better experience to our members? Then moving into the conversation of what they need to do to kind of elevate that experience on their end typically goes much better, and you get a much more like it leaves people like positive, like, this is awesome. They're investing into me. I really want to go to bat for you now. I really want to elevate the member experience as opposed to just kind of like shitting on them right off the bat, and then like, oh, well, I thought I was doing a great job, and now this this sucks. And then the last caveat to that is do it frequently and do it often. Really, a lot of times coaches and uh or affiliate owners or managers won't have these conversations with staff until they get frustrated or until something's wrong, like something like catastrophically goes wrong. And they're like, that's it, we need a we need a coach's meeting, we need to focus on this, and that's not the right time to do it. And so if you make it just part of something you guys do, feedback on the floor, formal feedback, informal feedback, surveying your coaches as to what you could do better, it opens the door for that 2A street to happen all the time. And you don't get yourself into a position where you're really frustrated by something and acting out of like anger or frustration, as opposed to just generally trying to say, hey, how can we improve individually and as a total?
Speaker 2:Uh speaking about go ahead, Chris, go ahead. They should know the date of their next meeting. Like Matt said, you know, when I started out, I would only call a meeting with them when I was really mad. And so before that meeting, I would be all stressed and they would know that they did something wrong, so they'd be all defensive, you know. And instead, if they know, like, okay, your next review date is going to be December 11th, um, they know that you're not coming into it angry, you know.
Speaker 4:Hey, I do I do my kids like that for like for every I'm saying, like, if I'm in the garage and I call them in there, nine out of ten times I call them in there, it's because I want to show them something funny that's on the TV or I want to give them a gift or something. And then that tenth time is like, oh shit, I'm doing 50 burpees for time. So that's because they come running in there. Do you know what I mean? It's just Pavlovian. And it's the same thing. Give your kid constant, give your kid constant feedback, feedback, praise. And then when you give them the negative feedback or something that you're critical of, they take it like a they take it like a champ. I'm more along the Seth jump ship uh thing, but shit, I don't own an affiliate. Don't ask me, take initiative in any way you think of and show me you care. I'll end up giving you preferential class schedule and other additional opportunities. And I think I think what Chris and Susa are saying is have a meeting with them, you know, once a month or once a week where you say that. You can even you can even call a meeting and say, Don't ask me, but then you're still being proactive. You can say, hey guys, I reward people who take initiative. So like like you're you if if you're the coach and you walk in and you're on your cell phone and you walk by three cigarette butts and the trash can's knocked over outside, uh, you didn't you weren't you you didn't realize you were on the clock and you didn't pick that up, and I see that.
Speaker 2:The the challenge is that like what they think is being proactive might not be what you think is being proactive, just like your kids' version of a clean bedroom is not your version of a clean bedroom, right? It's impossible to see inside their head. You know, so I'll give you an example. This morning a tire shop calls my wife, and this guy, he's working the phones at 8 a.m. and he's getting people to book their snow tires. And so in his mind, he's being proactive, but he was a total dick and will never buy snow tires from him again. And, you know, so the owner of the company is like, wow, that's a bad salesperson. And um, he's he thinks he's doing a great job because he's being so proactive and he's working so hard and he's talking to all these jerks that he obviously hates all day, right? So you really have to spell out like what success means to you and give them like actionable steps, so simple that an eight-year-old could understand them.
Speaker 4:My my wife thinks that uh the the kid's bed is um bedroom is clean when the 12 stuffed animals are organized nicely on the bed. I walk in there, I'm like, those all need to be thrown away. I'm like, uh what two different definitions of success. Uh, Chris, we got to have you on here more often. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I it's always an honor to be invited. Thank you. And I'm I'm glad to see the the Sevon brand growing at even in Aberdeen this weekend at the Rogue Invitational, because I really do think you're you know one of very few common threads that's kind of keeping the community together and passionate. And so thank you for that.
Speaker 4:Thank you. We absolutely love it. I'm so uh some nights I have to force myself to go to sleep because I'm so excited to do the show every morning. I absolutely love being here. I love all the people in the chat, um, even Ken Walters. I love him even. Um, uh that's exactly what my one-on-one trainer did after 18 months, then got three of us together, then two years, uh, it's a group class. Uh, the rest, nine years later, is history. Hey, same with my kids' jujitsu. Um, they started a special class on Saturday mornings for my three boys, and now it's become like the special class that if you're serious about jujitsu, you get to come into that class, and now that class has grown. And it doesn't bother me either because I know they've curated that around my kids wanting to perform at the highest level. That's funny, I never thought of that. Yeah, and that's that's coaching. Yeah, it's good coaching. Yep. All right, love you, dude. Uh congratulations on the sixth edition. Absolutely uh wonderful. What a great gift, uh, everyone. It's free online. There'll be a link in the show notes or head on over to Two Brain and you can find it. Uh, tell Mike Warkinton and the gang at Two Brain. We absolutely love them. It's so easy dealing with you guys, always. Always. Yes. And uh, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, guys. Take care. All right, ciao. Take care, guys.
Speaker:Thanks for listening. Be sure to get your copy of State of the Industry at TwoBrain Business.com forward slash data.
