Mike Michalowicz: What Makes Your Gym "Better"?

Tickets to the Two-Brain Summit are $200 off until Feb. 1. Get yours via the link below!

This year's headliner: Mike Michalowicz, entrepreneur and author of multiple bestsellers, including “The Pumpkin Plan,” “Profit First,” “Clockwork” and “Get Different.”

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike joins Two-Brain CEO John Franklin to explain why most gyms are swimming in a sea of sameness, invisible to potential clients. And of course Mike has a clear plan to make a fitness business stand out and force people do a "double neck turn" when they see it.

You’ll learn the psychology behind what grabs people’s attention versus what our brains filter out and ignore.

Mike shows gym owners how to look for new ideas outside the fitness industry and shares a real-world example of a microgym that differentiated its marketing and quadrupled foot traffic overnight.

He also reveals the “magical, Jedi-mind-trick question” you can ask ideal members to learn what truly sets your gym apart. Then you amplify your advantage to attract more "perfect clients."

The key? Stop trying to be “better” and start being different. 

Don’t miss out on your chance to hear from Mike Michalowicz at the 10th annual Two-Brain Summit this June in Chicago. Save $200 on your ticket now through Feb. 1—link below!

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0:56 - “The sea of sameness”

3:36 - Example & where to find ideas

8:20 - What do your clients notice?

17:11 - Framework for effective marketing

21:25 - Why define a specific audience?

Transcript

John 0:03

Welcome back to Run a Profitable Gym, the show where we help gym owners build real businesses. Today's guest is someone you've almost certainly read, quoted, or have been recommended by other entrepreneurs. Mike Mikalowitz is the author of Profit First, Clockwork, Pumpkin Plan, and Get Different. His work has helped hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses. And Mike is also the headliner of the Two Brain Business Summit in Chicago this June. And today's conversation is all about why most gym owners struggle to stand out and what to do about it. Mike, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

John, it's an honor to be here, and I cannot wait to hang out with you in June.

John 0:47

In nice weather, nice warm weather. It's going to be amazing. So I want to start with something that hits very close to home with a lot of people who listen to our stuff. You talk a lot about this concept of the sea of sameness. And once you I heard and understood that concept, I couldn't unsee it in our industry. Most gyms use the same language, they post very similar photos. They talk about the, you know, it's the same verbiage in their website community, coaching, results. Uh, why is this sameness kind of a death sentence for growth, especially for local service-based businesses like gyms?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

The thing we need to be aware of is this thing called habituation. And every consumer has it. It's wired into you, John, it's wired into me. And what habituation is, is a technique our brain uses to protect itself from overstimulation, from burning way too many calories. And a good analogy is all the things that are going on right now in the space that you're in. There, there may be the humming of a uh HVAC system. There could be music playing in the background, there could be someone else having a conversation. There's always things sitting on your desk or wherever you are, but they're they're not drawing our attention. I could, I got a thing of chapstick here. I could spend hours looking at this thing at chapstick and asking all these questions about it, but I don't because I'm focused in on what we're having a conversation about. Habituation says when there's a stimulus, an item that I'm already familiar with, and I know it not to be relevant, meaning it's not dangerous, it's not a threat, it's not something that I need to consume now or it's going to vanquish and go away, I can ignore it. So habituation says if you're already familiar with it and it wasn't relevant in the past, it's likely not relevant now. Ignore it. And that's why most marketing fails. We say, oh, I've run this before and after pictures. Clearly, that's the way to market your gym. I just a quick story. I'm in the town uh Bootin. I got my little favorite boot and mug here right now. That's the town I'm in in New Jersey. There's three boutique fitness centers. They're not even gyms or studios in or on Main Street. And uh they're all within like a block and a half of each other. I remember walking down the street and looking, and they all had before and after photos. Oh, here's Schlubby unfit you, and here's jacked, ripped you. It's it's their customers. It's like, look what we did with this customer, we can do the same for you. Well, I observed people walking by, and no one looked at these photos because we've all seen before and afters. So if you do more of the same, you're guaranteed to be ignored. We have to get past that habituation mechanism that's preventing stimulus to the brain. We have to do something that's unexpected and different to get in there.

John 3:36

And so what is an example from either the fitness industry or another industry we can draw from to learn? You know, it's like, I understand what you're saying, Mike, but but but what does that mean as a tactic? Where do I look to say this is what I want to copy?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So what you do is you do what no one else has done. Now, it's kind of hard to ideate and say, well, what is what has a gym never done that I can do? So, first to realize this is that the brain, the habituation guard, opens up for three things. One is threats. So if listen, if you're sitting outside your gym with a machine gun that you're shooting in the air, everyone is gonna notice this because it's a threat. No one is gonna be attracted to that. So that's a very bad technique, but it is unexpected and different. The second way in is opportunity. Opportunity is if you sit outside your gym and say, if you walk in here, we're gonna give you$100, our brain opens up for that because it's an opportunity to gain something of value. The risk is it's very costly. So there is a third way in. And the third way in is presenting something that's unexpected, where the brain has to open up to consider could this be a threat, could this be an opportunity, or is this something I should ignore? So listen, we could dress like Bozo the clown outside your gym. And I try, trust me, people will notice because who does that? But then the brain goes, is this a threat? Is this bozo the murderer? Is this an opportunity? Like, is this bozo my buddy, or is this some weirdo I should avoid in the future and habituate? So different works, but weird different could not work in your favor. So I'll give you a tip of a gym I worked with that we we transformed. The technique to get different is to look outside your industry. So I was with my children a long time ago at one of these amusement parks and noticed the attraction of the fun house. But specifically, when people went to the fun house, they were looking at the mirrors, the ones that make you look like E.T., you know, they slash you down, other ones that make you look like really tall. So I went to interestingly a CrossFit gym in Salt Lake City. The owner's name was John Briggs, and I said, Hey, are you willing to try something besides the before and afters? And he said, Yeah. They want to get more foot traffic. We put two mirrors where they used to have the before and after photos in their window. And the first mirror was one that would squat you down, you'd look like a flattened fire hydrant. The other one next to it kind of gave you this uh V shape. It would stretch you out, make you look a little bit a little bit like Schwarzenegger. Next to it, or above the mirrors, we put a sign. The schlubby one, we put the word before. The other one, the Schwarzenegger one will say, we put the word after. And next to that, to that, we put a sign. What happened was I remembered in fun houses, people love taking pictures of themselves in the mirrors. We sat out and observed this, and sure enough, people would walk by the gym, they would see a mirror of themselves and start laughing. Oh my gosh, look at me, it looked like 18. They jump over and then they say, Oh my gosh, now look at me, I look like Odonis, and they jump back and forth and take these pictures, just like the fun houses. The sign then said, We just transformed you in mirrors. Let's do it in real life, walk inside. And what happened was the foot traffic, I think it quadrupled. And the reason it quadrupled is not because they offered any new service. The marketing was radically different. And it qualified for the key elements of getting attention, something unexpected in a gym. It was attractive, something that was compelling because it spoke to my own selfish interests. I love to make or see pictures of me. And then the last thing, it told me specifically what to do walk inside the gym and sign up. That's how you do different.

John 7:09

It's such a like fun little thing. And it probably took, you know, maybe an hour or two of brainstorming, but it could dramatically change the course of the business. Amen, man.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

And I'll tell you, it already exists out there. Like, whatever someone's doing successfully in another industry, take their idea and be the first to bring it into your gym.

John 7:27

I love that. So stealing from hospitality, restaurants, hotels, that kind of thing is what we're saying here. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Exactly. So just become observant. And I'll tell you the little hack is I call it the double neck turn. Uh I don't know, John, if you ever walk down the street and all of a sudden you do like, what was that? That is your mind, the it's called the uh reticular formation net. And basically it's in their brainstem and it manages things, including habituation, preventing input. And if your neck does that double turn, it is a subconscious response that your reticular formation opened up temporarily to say there is data coming in that I can't compute. We have to analyze. And that causes your head to turn twice. So just in life, whenever you do that double head turn, make a note. Oh my God, it's because I saw this that my head looked twice. Can I deploy this in marketing my own gym?

John 8:20

And so I'm understanding better this idea of different. But another concept from your book that is kind of an offshoot of this is most gym owners we talk to believe their path is being better. You know, I need my coaching to be better. I need my funnel to be better. I need my programming, my equipment to just get better, and and then I will make uh, you know, my dream income. You argue that better is actually a trap. Can you explain why better doesn't actually lead to better outcomes? Sure, sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Better schmetter. What better is, is saying, say you and I compete against each other, and I I answer the phone in two rings. Anytime a prospective member calls, I'm answering that phone in two rings, and you say, we can beat this guy's pants off. We're gonna answer in one ring. And sure, you are measurably better. You're 100% better. You're answering the phone in one ring, but does the customer notice? And the reality is they don't. The vast majority of things we do, our clientele don't notice, and therefore it has no impact on them. And we we are pulling our hair out saying, but I'm better. But no one's noticing. So you have to do things that are noticeable. Different inevitably is better because it gets noticed. But I'll give you a hack, and uh maybe we can even talk about this out of the conference. When you have a client base, go to your best clients, the ones who are loyal, uh, the ones who pay you on times, the ones that rave and review favorably your gym, and ask them this magical, it's a Jedi mind trick question. Go, what are we doing right? And and here's the magic. Your clients won't tell you what you're doing right. What they'll tell you is how you're differentiated. So uh I'll give you an example outside uh the gym industry. I used to be in computer systems, computer networks, and I would sell you know 20 computers to a company and so forth. And I went to my best client, it was a hedge fund, and the owner's guy, the guy's name was Larry. He said, Larry, what are we doing right? Now, this is my first business I started in 1996, just to give context. So this goes ways back. And he goes, Um, you respond quickly. He goes, your technicians are on site within four hours when we have a computer problem. And this is, you know, this is the internet existed, but this was pre-remote support, and you couldn't dial in even. You had to drive out there to fix a problem. And he goes, My prior computer guy would take a full day. He goes, the fact you respond at four hours serves us tremendously better. That's what you're doing right. Now, here's the mistake I used to make, and most businesses make. They say, okay, nailing that one, we get on site quickly. What else can we do? But here's the Jedi mind trick. When you ask your best clients what you're doing right, they are not telling you what you do right. They tell you how they are judging you. So Larry is saying, I judge the quality of your service based upon your response time. So here's the trick. What you're doing right is actually the thing you must do better because that's what they're noticing. So when Larry said you get on site within four hours, I said, Oh my gosh, I need to fix this. I need to be on site faster than anyone in the world could ever imagine. And so what I did is a small company, there's four of us. I would dispatch myself as a technician or one of my colleagues to always be within a 15-mile radius of Larry at any given time, because he was my most important client. When Larry called, we go to another client that we were at and say, listen, we have an emergency, we'll be back, but we're taking care of this client. We're getting on site usually within a half hour. Within a month or two of this, Larry calls me and he goes, I don't know what you guys are doing. Your service is so freaking good. You're the best vendor I have in my life's experience. And all I did was one thing better, so to speak, is the thing he's observing. So if you want to win the game in the gym industry, ask your best customers, what are we doing right? And find ways to improve that. You do that, you dominate. I'll and I'll share one little last thing because I'm so passionate about this. Curves was a radically successful gym. What they did is they went to their best customers, which were female consumers, and they went to them and said, What are we doing right? And they said, Well, when I come to the gym, I don't feel judged. You're doing that right. And then they said, Oh, our differentiator is a no-judgment zone. And actually, some other gyms have now taken on that phrase, but Curves was one who invented it. And they said, How do women not feel judged? The first thing they do is they don't have mirrors. Uh, men in general like to look at ourselves, uh, women, not so much. So they said, all mirrors are out of the gym, which is a radical concept back in the day. They secondly said, every machine will face the wall, meaning when you're doing your exercise, you don't see another person, which gave women, again, a reduction of the no judgment zone. And as a result, curves exploded and dominated in the in the industry. That's the method we got to do too.

John 13:10

So I can tell you that when our clients do this exercise, one of the things that they're gonna hear most often is community, right? So we tend to skew more group-based fitness. John Briggs, who you mentioned earlier, is actually a two-brain alumni. And uh so he's he's a friend. And uh so they'll come in, you know, it's like the coach, the front desk, knows my name. Or like, I met I meet my friends here, you know, I look forward to the accountability of Steve pushing me every day. So those are things that come up over and over and over again. If you're a gym owner getting that feedback, how do you lean into that? How do you become different when when that is what you were hearing from your clients?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

So if someone says, uh, you have great community, don't leave it there and say, okay, how do we improve community? Ask, oh, tell me where the things that you notice about our community. Well, when I walk in, the front desk person knows my name. Okay, that's the significant qualifier. Now I'm like, community is defined by an intimacy with the front desk. Now I say with my front desk, I want you to know the name of the gym person. I want you to know their spouse's name. I want you to know their birthday every anniversary. And we're not gonna do some survey and extract this over time in a dialogue saying, hey, everyone celebrates a birthday. Uh so and so had their birthday. When's yours? Oh, it's in October. October what? Oh, I can't wait till October rolls around. Write that down as they go and do their workout. And on October X, whatever that day is, there should be balloons waiting for that person. And as you walk in, John, I'm like, John, it's birthday day. Congratulations. But here, no cake. It's about working out. Let's have our best workout ever together today. It's the intimacy of knowing me. Know the children's names, but just like any other relationship, you don't artificially collect this in some CRM and it's like bink, you know, here's your like dentists do this. Your birthday's coming up, clean your teeth. It's celebrating the person in the way that they're already being celebrated. It's just amplifying that thing. The better you do that, the more you amplify that one thing, the more you'll stand out. And remember this: they're telling you the pathway. They say it's community. Learn how they define community, intimate knowledge of who I am, name recognition, and then start expanding on that. And you'll knock the doors off your business because you're being expanding so quickly. Seth Godin said it so well. What an extraordinary author around marketing. Uh, he wrote a book called Purple Cow and he talks about being remarkable. And what he defined remarkable is that you do things that are worthy of remark. Do things that that night, when that person goes home, they say, you wouldn't believe this. I was at the gym this morning for my birthday, uh, yeah, just as a normal workout. They had a balloons waiting for me, and the whole gym clapped me in for my birthday. I love this community. And they're marketing for you in that regard.

John 16:05

And it's probably more than they're getting at home or at work. So that's a great example. Right? Right? Because we have their birthdays. Every gym owner, like when they sign up, we have that information already. We don't even need to go collect it, right? And and the way a lot of people do it is exactly what you said. You get uh automation from your gym management software that says, Happy birthday, Steve. Here's a happy birthday. Free uh water on us or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's the pro tip you got to find out if customers want that. And the only reason the only way to find out is what are we doing right? If they say, I love the community, could you recognize me and you say my name, then it sounds like that's it. I'll tell you, for me, if I walk in the gym and like, hey Mike, happy birthday, I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you go in some public records? Like this is creeping me out. Different communities, the clientele, I should say, respond in different ways. Some people love the intensity of the workout. So you could be the gym where it's no bullshit. It's like you're in the military. You're spit on when you walk in, and there's a certain community like, thank you for spinning in my face. So don't do it because you think it's a good idea. Do it because your customers tell you it's what you're doing right already.

John 17:11

So that's a good pivot into my next question because we love frameworks, right? And you have this dad framework, which is differentiate, attract, direct. You gave an example earlier in the show where, like, hey, you can go out in front of your gym and shoot a machine gun, that's gonna get attention. So, you know, you're talking about some of these, uh, you know, we've all seen kind of these uh more extreme takes on fitness and discipline on social media, but but that may not be the best thing for every business. And and ultimately the goal of uh TwoBrain as a business is to help gym owners uh build a sustainable career, right? To to make their gym something that gives them enough cash flow that they can stay in the fitness industry, right? So let's talk about the the dad framework. So, what does it mean to differentiate well in a way that attracts the people you want? And and take into consideration that our gym owners, we're we're tired, we're busy, we're running today's classes, like something as a as an entrepreneur yourself, you can you can empathize with. Like, we don't have a ton of time to sit and think about some of this stuff. Like, what is the quickest way to the path using this framework?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah, so uh I have a simple question. I say, does dat approve any kind of marketing I'm doing? And then the acronym, like you said, stands for differentiate, attract, direct. The differentiate part I think we've hit on pretty heavy right now. It's doing something that opens up that gateway to attention. What we didn't share yet is you have about one tenth of a second before you're discarded. Our brain processes that quickly. In fact, it takes us longer to do a single blink than it does to consider if something is an opportunity or a threat. Next time you're, I was at a pool party, this is a few years ago, and all of a sudden something squiggled in the grass, and I jumped back before I even notice it was squiggling. That is how our brain reacts. Uh, there's a part of our brain called the amygdala that gets any threat or opportunity trigger and tells our body to take immediate action before we can consciously think of it. That happens in our prefrontal cortex. So it was someone turned the hose on and the and the hose straightened out, but golly, it gave me a scare of a lifetime. So realize that when we do something different, that habituation mechanism, the the uh reticular formation, opens up temporarily for one tenth of a second. It's a stimulus that comes through. The next thing we evaluate is this a threat or is this something that attracts us, meaning is this something that we want to pay attention to because we see potential value in gain for us. So you have to do something that is compelling. Now, what's attractive could be in marketing, could be entertainment. Oh, I get a laugh out of this. It could be that there's an opportunity for gain or improvement. There could be an opportunity to be part of a community. So, first differentiate, but it has to align with what makes you better. So if you're about community, do something that repres that's different. Maybe I don't want to brainstorm right now because it'll go down a tangent, but to do something that's different, but then immediately speak about how that different enhances community. And you'll start speaking to people that are interested in community. But the last thing, and this is what most people miss, is once they understand that you exist because you differentiated, they see that you have something that may compel them. Tell them specifically and explicitly what to do. That's the direct. But it needs to be a bite-sized piece. If you and I were looking for a new car and uh pull up to our lot and the car dealer comes out and says, hey, John, you're looking for a new car. Um, how about before we start a look, give me, give me$50,000 as a deposit because we're going to find you a dream car. Give me your money now. Like, who the who the hell are you? What? No. Conversely, can you imagine going to a car dealer and you're like, yeah, I'm looking for a new car? Like, oh, there's cars everywhere. We're a dealer, there's thousands of dealers. Good luck. No. What the dealer does is say, hey, you're looking for a car. I want to know the details, but give me your cell number so that I can send you pictures of what's on our lot. There's they're giving you a direction, a specific bite-sized, comfortable action to take that matriculates or moves toward the final transaction. So always get a commitment in your marketing, which may be click on this link, it may be fill out this email. Uh, it may be uh scanning a QR code, but tell them explicitly one direction to take that will move them closer to the transaction that you want.

John 21:24

And so we're doing a good job of talking about differentiation, like leaning differentiation by leaning into your strengths or what your customers tell you your strengths are, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk a little more about who you serve, right? Because in your book, you've talked about that playing it safe is actually a risky thing to do. And fitness is crowded. Fitness you know falls into the category of the sea of sameness. You talk about in your town, three gyms on the main street essentially doing the same thing. A lot of times when we talk to gym owners about like niching down or really honing in or differentiating who they serve, they're afraid they're gonna turn people away or their business is gonna shrink because they're now serving a smaller portion of the market. Uh, why is playing it safe or why is playing to everyone just a riskier strategy than really you know honing in on uh who you serve?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yeah, if you if you serve everyone, you serve no one well. You have to, by definition, become generic. How do you cater to you know, broy dude and also uh middle-aged mom uh whose kids just left for college? Uh those likely are different communities. And so the only way to cater to them is try to offer a very kind of watered-down generic offering. But think about any community. The loyalists for community go into groups where they find more of them. For example, I play guitar. I'm not particularly good, but I am committed to it. And I don't want to hang out with people that are also playing ukuleles and uh and trumpets and stuff. No, I want to find other guitarists that are superior so I can I can live my life at a higher level game, but also so I can connect with people who are on the same path as me. And this is true in any community. If you're a gearhead into cars, you don't hang out with people who are into uh nature hikes necessarily, unless it's also a deep interest of yours. You find your community that you resonate with. But the loyalty we have once we find our community is extreme because now we found a place we belong. And inevitably, as part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, all of us want to find communities that we're part of. We want to be in a group that we belong to. And the more I see in that community people who are representative of me, the more I want to be there. So it's the greatest irony, and I know this from practical experience, the more narrow you go, the faster you grow. But people say, I will, but I'll lose some opportunities. Like if I don't serve everyone, I'm gonna lose some opportunities. That's the whole idea. We don't want to serve a large community that is seeing us as a transaction, that we're a commodity, and maybe I'll join, maybe I won't. I want to serve a narrow community that says, this is my life. This is my people. I am staying forever. And those people will pay a massive premium to be there. They will stay there longer for than anyone else. Plus, because they love the community they're in, they will attract other people to join that community. If you're a generic gym and you're serving everybody, I'm not gonna go to my friends and say, oh, there's this gym with these like super broy dudes and these moms and uh and people that are suffering from PTSD. Like, this is the place to hang out. No. But if I'm like, there's this gym that works out to people that are really interested in guitars, I will tell every single friend of mine. Like they have they have machines there for hand exercises for guitars. This place is insanely cool. You got to go. And that's why we want to position ourselves as authorities for a category.

John 24:59

So speaking of finding your tribe and being around people like you, Mike, you are the headliner of the Two Brain Business Summit in Chicago this June. And a lot of owners listening feel stuck. They're good coaches, they work hard, but they're buried in the grind and can't see two feet out in front of them. Why is it so important for a gym owner like that to physically step away from their gym and get into a room like the summit?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

You've got to be here because your business needs a vacation from you. The the irony is, the irony is most business owners start a business and build it and become such a linchpin for the business. They work harder and longer than anyone else that the business never finds itself. I I will tell you this your team, when you leave, your team will sit back and have more control and authority over the business because you can't interfere. And we don't even think we're interfering, we think we're helping, but we're we're interfering. Then you're gonna gain knowledge. But I think the biggest thing that's gonna happen at the summit is this there's gonna be thousands of ideas, hundreds that can serve your business. I am convinced you're gonna walk away with the one. And my ask when I'm presenting is gonna be of all the things you learned, what's the one we're gonna bring back? Because results happen, like you know, when you take one step at a time and you put one in front of the other. And I think that's what makes this summit unique. It's not just a brain dump, it's an organization of activities to do in the right sequence to get your business to where it needs to be.

John 26:37

There you go. It's not frufru, guys. We're gonna give you tactical steps to get you to the next level. And a lot of the magic also happens out in the foyer, you know, being around other gym owners, being around 800 other gym owners, those conversations, those little five-minute conversations turn into five-hour conversations. You can meet your next partner, your next staff member. Uh, there's just been so much magic for me personally at that event that I'm so excited to share it with all you guys. Mike, this has been incredibly valuable. Thank you for the clarity and reminding gym owners that small, human-scale actions, little differentiation can make a massive difference in their business. I know uh if you're at home listening and thinking, my gym blends in, I need it to stand out, I feel kind of stuck, this is resonating with you. You got to go to two brainsummit.com and get yourself a ticket. Uh, going into the end of the month, you can save$200 off your first ticket. So go do it now. Meet Mike, meet me at the Two Brain Summit. We're looking forward to hanging out with you. And Mike, uh, we'll see you in Chicago. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

See you soon, John.