From $0 to $16K Months: How This Gym Owner Became a Top Earner

The median gym owner brings home $61,000 per year, but the owners on Two-Brain’s latest leaderboard earn between $189,000 and $357,000 annually. What’s the difference?

In this episode, Mike Warkentin sits down with top earner Ryan McStockard to find out exactly how he secured his spot on the leaderboard.

In 2020, Ryan took zero income in some months just to keep the gym alive. Then, in 2021, he invested in Two-Brain mentorship and rebuilt everything.

Now he consistently earns over $16,000 per month from his gym.

His biggest wins came from adding high-value services, such as personal training, and focusing on improving the client journey: Personal training makes up 34% of his revenue, and his clients stick around for a whopping 42 months on average.

As a Two-Brain mentor, Ryan now helps other gym owners replicate his success.

He’s also in the Tinker Mastermind, where he’s focused on maximizing his income and his lifestyle. His primary goal today is simply “to not miss family dinners.”

Interested in becoming a Tinker? Email Joleen Bingham (leader of Tinker North America) or Lisa Palmer (leader of Tinker Europe) to learn more: joleen.bingham@twobrainbusiness.com or lisa.palmer@twobrainbusiness.com

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1:07 - Gym overview & low point

5:02 - Revenue breakdown

7:24 - Finding Two-Brain

20:52 - Additions to Ryan’s NOB

31:13 - Retention secret

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Our data shows the median gym owner earns$61,000 per year, but our recent top 10 leaderboard featured gym owners to earn between$189 and$357,000 per year. Let's be clear, this is not business gross. This is not even profit. This is what the owner takes home. It's mind blowing, right? So what's the difference between gyms that pay their owners$60K and gyms that pay$189,000 or more? You're going to find out today on Run a Profitable Gym. I'm your host, Mike Workington. My guest today is Ryan McStockard. He runs Fit to Live in Michigan. He's also a two brain mentor and he earned a spot on that top 10 leaderboard. He's going to tell you how he did it. Ryan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Thanks, Mike. Excited to be here. Longtime listener, first-time caller. So dream come true.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

And I can't, it couldn't be a better show than the Net Owner Benefit Leaderboard. This is one of the best ones that we do, and it's really cool to see what gym owners are taking home and how they do it. So I'm going to set the table. People who are blown away by these numbers. They see$189,000,$5,$357,000. Not an easy business. Talk to me about the lowest point you've ever had financially as a gym owner. Like where did you start to build to this great level?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, well, I think there's lowest points and then there's lowest points financially, and sometimes they coincide. I think it was Kelly Starrett who said it best. You know, we're all digging a trench, and uh some days we get buried, others, other days we poke our heads out, and then other days we make progress. And you know, I've been fortunate uh enough the last few years to really make some progress and to have a good team behind me. So I I can't uh not shout them out to preface this. Uh as far as like the lowest point financially, you know, I think the go-to is going to the pandemic. You know, in 2019, by our standards then, we had had a pretty good year. And then as we know, 2020 took the wind out of everyone's sails, and it was you know pure survival mode. And there were certainly times where we were, you know, we went really lean on the business and bare bones. And you know, there were months where you know there was no income coming to me personally, and you know, it was like just keeping the gym alive was a win. So I think that was you know the lowest point. We did a lot of things to keep our spirits up and just help however we could. But yeah, I mean, financially, that was certainly the lowest point.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

So essentially 2020, you're looking at like zero income at times because of the pandemic, you're not allowed to operate, and then you know, gyms all over the world were in various states of dealing with government regulations and all that, but it was a low point for the industry as a whole, and everybody had to rebuild. And I was in the same boat where 2019 things were kind of had some momentum going and then just stop, hard stop, trying to figure out just how to survive. So, you know, listeners, if you're out there saying, uh, you know, my income isn't great right now, I can never ascend to these heights, you know, Ryan is proof that you can because you came out of a dark place and earned a spot on this leaderboard. Other people are in the same boat, and again, it takes the average two-brained mentee 25 months to get to a$100,000 net owner benefit, regardless of starting point. That means if your gym is on fire right now, on average, in 25 months, with the help of a mentor and the right tactics, you could reach 100k net owner benefit. Some people have done that in less than a year. So, depending on where you are, those are the numbers, but that is hard data. And Ryan's got a whole bunch of data that he's going to share with you guys. Before we get into that, quick summary of your gym so everyone knows what you're running here. Where did you open, you know, when did you open? What are your revenue streams? How big, how many staffed? Give me the like the 411, 60 seconds, your business.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

60 seconds, all right.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Or longer, whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, so I've been the owner of Fit to Live since 2014 when I purchased uh the gym from two previous owners. They kind of started the gym as a hobby, and uh I just got more and more involved, and it was my ultimate goal to be an entrepreneur and to have my own business. So I made them an offer they couldn't refuse, uh, which looking back on it wasn't that much. And you know, we had some good progress uh in the six years before the pandemic, but nothing like I've experienced with Two Brain in the last five years. Uh we are a functional fitness gym, and our biggest revenue stream is big group. You know, we we have classes of up to 18 and 45 classes a week. So, you know, that's about 54% of our revenue. And and then as of the last three to four years, we've really pumped up the personal training high value side of things in the business. Yeah, so we've done a lot of one-on-one PT. We have a nutrition wellness coaching program, uh, we've dabbled into like some corporate semi-private and things like that. So, really, you know, at this point, the the group model is pretty well-oiled machine, and we've just been pumping up the high value coaching uh on that side.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Big facility?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

It depends on your definition of big. Yeah, but yeah, we're about 5,500 square feet.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Uh, sizable but not overly big, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah, upper mezzanine area, but it's over 6,000.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

And staff people, you got a lot of them or a few, or what do you do? How do you run it?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yeah, we have 10 coaches uh on staff. Yeah. So we've got one, I would say part uh full-time plus. Uh he works more than I would like him to, but he loves it. Uh and then I've got two solid, you know, part-timers who work anywhere between 25 and 35 hours a week. Uh and then the rest is anywhere between five and fifteen hours coaches. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

If you were to guesstimate, and I didn't ask you for this to prepare this, but maybe you know, big group, what percentage of revenue do you think that kicks in? Do you have an idea?

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Well, I have an exact idea because uh one of my takeaways with with the numbers here is you know, you gotta know them. And uh I think that was maybe, you know, we could go back to the first question of what my lowest point was financially. It's like, well, I don't know. I was pretty ignorant, ignorant back in the early days. Um, but now I know. So, you know, big group uh for us last year was 54% of our revenue. Okay, personal training was 32%. Our on-ramp comes in at six percent, so you could kind of put some of that towards the PT as we're doing one-on-one with that. Nutrition's four percent, and then everything else is the smaller stuff, retail workshops, and kids' programs.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, so a few solid revenue streams. One of those is kind of the cash cow, but then you've got these other ones that are also super strong. And like, did you start? Was it just big big group when you started?

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah, pretty much. Uh we did have an on-ramp, pretty bare bones, you know, three sessions, get them, get them through as quick as you can and into class. But yeah, we were closer to like 90% of our revenue was from big group, if not more in certain years. So I would say uh exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And I did the exact same thing. We had luckily we had an on-ramp that was eight sessions. We held them a little bit longer, but still we were just big group, and it cost me a lot of money because I didn't realize this sooner. Listeners, if you want to make a big income jump, I would suggest if you run a big group gym, which is just group classes, CrossFit classes, boot camp, whatever you want to call it, whatever you do, add personal training and add a semi-private training, something like that. You can even just start with one of them. Obviously, it's a good plan to just start small, but adding a high value service where people can get more attention is going to help you a ton. And the transition point between those is like a hybrid service where you're running group plus one personal training session a month. If I had offered that back in the day in say 2010 or something like that, I would have the revenue would have piled up for years. I never knew that was even possible. But Chris Cooper's talked about this many, many times. And we have our two-brained step-by-step plans that help you do this. Adding a hybrid program, adding personal training, adding semi-private training, small group training, all these high value services tacked onto a big group model equal a lot more revenue. That doesn't mean you get rid of a big group, it just means you have other streams. Not all the streams, you don't need every single thing. You just need several strong streams. Three of them is a good idea, something like that. Some people do it with kids, some people do it with seniors. Lots of ways to do it, but think outside that big group box and good things will happen. Now, how did you find about a two-brain and get a mentor? Because you said things change quite a bit when that happens. So, how did you where did you run into the whole thing and what happened once you started?

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, uh, I think again, similar story. I was uh a longtime follower of uh of Chris Cooper. I think all the way back to 2017, 2016, I can remember uh, you know, Googling how do I do this, how do I do that? And uh the more Chris started to write, the more he would pop up and planted the seed in my brain of like, oh, this Chris Cooper guy might know a thing or two about being frustrated in the fitness business. And of course, like most of us, I did not take action right away. I, you know, started reading the books. I think I read the original two-brain uh unedited version of the book, which I loved, you know, it was a really raw and relatable journey to what I was going through, and I think that's really what hooked me. And then it wasn't until the pandemic uh 2020, and honestly, towards the end of the pandemic, I had extra time to be at home and think a little bit more and just take the big picture view. And I said, All right, I'm gonna come out of the pandemic and we're gonna we're gonna do this right. We're gonna make the hard changes and we're gonna be different. And part of that was doing a rebrand. And like most of us, I needed an excuse to get out of my own way and not be so stubborn. And uh I used that honestly as an excuse to get started with tuber and I said, Well, I need help with the rebrand. And uh very quickly I found out that uh the the rebrand was the rebrand was the least amount of the things that I needed help with, you know, it was sales processes and marketing and knowing numbers and all of the things that we know uh that can make a great gym. So that's kind of my journey. And then I got started in 2021 officially, early 2021.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Was it hard to pull the trigger on that? You know, you said there were months in the pandemic, we're not taking income, and you obviously all gyms are struggling to some degree during that, uh, to make an investment into fixing things. Was that a tough call?

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Certainly. Uh, you know, coming out of the pandemic, not a lot of money coming in and to invest in yourself with, you know, sure there's guarantees, but it wasn't a guarantee that it was gonna fix things and make a difference. But looking back on it, certainly, you know, I can't imagine where I would be if I didn't make that decision. But I got to the point where my back was up against the wall and I said, we're either gonna do this right or not at all. And so for me, it was I wouldn't even call it a Hail Mary. I would call it like we have to rewrite the playbook a little bit and try it differently.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, and the pandemic offered a good opportunity for that because you know, things kind of shut down, everything was, you know, changing in the entire world, and you were able to say with your business, I'm gonna now's a good time to rip it apart, put it back together, and again, and rebuild it. There are a lot of gym owners I've spoken to that took that opportunity, fixed a ton of stuff, and came out stronger. And Chris Cooper wrote about that, called it the surge. There were a lot of gyms after the pandemic, and I'm gonna guess you were one of them that just fixed a bunch of stuff, changed some things, did some major rebranding and projects, and then rocket ship takes off because you've you've eliminated a lot of things that were holding it back. So I'll ask you about that. Like, how did things start changing? What were the major things that you did? You mentioned a couple already. Like, what was you what were your this is working moments?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, I mean, like that's your your last statement there is like I I would work 12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hour days, like, man, I'm really making a difference. And then I'd get home and I'd have a lot of entrepreneurial regrets. Like, oh, but that name, or oh, that system didn't work the way I wanted it to, and I was just frustrated. And so it was just more and more of that. And finally, like you said, in the pandemic, it was like, okay, we're gonna do this differently. So there's a lot, honestly, looking back on what we changed. But you know, I I know I said the rebrand was the thing I started with Two Rain for, and it was the least of our worries, but that really, I'm a visionary, and that really got me in the mindset of like, okay, if we can start over, turn a new leaf with a new name and a story that I can get behind, that everyone else on my team can get behind, and our members can get behind. That just allowed me to make harder decisions because it was a matter of fact at that point. Like, hey, we're different now. Here's the facelift, but here's the you know, structural changes that we're making because we're doing this better and we're doing it differently. So, all the way from, you know, let's actually provide an on-ramp that has the right goals in mind, not just get them through it quickly and throw them into class. It's how do we start their journey off right, show them that we care and give them the best thing that they need to set them up for success. It was marketing as far as intentionality with what we're doing, with you know, all of the content that we're putting out into the world, uh, with our sales process. Let's actually sit them down in an interview, uh, consultation. Let's really get to their emotional why of why they need us and how we can help them. Uh, and then it was, you know, ultimately getting the some of the players that were already on my team more involved and leveling them up with what they wanted to do, uh, and then getting other you know coaches and team members on board who wanted to row towards that that mission. So those are some of the biggest ones that I can think of.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I mean, so it looks to me like what you did was you started right at the at the studs essentially, and you just like put everything back together again and built the structure like solid. And that was, you know, if I if you were like me, you know, you you bought a gym, I started one, but I started it very badly. There's just a lot of stuff that it just built up that was cluttered and just not in the right spot. Things weren't working properly, no processes, like I didn't have a staff playbook at all. I had to build one and then I let it rot. There's just a lot of stuff that needed to get cleaned up. It sounds like you pulled it all down in the pandemic.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah, correct. The the quote that comes to my mind a lot is Chris Chris Cooper has said it, but it's you know, we spend the first six years of of ownership doing the same things and kind of banging our head against the wall and expecting different results. And I can tell you, yeah, ever since 2021, it's it's it's flipped the script. So I'm no longer banging my head on the walls as much.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

And then when you do it right, I mean that's the thing. We bang our heads on the wall, we don't have anyone to tell us, hey, stop, you know, maybe try it like this, you won't be so frustrated. I did the same thing until I got like, just do this. Like your rates are too low. Here's how you improve them. Like, oh, all of a sudden I'm making extra$5,000 extra a month because I improved my rates, which I should have done five years sooner, but I didn't know how, right? It's as simple as stuff like that. So you obviously took fundamental control of your business, rebuilt everything, and then after your foundation is in place, uh, you start scaling up a little bit by uh getting some staff members, teaching them how to be part of the business, because now the business isn't on fire, you can actually tell them here's how you do it uh properly, here's how you do a sales meeting, here's how you're now in charge of this delegation, the whole thing that spins up. And so listeners, that's part of the two-brain managers plan, starting with just fundamental stuff, getting your business in a stable place and then starting to scale up a little bit. And then the third stage after all that, we call it tinker. That's where like you're making about a hundred grand a year and we look at trying to get to like a million dollars net owner benefit or million dollars net worth, pardon me, and then you can start really scaling and building. It's kind of the fun part of entrepreneurship, but there are different stages of it wherever you're at, we can push you through it. So you gotta have revenue and profit to pay yourself well. So you talked about where it comes from. How if how it what was the first stream you put in after group training? You said was it's was a personal training at on-ramp?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, certainly. It was uh it was a higher ticket uh offering with our on-ramp. You know, we originally just offered one option. We started offering multiple options. And I think you know, what personal training did for us and and a more beefy on-ramp, higher value on-ramp, is that allowed us to help more. You know, it wasn't just a one-trick pony of like, oh, you you don't want to do group, we'll do group. It was, hey, no problem. Let's take it slow and on-ramp. Let's maybe continue this PT thing that's working great for you. Let's roll you over into a monthly, you know, personal training membership. So that was a big part of just doing more of what we had discovered that we were great at. And it's just a lot more of the valuable coaching that we offer. And that's a big part of our business. It's group or it's higher value one-on-one, two-on-one, three-on-one coaching.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Do you have a lot of members? Like, is it a big number?

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Well, again, that's all relative. If you're comparing me to like Rune over in Europe, he's got like a million members.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, one of our other leaderboard is irregulars, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

That's right. Uh no, we're right around 184 uh members. Yep. And that uh is a combination of of the group and personal training. Uh so we've got about 155 on the big group, and then the rest is personal training. And then we also have nutrition clients that you could add to that number if you want to.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

So not a huge number though. Like we're not talking like 400 members, right? So it's just the chasing chasing 400 members is hard. You have to have an amazing marketing plan, you have to have an amazing retention plan. It's you have to have sometimes more space, more equipment, more everything. It can be a difficult model. And originally that was something we all chased as a CrossFit gym owners or functional fitness gym owners. Lots and lots and lots of members. What I should have done, I should have, instead of selling$110 memberships to 400 people, whatever I was trying to do, I should have tried for like$205 and$150 to start. So$205 a month for$150 members, that would have been amazing first targets. I could have scaled that likely into$100,000 netowner benefit myself, and then I could have changed things further if I wanted. So obviously, Ryan, your ARM is going to be a probably a very good number.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yes,$270. Again, it's all relative. There you go. And what I didn't mention is, you know, personal training makes up 36% of our revenue, but we also have a lot of members that are in group that do a hybrid option that I don't count towards, you know, our our monthly personal training members, clients. And that just beefs up, like you said, the average revenue per member. But it also allows us to do a lot less work everywhere. You know, it's really true. Like more money, more problems. It's like more headcount. There's a lot more headaches and problems. And you know, when you have to replace 20 members from a high churn rate every month, it's a lot of work. So I've chosen to go the opposite route.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

And I like that one too. I'm not saying, listeners, that you should not chase larger amounts of members. It's a mistake to chase a huge member count if you don't have the systems and processes to do it. We we work with lots of gyms that have huge, huge member counts. We're talking like 400, 500 members. They can do it, but it's a requires a different level of entrepreneurship than managing, you know, 150 clients, which is a great that's even that's challenging, but we can teach you how to do it fast. If you want to scale up, that can be taught as well. But it's different you know, as Chris has said, the thing that gets you to 150 clients isn't the thing that gets you to 250 or 1,000. Like they're just very, very different mindsets. Wherever you're at on your journey, we can help you with that. But I would advise you if you're starting out or if you're looking to you know to grow without adding a ton of members, it's these high value services. And they're, you know, Ryan's laid them out. Personal training, hybrid memberships, small group training, uh semi-private training. These things are they don't take a ton of space. Like one of our mentors, Daniel Purrington, out in uh I don't think it's Oregon, he's got uh I think it's a it's a very small gym. I think it's like 2,500 or 3,500 square feet or something like that. And he's got these tiny spaces in that gym where he runs semi-private training, but his rate per hour is incredible, and he's not serving a ton of people, he's just serving the right people at a high rate. Uh did that does that work for your space, Ryan? Like you have a you know, decent-sized facility, 5,500 square feet, but I imagine adding some personal training and you know, 18-person group classes, it fits pretty well for you.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah, it does. You know, the way our space is laid out, we've got about 4,500 square feet of main floor, and then we have a ton of these brick and mortar offices. But we also have some pockets, kind of like you hinted at with Dan's setup. We have some pockets where we can do some private training. So we have a room that's about 700 square feet, that's our PT room, and then we've actually like you know expanded and we've turned PT spaces out of every nook and cranny, and you know, that goes back to maximizing our square footage and return on our square footage. So definitely.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, I had the same thing. We're our gyms were very similar. Mine was about 6,000, and I had an office area in front. And toward the end of the pand or the beginning of the pandemic, my plan was to start ripping stuff out of there that was unused space, like the you know, the athletes' lobby and stuff like that. And I was gonna put in a small group or a personal training studio in there, and it would have it would have been a really big jump for the business. We ultimately ended up closing that space, but I wasted a lot of square footage over the years. And if I had maximized that with personal training, what would have happened?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

That's exactly right. I mean at one point we had a kids' room. Uh I think we had a couple of equipment rooms that didn't need to be equipment rooms, and uh yeah, you flip the script and figure out how to make more money out of that space.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, and so that's the thing. Have you been in the same space for the entirety of your uh business?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, we've been fortunate, knock on wood. Yeah, and because of that, we are at a pretty good uh average square footage price in our area. And we were able to pay all through the pandemic, and so we're on good graces with our landlord, and there's some stability there is the takeaway. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

But still, it's you know it's not it's it's common to either get too much space too fast, misuse space, or just jump around sometimes because you don't know what kind of model you're gonna you're gonna run. So you've done a really good job of like starting out with 5500 is great for a big group, but then saying, how can I maximize this? So again, listeners, if you're looking for ways to like make more without you know adding expenses, what can I do in the existing space that I have? And there are just incredible things that gym owners create in tiny spaces. Again, I I mentioned Dan. Like I can't remember what his room is. It's something like 450 square feet or something like that. And he pulls like huge money per hour out of that thing because he runs it really well. Yeah, and he doesn't have everyone doing like sled pushes and muscle ups and you know barbell snatches. Right. But this is all the business model, and that's the rebrand you talked about and so forth. So there's all these things that come together. When I talk to a gym owner like you, who's running a great business that's producing a lot of profit and income, it's always all these interconnected things. And it sounds intimidating at the beginning, but if you go back to the beginning of the story listeners, Ryan started with fixing stuff, rebranding. My sales process isn't good enough, my on-ramp is non-existent, I've got all these things I gotta put in place and away we go. Okay, so we're gonna dig into the one specific thing that earned Ryan a spot on the leaderboard, that's net owner benefit. Sometimes it's salary dividends, a combination of other things that the business pays for. Ryan, what how does this number work for you and how has it evolved over time?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, well, I think to start with your second half of that question is how did it evolve? If we look at my net owner benefit progression in 2021, it was a question mark because I didn't really understand why it was important or what what was made up of a net owner benefit. And and really, ultimately, when we talk about all of the metrics that make up a healthy business, net owner benefit is what it's all about. What does that business provide for you? What does it provide for you personally? And does it get you closer to your perfect day? And ultimately, you know, that net earner benefit and tying in effective hourly rate can is a secret sauce. So in 2021, I didn't know. And shout out to my mentor, Brian Strump, who really had a stern talking to me. He's like, hey, we gotta figure this stuff out. It's only where brain talks. That's right. And he gave me a lot of post-it notes and said, start learning the numbers, and here's a spreadsheet. He actually did say that. And so that That really planted the seed for me of like, oh wow, what does what how much can I run through the business legally? Talk to your accountants, of course, but it's not just the cash I'm taking out. Yes, that's a big percentage of what makes up my net or benefit, but I've gotten creative over the years. Shout out to the Tinker program for helping me diversify that way and minimize how much taxes I'm paying. But it's makes up obviously my salary as an LLC, but we do function as an escort or file as an escort. So then I also take distributions. So I pay myself the minimum amount of a livable wage for the salary, take quarterly distributions or more. And then from there, section 179, I run uh my car through the business as a company car that pays for gas, maintenance, shirts, shoes, yes, nanos do count towards professional attire, meals, travel, and a big one that's often missed professional education. So reinvesting in myself through the business is one of the best ways to save on taxes while leveling yourself up educationally, because you cannot get taxed on that, and that's something that stays with you forever. So long answer long. Uh I started tracking it and I got creative with how I could maximize what the business paid for me legally for my personal side of things.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, and in wherever, whatever jurisdiction you're in or country, do check your tax laws. It a call to an accountant can save you a lot of headaches. Don't just assume that I can do this thing, check. And there's a lot of stuff that you can do very legally. You should pay the government every cent that it you are you it is owed, but not a p not a cent more. And there's lots of stuff that you can put through the business. And then you know, the the point of this whole question is showing that there are different ways to pay yourself as a sole owner operator. There's different things available to you as a corporation. There's lots of ways to do things, salary, dividends, and again, like Ryan said, there's lots of expenses. Uh business, cell phone, internet, all sorts of different things, vehicle payment sometimes. There's lots of stuff that can go through the business. And if you think about it and talk to a professional, that can definitely help you out. The Tinker program that Ryan mentioned is exactly set up for this kind of thing. So the Tinker program that once you get all the fires are out in your business, things are stable. You're still maybe working on your business, but uh it's uh it's paying you a good amount of money. It's stable, nothing is burning, you have some extra time to start thinking about things and say what's next. That Tinker program is the third stage of two-brained mentorship, and that's where you can really get some peer support, some expert stuff, and start thinking about scaling up big time. So I remember Lisa Palmer, who is our tinker lead for uh Europe, talking about uh a conversation that happened in one of the recent meetups, and she said something like I think it was$84,000 someone figured out they had overpaid in taxes through a conversation that happened in the room with another tinker. Were you did you happen to be present for that? I don't believe I was. Yeah, it might have been Europe then, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Those conversations happen every single meetup on the breakout calls. I mean, there there are plenty of returns on the tinker program. You and that's a good example of one.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, and the other example is you know, two tinkers talking about something and one saying, I've done what you're thinking about, don't do this part, do this thing. And they're like, Oh, I saved myself$40,000.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

So Yeah, oftentimes the mistakes you avoid save you the most money.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah. And so your experience in that program, did that was that like rocket fuel when you've got, you know, you start this thing and everything's going pretty well, but then you get into this room with a bunch of really elite gym owners and there's a lot of good ideas going around, a lot of leadership. Did that just like, you know, rocket fuel for your netowner benefit?

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Absolutely. Uh short answer is yes. I went into Tinker thinking I needed fancy chasing squirrels. And what I got out of it was let's pour more into the golden goose and do more of what I'm great at and love, which was let's build this business up. And back to our the earlier point in our conversation of the mindset, if you believe it and you see what others are doing at a higher level than you, you will inevitably, even 1%, make 1% gains towards getting closer to what those people are doing. So that was huge. Uh just getting in the room with people who had done it before and were doing things greater than me.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

How many hours a week do you uh work on your business? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Oh, that uh well, I try to keep it to 80 hours or less in a month. I do have another business and I do have four kids at home, and that is certainly like a third business, uh the most important one. Uh, and I think, you know, taking all of that away, my goal really is to not miss family dinners and to not miss weekend memories. Uh I've done pretty darn good at uh prioritizing that. But I try to keep it to 20 to 30 hours a week in the gym business.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

So not a huge, huge amount, but still choosing to work on your gym business. Uh and that's a choice. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a misconception sometimes about the Tinker program where we're like, you it's like I'm not working on my gym anymore, I'm gonna do something else. A lot of tinkers work on their gym a lot. And like Ryna said, you realize that this gym can be a very, very powerful economic machine, and so you really make it run properly. Other gym owners, they'll they'll do a more of a hands-off thing and they'll get a gym or something like that, and then they might scale up to other things, replicating gyms, or they might get into like real estate investing, crypto investing. I've seen people open distilleries and start sports beverage companies. There's all sorts of crazy things that people can do there, but with a lot of guidance and leadership and strategic plans as opposed to Ryan said chasing squirrels, that's very common. The tinker program is very much what's the next best thing for you and how do we do it properly? And so if you guys are looking to that, there is an access point. If you are a very successful gym owner right now and your business is uh you know in a very good state, there is a way to get right into that tinker program. But we would evaluate you first because the idea is we want to have make sure that we're not skipping any steps and you have a clear foundation. The best way to do that is to book a call with our Tinker Leads, and I will put their email addresses in the show notes for you so that you guys can contact them if that's something you want to do. If you're not at that level, you can get there in about 25 months or less by following the things that Ryan as a mentor will tell you how to do. So, Ryan, I want to switch hats for a second. Instead of gym owners, put on your mentor hat. Let's talk about how you use the experience that you've had coming from a very difficult period to a very good period. How do you help gym owners pay themselves more now? Like what's your advice to a listener who's listening and saying, these numbers are incredible, I can never hit them, I'm struggling. What do you say?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Yeah, I mean, I would say you're right with that mindset. You're absolutely right. You know, if if you believe it won't happen, it probably won't. And that's you know, that's a story I've told myself over the years. And you have to uh you really have to believe it, but you have to be ready to accept that you're responsible. It is your business, you're responsible for what happens and what doesn't happen in your business. And so ultimately, you're responsible for the change that needs to happen. And that starts from the top and then naturally it trickles down, coaches and members and everything else and leads all the way down the funnel. So that is like that's huge. Um, I don't want to harp on some of my mentees, but it's like nothing ultimately will change unless you're willing to change. And you know, I'll preface all of that with saying, like, it doesn't matter what necessarily what my experiences are, we have to back our decisions with data, which is one thing that was a blind spot for me beginning as a gym learner. I was like, I don't need the numbers, I can wing it, I'm good enough, and yeah, you know, to an extent, but then you start banging your head against the wall. So without the the data and the hive mind of what really works and doesn't, kind of just guessing. And so that's always number one. Let's not only know the numbers, but let's let's really get intimate with your numbers and see where you're at now. Let's see what's worked for us in our data set, and let's make some decisions and hard conversations and make some change.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, and and uh the one of the things I really like is you've used the example of, you know, you've got a gym and it says, I want to do this, I want to earn more, whatever it is. The mentors will look at the numbers and figure out which are the weakest ones and then prescribe an exact plan to fix them. And a good one is like saying, Oh, I want to earn more, I need more members. But the mentor looks and says, your length of engagement, your retention is very poor. You are bleeding so many members out that it costs you this much money in advertising just to break even, plus all your staffing, plus all the time, and you bleed them out every time. So all you're doing is you're put running member members through the you know the uh the the sausage machine and like it's just they're coming out the back end fashion and put them in the front. Let's fix your retention first. Okay, so let's solve that problem. Uh here's how we do it. These are the exact steps fixed. Now that retention is solved, let's look at your rates. Those are kind of too low by maybe$40. So we're gonna put an exact rate increase plan step by step. Uh-huh, boom. Average revenue per member is up. You still have the same number of clients, but you're losing fewer, you're holding them longer, and your average revenue members up. Now we're gonna fix all the other systems with staffing and operations and all that stuff. Wait a second, now we can start scaling up a little bit because we can run some ads, we don't have to spend a ton of money. We get these people coming in, they stay longer at a higher rate, and you see how this snowball goes. Like, and that's kind of what it sounds like you've done in your business, Ryan. You've fixed a lot of stuff and it just starts to spiral.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Mike, you hit the nail on the head. Uh, I think that that is our secret metric that you know we throw out high headcounts. I've got a thousand members, I've got a$700 arm. That's great. Don't get me wrong, but let's throw out the length of engagement. And for us, that's 42 months.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, it's almost four years.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

So you you take that arm with the leg, and our lifetime value is pretty great compared to industry standards. And you know, that's the other thing that we really went all in on. We we did pretty well with it before the pandemic, but man, we went all in on it was the client journey and celebrating every little thing, creating powerful moments from our milestone program to our committed clubs to just celebrating every single part of that journey. And that has really turned into our marketing plan as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Retention is a marketing plan, right? Because if you don't have to replace people, you don't have to market as much, right? Like it, they're they're just so interconnected. 42 months, you know, the industry average sometimes are like as bad as like eight. Sometimes they're like in the twos and threes. If you're talking about January joiners who are gone by February, a good first target is in the 20s, low 20s. We see two-brained gym owners hitting that kind of stuff. You get into the fours, all of a sudden, like everything because the 40s, everything becomes simple because you look at your lifetime value and you're like, I can spend this much on an ad because this person is gonna come in. They're gonna stay likely for this long at this rate. It's a huge win. I spend$200 to get someone in the door, they stay for four years at$270, do the math, right? Like it's an incredible thing. You said it was your client journey and celebration that did it. Was that was that the biggest thing, or did you do anything else there that really improved retention?

SPEAKER_02 32:18

I mean, there's a lot. Uh I mean, certainly nailing down, like I said, the on-ramp of what do we really need to set these members up for? And it was really we need to set them up for consistency and for life. It's not, hey, can we get them to do a muscle up in 10 days? Can we teach them the nuances of a snatch versus a clean? It's hey, let's get them moving, let's build on that progression and that positivity, and let's really get them connected into our community. And then we, after you know, that first graduation point, we get them connected with other coaches. So it's let's have a nutrition wellness consultation, let's start that conversation, helping more that way. Maybe they start with nutrition wellness coaching, and then the results really start to snowball, and then let's really make sure they're confident and comfortable going into that next step in big group if that's what they want. And then we start to celebrate the heck out of them. You know, we've got milestone, the first one's at 50, they get a tile on the board, and then at 100 they get a t-shirt, and 250 a t-shirt. And our I'm really proud of this, but our our biggest accomplishment in the last couple months, our first member just hit 3,000 classes. And he did it in 11 years, the fastest anyone's ever done it. Uh I mean, and and what we did, we did a party, we had a custom t-shirt, we put uh his own workout and plaque up, and we celebrated the heck out of it. But like you said, we wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't know that we were gonna keep him that long. Yeah. Right. So we're willing to invest, uh, knowing that it'll pay off with length engagement and lifetime value.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah, and it's funny because like Chris has said that on-ramps used to be looked at as a barrier to entry. They're actually a barrier to exit. If you take the time to get someone into your facility properly, meaning, here's how you park, here's what you where you put your stuff, here's how we do a basic deadlift, you know, here's how it goes, here's how you sign up for membership, like all the stuff that we just blew past in 2009, 2010. You tell them exactly how to find success in your facility, you teach them everything they need to do and bring them in slowly, they're gonna stay longer. And that's just industry data fact. It's not made up. It is not a barrier, and honor up is not a barrier to entry, it is a barrier to exit. Because if people in their first 90 days are brought in properly, they stay longer. Again, in the TrueBrain Toolkit, the first 90 days, the client journey is dialed in. We teach mentees exactly how to do that. So if you're like, I don't know how to help people get started in my gym, that is available and we can help you with that. Right. As we close this out, I want to give listeners something that they might be able to do. So you got some great experience moving from big group only into a place where you've got all these different revenue streams strongly creating revenue for you. Big group gym owners out there listening right now wants to earn more. What would you suggest they might do in the services category to earn more?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

I mean, you you threw me up the alley oop here, uh, but it's an easy answer. It's give your members more high-value coaching, help them more. And I don't know about everyone else, but I was never a good learner in a lecture hall of 200 people or correlate that to a 20-person class. There's a lot of blind spots that we can help more effectively with some tutor time, some one-on-one coaching, even semi-private 2013-on-one, four-on-one. It's a big difference. So get involved with offering something that members need, which for the vast majority is high value private coaching.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

What's your PT rate?

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah, right now we're at 85 per session.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Um$50 to low listeners. 85 is great. That's something you should look at. So here's what I'll do. I'll tell you on your way out. If you do not currently offer personal training at your gym, you just do big group, make a list of five clients who are struggling with something. You know your clients, it's gonna be double enders, muscle ups, whatever it is in your you know, facility and the things that you teach, the things that they're struggling with in the group classes. You know that they're frustrated with it. Call those five people. Hey, I just started a new program. It's group membership with one extra personal training session where we're gonna work one-on-one on your specific problem. I've got a plan in place already for you. I know I can help you with this. Do you want to meet up next week to work on this? Try that. See what happens. Some of those people are going to sign up for what we're now calling a hybrid membership, and all of a sudden your ARM goes from whatever your group price price is to group price plus personal training price equals bigger number, which profit margin, and you spend nothing but five minutes calling this person. That is a simple, simple plan. And again, we can teach you how to scale that up, but I'll give you one actionable thing to take out of here today. Try that. If you want to go further, you can book a call to work with someone just like Ryan in the show notes, and we'll talk to you about how to do that exactly. Uh Ryan, thanks for coming here and sharing uh all the details from your business. I really appreciate it, especially coming from like 2020, not paying yourself to a spot on the top 10 leaderboard. Congrats on that.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

My pleasure. Ryan and others like him will be on this show regularly to teach you how to run a better business. This is Ryan Profitable Gym. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Mike Workman. Please subscribe for more episodes just like this. And now here's Two Brain Founder Chris Cooper with a final message.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Hey, it's TwoBrain Founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. We created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners just like you have already joined. In the group, we share sound advice about the business of fitness every day. I answer questions, I run free webinars, and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook or go to gym ownersunited.com to join. Do it today.